Hands of a Murderer

Good production with lots of good props and settings which looked like the 19th century, except for a couple of phony looking moustaches. In this story the evil James Moriarty endangers Holmes brother, who works for the British government, by trying to gain access to some classified documents so he could use them for his own profit. A good treatment by all the performers, especially the character Moriarty's actor. For the Professor to be so brilliant, he did a very stupid thing at the movie's end which I thought was a little out of character. 3 stars.

Woodward is a vibrant Sherlock Holmes; Hillerman, a subdued Watson and Andrews, the best part of the picture, is an ominous Moriarty. The story rings familiar from some of Doyle's works and it is given good treatment by the cast.

"The Hands of a Murderer" starts with Sherlock Holmes' arch-nemesis, Professor Moriarty, escaping the gallows. This isn't a spoiler: it takes place during the opening credits.

Anthony Andrews is a favorite actor of mine but he does tend to overact here.

Sherlock Holmes is played by Edward Woodward ("The Equalizer"). Okay, I'm forevervspoiled by Jeremy Brett's masterful interpretation of the character. And I've seen worse Holmeses. But Woodward's Holmes is stripped of all equanimity. He seems perpetually angry.

Doctor Watson is played by John Hillerman (Higgins from "Magnum, P. I.) and he gives us a comforting presence.

The best performance, though, is Peter Jeffrey's Mycroft. He doesn't bear much resemblance to the Mycroft in story illustrations, but he's good. And Warren Clarke seems to be channeling a sober Oliver Reed, if there ever was one.

Sherlockians: don't try to fit this into any canonical time-line. And don't be surprised to hear great swaths of Holmesian dialogue "borrowed" from the stories. But Hillerman's Watson has the best line in the movie when Holmes tells him he's one of those people who, without genius, stimulates it in others.

I am a lifelong fan of The Great Detective; I yield place to no one as a fan of Edward Woodward. I even believe I understand why Mr Woodward would wish to play Sherlock Holmes; I too would like to play Sherlock Holmes. I recuse myself from the role (even though no one has asked me to perform as the Wizard of Baker Street) since I bear no resemblance whatsoever to Sir Arthur's descriptions of Holmes. Nor does Edward Woodward, and it is simply too great a stretch to see a burly Holmes. Woodward would make a fine radio Holmes. Hillerman is as solid a Watson as any, which is in itself amazing as Hillerman is from Texas. Perhaps this presentation suffers most when compared with the British series starring Jeremy Brett. In short, despite its good points, not for Sherlockians.

The conspicuously well made, briskly-paced TV Movie 'Hands of a Murderer (1990) is a splendidly entertaining stand-alone Sherlock Holmes thriller with some rather attractive period locations, a fine, zesty score by Colin Towns, tip-top thesping from a gifted cast, with Edward Woodward's dynamic, steely performance as the inimitable sleuth being menacingly counterbalanced by a grim-looking, effectively chilling Anthony Edwards as his eternally dastardly, majestically Machiavellian, chaos mongering adversary Professor Moriarty!

With the imminent threat of world war looming, the encrypted contents of desperately important Government documents are covertly being leaked by means nefarious, and it is solely up to the preternaturally perceptive, twin piped perpetrator of crime busting perfection, and his stalwart companion Watson (John Hillerman) to speedily decode this fiendishly baffling, cypher-sealing conundrum! Rarely mentioned, Stuart Orme's persistently gripping 'Hands of a Murderer' remains an engaging, somewhat undervalued entry in the vast canon of filmed Sherlock Holmes mysteries, with the masterful Woodward slyly stealing the show as Baker Street's most conspicuously recognisable resident!