Is there hope that the new SherlockNRolla Holmes movie could bring this decidedly non-canon 1976 Holmes movie back into print on DVD?
Status: Out Of Print (DVD released by Universal in 1998)
Based on the apocryphal 1974 novel by Nicholas Meyer (later the writer-director-savior of the Star Trek franchise), The Seven-Per-Cent Solution was made just two years after the publication of the book. The film adapts the story of Dr. Watson (Robert Duvall) staging an intervention for the drug-addled and crazed Sherlock Holmes (Nicol Williamson). The Holmes canon is turned on its ear when we find out that an innocent mathematician named Dr. Moriarty (Laurence Olivier) is only his arch-nemesis in hallucinations and fever dreams. Watson dupes his friend into going to Vienna so that they can seek the assistance of Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin), their best hope to wrest the demons from Holmes' soul.
Joel Gray and Vanessa Redgrave also appear in supporting roles, though Redgrave receives second billing in the credits. A mystery and a villain do eventually emerge, but the movie is best-known for the re-imagining of the character and franchise. The movie strays a good deal more than the book from established canon in details and embellishments, but the plots are more or less the same. I should mention that the movie portrays Holmes as much more of a ladies' man than the book, which is probably the most ill-fitting part of Nicol Williamson's Holmes.
Seven-Per-Cent Solution is perfectly enjoyable as a piece of exceptionally high-grade fan fiction. Additionally, it's difficult to dispute the novelty of Duvall as Watson, Olivier as Moriarty, Excalibur's Merlin playing a manic Holmes, and Arkin doing a surprisingly good American-faking-an-accent Freud. This should be reissued, if only to allow the intrigued to witness Duvall's English accent in action. He worked his ass off on it (and it shows), but it's still pretty ridiculous.
The Image/MCA/Universal DVD that was issued in 1998 was among the first DVDs produced by Uni, and as a result, it had a low-quality Pan-and-Scan transfer. Don't blame Universal, since no one knew what they were doing at that point. The disc has been out of print as far back as 2002 from what I can gather. I had a copy once upon a time, which I sold at a tidy profit in college. I'd rather be without it than suffer that horrendous transfer. Australian and UK DVDs are available for import, but I'd prefer a properly-mastered US version all the same.
Click here to vote on TCM's "TCMdb" website for it to be brought back into print (this time in 16x9 widescreen). As of this writing, it's #274, so pass this story along to friends and let's see how high on the list we can get it. Studios respond to viral buzz more than anything else these days, so a sudden explosion in its ranking can and will make a difference as to its DVD fate.
I'm sure some torrenting gluttons will want to tell me that it can be freely downloaded illegally and that no one should feel remorse since it's out of print, but I'm already aware. Everyone should keep in mind that the version available would have to be either a rip of a VHS tape or the atrocious DVD pan and scan transfer that came before. Demand quality by voting with your buzz and dollars.
Disc Wanted covers the movies that should be available on disc, but (for whatever reason) are long out of print or have never seen the light of a DVD or Blu-ray laser in the US.