Filming The Sign of Four
Filming The Sign of Four is an article written by Michael Cox published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 1, No. 3) in september 1990.
The article recounts the creative decisions behind filming The Sign of Four from the 1984-1994 Granada TV series, explaining how Conan Doyle's narrative structure was reshaped for modern audiences while preserving character and tone. It shows how changes to plot, pacing, flashbacks, and Holmes-Watson dynamics aimed to remain faithful to Conan Doyle's dramatic intentions rather than literal textual accuracy.
Filming The Sign of Four
Holmes and Watson with Emrys James as Athelney Jones set off on the Thames chase. Modern buildings had to be obscured by mist or optical effects in the film.
The audience for Small's story: Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes, Jenny Seagrove as Mary Morstan, Edward Hardwicke as Watson, Emrys James as Athelney Jones and John Thaw as Jonathan Small.
Lining up a shot on Thaddeus Sholto (Ronald Lacey). Edward Hardwicke sits patiently by.
When John Hawkesworth and I set out to make a Sherlock Holmes television series for the 1980s, The Sign of Four figured large in our plans. One notion we had was to tackle the first three long stories as a continuous narrative, starting where Holmes and Watson were introduced to each other and seeing them through to the triumph on Dartmoor. Then we decided to follow more closely the pattern set by Conan Doyle and make a series of adventures culminating in the struggle with Moriarty at the Reichenbach Falls. Originally we planned to begin with a two-hour film, which was to have been The Sign of Four, and follow it with a group of short stories at an hour apiece.
John wrote his original script in 1982/3 but, for a variety of reasons, most of them having to do with budget and schedule, it was put aside. We began instead by filming The Solitary Cyclist although the first story to be transmitted in 1984 was A Scandal in Bohemia, just as it had been the first adventure to appear in The Strand Magazine in 1891. However, as we approached the centenary of Holmes' first appearance, we decided to celebrate by making the most elaborate (and most expensive) film in our series. For that celebration we chose The Sign of Four and took down from the shelf that original script by John Hawkesworth.
There is a scholarly treatise yet to be written on the dramatisation of novels for the screen. Whether it is Dickens, Deighton or Doyle. each writer presents a different challenge and there is no simple formula which guarantees a successful translation.
Although it is the shortest of the four long stories. The Sign of Four certainly presents its problems and the script went through several versions before the director, Peter Hammond, actually started filming in the cruel winter of 1987. He and I, the producer, June Wyndham Davies, and Jeremy Brett all had comments to make; John himself was certainly allowed his own second thoughts after five years and the experience of twenty short stories in the Granada series already made and transmitted.
In his introduction to the Collected Edition published by Murray/Cape in 1974, Graham Greene has this to say about the first two Holmes novels:
- In A Study in Scarlet the first meeting of Holmes and Watson in a hospital laboratory is quite unmemorable. In The Sign of Four the whole future is there in the first chapter.
Although I disagree with the first statement profoundly, I agree with the second firmly enough to have stolen the whole "seven-per-cent solution" exchange from its rightful place and transposed it to A Scandal in Bohemia in order to introduce the two characters to a new generation of viewers, Similarly, we had borrowed some part of the deduction about Watson's watch to use in another story and so we had denied ourselves most of the opening chapter—
- "perhaps the richest Doyle ever wrote" (Graham Greene again).
All that remained was Holmes' criticism of Watson's efforts as a writer before Mary Morstan was announced to begin her story.
From this point onwards we were able to trust our author and allow Jenny Seagrove as Miss Morstan to describe the case simply and unaffectedly. The only other departure from Conan Doyle's method was the introduction of a sequence before the titles which showed (mysteriously, I hope) the arrival of Small and Tonga at Pondicherry Lodge. This maintained a device we had established in the series, that of showing some element of the crime or puzzle before it was laid down in front of Holmes and Watson. There are, of course, omissions for pace and length. I particularly miss Holmes' comment on Thaddeus Sholto's handwriting:
- "There is vacillation in his k's and self-esteem in his capitals."
How typical both of Holmes and Conan Doyle that flourish is.
The story which Thaddeus has to tell is not an easy one for a camera medium. It involves a flashback within a flashback — the equivalent of those double inverted commas which indicate dialogue within dialogue on the printed page. I think we managed to make the narrative clear and, at the same lime, allow Watson to show his natural humanity. In the original, Watson is not able to express his feelings about the effect on Mary of the details of her father's death. Here, for us, was an opportunity to show the good doctor's warmth towards her, even though that warmth could not, in the end, be allowed to grow.
The sequence which shows the arrival at Pondicherry Lodge demonstrates the unexpected gains and losses of film making. Who would have believed that the owners of our impressive location would allow us to re-create the extraordinary effect of the brothers' search for buried treasure? "It looks as if all the moles in England had been let loose in it," says Watson, and I believe we achieved the chaos which he described. On the debit side however we lost Holmes' exchange with McMurdo, the boxer with whom we once fought three rounds at Alison's rooms. Our expensive 35 mm equipment let us down at that point and we simply could not afford to go back and shoot the scene again.
Once inside the Lodge, with the investigation of Bartholomew's murder under way, Conan Doyle provides a sequence of events which are a joy to film. Not only is this wonderfully visual material — the rigid corpse, the poisoned thorn, the rope and the footprints — it is alive with character. Holmes is at his aphoristic best on the subject of the impossible and the improbable. The pathetic twin becomes a more pitiful object than his frozen brother and Athelney Jones delivers his boisterous counterpoint. All this is a treat for the cameras and, as it unfolds, one reflects again what a screenwriter Sir Arthur would have made.
After this, in the central section of the story, there is a distinct increase in pace. It comes first from the introduction of Toby — one of the most lovable dogs in the canon — and then from the Baker Street Irregulars when they swarm into the Baker Street study and then out again to comb both banks of the Thames. One can feel Toby straining at the leash in pursuit of the breast-high scent of creosote and all the energy of hungry youth in pursuit of the Aurora and a guinea to the boy who finds her. In between these two splendid inventions, Conan Doyle inserts Holmes' faultless explanation of the facts so far available to him and this is omitted from the film. There is a very good reason for this omission which has to do with a familiar ingredient of Conan Doyle's narrative style.
Three of the four long stories about Holmes depend on a lengthy flashback to another time and another place. At least a dozen of the short stories employ the same method. It is as though Conan Doyle is using the detective story as the framework for another kind of narrative which provided the original inspiration. We know that one of these stories within a story even took on a separate existence when the author adapted the Utah scenes from A Study in Scarlet into the play Angels of Darkness. Although it may never be produced on stage or film, how fascinating it would be just to read that unpublished curiosity.
In the dramatisation of The Sign of Four this device exercised our minds. The traditional structure of the adventure film or mystery thriller leads to a single climax. That climax may be the unmasking of the villain or the chase which leads to his capture. In the best cases, the elements of action and explanation can be combined. The most awkward dying fall for a thriller is the "There's-one-thing-I-don't-understand-Inspector" scene when it follows the dramatic high point of the whole adventure. That, of course, is exactly what happens here. The chase on the river, the death of Tonga and the capture of Small form the climax of the thriller but there is nearly a quarter of the book still to come. That quarter, Small's own story in which Holmes and Watson do not appear, provides the explanation of the mystery.
We battled with the problem for days but, in the end, agreed that it was impossible to improve on Conan Doyle's method. We did, however, omit Holmes' earlier explanation of the background, leaving as much mystery and suspense as possible for Jonathan Small to unravel. And we added one person to his audience: instead of taking the great chest to Mary, Watson brings her to Baker Street where the rajah's treasure is — apparently — waiting for her.
I hope we did justice to Small's story — we took the cast and crew to Malta to shoot the exteriors in an effort to make this story within a story look as exotic as possible. India and the Andaman Islands themselves were, alas, beyond our reach.
It is interesting that Conan Doyle anticipates the dramatic methods of a century later by intercutting between the story itself and the audience in Baker Street. We followed his example willingly and also retained as much as possible of the vivid "voice-over" technique he offers us. As is so often the case. his own words are unbeatable and a sentence like "Never was a man so compassed round with death" is a gift to any actor.
From beginning to end the mainspring of the story is the great Agra treasure and so it seemed night to conceal for as long as possible its final whereabouts. Small's decision to send it to the bottom of the Thames with the faithful Tonga makes a fitting emotional release at the end of his tale. The only clement missing is the significance of his act for Watson and the opportunity to propose marriage to Mary Morstan. But then in our film versions we have never allowed ourselves a sight of Watson the married man.
So, having changed the start of the story, we changed the end as well, Not only did we deny Watson a bride but — in deference to sadder and wiser knowledge of drug abuse — we denied Holmes the cocaine bottle too. We were left, however, with a perfect ending, an exchange which crystallises for a moment the different personalities of Watson and Holmes. Sir Arthur placed it earlier in the story but we gave him — only slightly paraphrased — the last word:
- "What a very attractive woman!" I exclaimed turning to my companion.
- "Is she?" he said, languidly; "I did not observe."
- Article courtesy Christopher Roden, founder of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (1989-2003).
