The Return of the World's Greatest Detective
| The Return of the World's Greatest Detective | |
|---|---|
| Genre | Comedy Mystery Crime |
| Written by |
Dean Hargrove Roland Kibbee |
| Directed by | Dean Hargrove |
| Starring |
Larry Hagman Jenny O'Hara Nicholas Colasanto |
| Music by | Dick DeBenedictis |
| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Dean Hargrove Roland Kibbee |
| Cinematography | William Mendenhall |
| Editor(s) | John Kaufman |
| Production company(s) | Universal Television |
| Distributor | NBC |
| Release | |
| Original network | NBC |
| Original release | June 16, 1976 |
The Return Of The World's Greatest Detective is a made-for-television film, transmitted on NBC in 1976, which starred Larry Hagman as an inept motorcycle cop named Sherman Holmes, who, after sustaining a head injury, became convinced that he was actually Sherlock Holmes--and, as a direct result of his injury, acquired formidable powers of observation and deduction. Dean Hargrove and Roland Kibbee wrote the film's story directly for television, intending it (vainly, as it proved) to be a pilot for a series that would have been titled Alias Sherlock Holmes.
The genres into which The Return Of The World's Greatest Detective fits are comedy-drama and mystery-suspense.
Los Angeles Police Department officer Sherman Holmes (Hagman) is an inept motorcycle cop, reflected in the fact that his police motorcycle keeps falling over on its side. When he receives a copy of The Complete Sherlock Holmes, he is reading it when his motorcycle again falls over on its side — but it also falls on his head, injuring it, and leaving him comatose.
However, two strange things prove to have happened when he emerges to consciousness; first, Sherman Holmes has come to believe that he is actually Sherlock Holmes, the civilian consulting detective of literary renown; and second, he proves to have acquired formidable powers of observation and deduction of which he had shown no signs of having possessed as a police motorcyclist. Furthermore, Sherman Holmes adopts not only the habits and the preferred mode of dress (houndtooth gray deerstalker's cap, houndtooth-gray Inverness cape, and "full-bent" meerschaum smoking pipe) of, but also speaks with a similar British accent to, Sherlock Holmes.
The social worker and psychiatrist assigned to work with Holmes proves to be one Dr. Joan Watson (Jenny O'Hara), the very psychiatrist who had given Holmes the copy of the Sherlock Holmes "canon" in the first place. Her superior (Booth Colman) warns that her job is at risk because of the situation. LAPD Detective Lt. Nicholas "Nick" Tinker (Nicholas Colasanto) is somewhat skeptical of what has happened to Holmes, but Watson points out that this Holmes wants anonymity as much as the literary Holmes did. She likewise arranges for him to move into Apartment 221B in an apartment complex located on Baker Street.
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Wikipedia