“I never guess,” the
detective pronounces. “It is an appalling habit, destructive to the logical
facility.” The detective is, of course, Sherlock Holmes (as personified,
beautifully, by Nicol Williamson), and his unlikely conversational partner is
the father of psychiatry, Sigmund Freud (as personified, with equal flair, by
Alan Arkin). The meeting of these two great minds, one fictional and one
historical, is the crux of The
Seven-Per-Cent Solution, a lavish adaptation of the novel by Nicholas
Meyer, who also wrote the screenplay. As directed by dancer-turned-filmmaker
Herbert Ross, The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
combines an ingenious premise with splendid production values and a remarkable
cast. This is 19th-century adventure played across a glorious European canvas
of opulent locations and sophisticated manners, a world of skullduggery
committed and confounded by aristocrats and their fellows.
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
is refined on every level, from its elevated language to its meticulous acting,
and for viewers of a cerebral bent, it’s a great pleasure to watch because of
how deftly it mixes escapist thrills with psychological themes. The movie is
far from perfect, and in fact it’s very slow to start, with a first half-hour
that meanders turgidly until Freud appears to enliven the story. But when The Seven-Per-Cent Solution cooks, it’s
quite something. The story begins in London, where Holmes is caught in the
mania of a cocaine binge. His loyal friend/sidekick, Dr. John Watson (Robert
Duvall), recognizes that Holmes needs help because Holmes is preoccupied with a
conspiracy theory involving his boyhood tutor, Dr. Moriarty (Laurence Olivier).
Using clues related to Moriarty as bait, Watson tricks Holmes into traveling to
Vienna, where Freud offers his services to cure Holmes of his drug addiction.
In the course of Holmes’ treatment, the detective—as well as Freud and
Watson—get pulled into a mystery involving a beautiful singer (Vanessa
Redgrave) and a monstrous baron (Jeremy Kemp).
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution tries to do too much, presenting several
intrigues simultaneously—as well as building a love story between Holmes and
the singer and, of course, dramatizing Holmes’ horrific withdrawal from
cocaine. Yet buried in the narrative sprawl is a wondrous buddy movie: Arkin’s
dryly funny Freud and Williamson’s caustically insightful Holmes are terrifically
entertaining partners. (Duvall, stretching way beyond his comfort zone to play
a stiff-upper-lip Englishman, is very good as well, forming the glue between
the wildly different tonalities of Arkin’s and Williamson’s performances.) In
the movie’s best scenes, Freud and Holmes don’t so much match wits as merge wits, because Meyer’s amusing
contrivance is that Freud’s inquiries into the subconscious are cousins to
Holmes’ deductive-reasoning techniques. Thanks to Meyer’s elegant wordplay and
the across-the-board great acting, moments in this movie soar so high that it’s
easy to overlook sequences of lesser power. Ross’ contributions should not be
underestimated, however, because the painterly frames and nimble camera moves that
he conjures with veteran cinematographer Oswald Morris give the picture a graceful flow and ground the gleefully preposterous narrative in
Old World splendor. (Available
as part of the Universal Vault Series on Amazon.com)
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution: GROOVY