THE SEVEN-PER-CENT SOLUTION (1976)

As producer, director Herbert Ross corralled an All-Star/All-Talent cast for this elaborate Sherlock Holmes meets Sigmund Freud mash-up, adapted by Nicholas Meyer* from his own best-selling speculative novel. Stuck in drug-addled, paranoid meltdown, Holmes finds a lifeline in Vienna where a certain Dr. Freud awaits, the only man in Europe Dr. Watson thinks might be able to help. It’s tough going, but then a fresh case, calling on the expertise of both men in ratiocination and psychology gets Holmes back on his feet while also revealing Freud’s own powers of deduction. Beautifully made on every level, the story is organized in a series of exceptional set pieces (standouts include an attack of white Lipizzaner stallions and an indoor tennis match challenge) with memorable production design from Ken Adams (of the James Bond pics) and atmospheric lensing by longtime John Huston fave Oswald Morris. In the rich supporting cast, Robert Duvall’s sweet Watson is undercut by a fake, plummy accent, but nothing else misses. Laurence Olivier’s Uriah Heep of a Moriarty, Vanessa Redgrave batting her eyes as a mezzo in distress, a dastardly Jeremy Kemp, with Joel Grey & Samantha Eggar only just getting a turn at bat. But it’s Alan Arkin’s gemütlich take on Freud that pretty much steals the pic, while Nicol Williamson’s brutalist dare of a Holmes in the film’s first half, gentles down into something unexpectedly touching and nearly romantic by its satisfying end. A real treat this.

DOUBLE-BILL: Meyer’s untraditional Holmes was preceded by Billy Wilder’s iconoclastic PRIVATE LIFE OF SHERLOCK HOLMES/’70; sadly butchered, sadly neglected, utterly superb. OR: *Myth tweaking a Nicholas Meyer speciality, most famously in writing & directing STAR TREK II: THE WRATH OF KHAN/’82.