Watching Sherlock Holmes “The Master Blackmailer” (1992): Seduction and Guilt
by Mark Wallace
The classic Granada series with Jeremy Brett as Sherlock Holmes was coming to the end of its run when they decided to tackle Doyle’s story “Charles Augustus Milverton”, a work which features “the most unpleasant villain in the entire Sherlockian canon” (David Stuart Davies, “Introduction”, The Best of Sherlock Holmes, Wordsworth, 2009). Rather than the standard 50-minute episode, they apportioned it a feature-length 100 minutes. How to make a 20-page story last 100 minutes? By simply expanding the acts, in this case, and not really complicating Doyle’s story at all. The story, about how Holmes and Watson decide to burgle the house of a blackmailer too smart to be defeated by legal means, and then witness his murder by an angry victim of his blackmailing shenanigans, is a simple and linear one. It’s notable, too, that there’s no mystery, no clever clues to be unravelled – rather, it gets by on suspense and drama. The reason why it’s a relatively popular Holmes story is not because it’s clever – it decidedly isn’t – but because, as Davies pointed out, it has a nasty and memorable villain.
Given the thinness of the plot, a simple expansion like that undertaken by Granada is going to find it hard to keep the attention. One move typical of this series and apparent in this episode is the use of the spectacle of privilege to create viewer engagement – principally in long shots that subordinate narrative progression to the visual splendour of the character’s possessions, as in the shot below where Milverton himself is in the background and the foreground is crammed with ornamentation and artworks.
Milverton’s house
This is a feature too of the non-Doylean scenes that are used in the film to flesh out Milverton’s victims. Rich, beautiful young people, lounging around country house on sunny days spouting mindless, poorly-written dialogue. The film sinks into mediocrity in the episodes in which neither Holmes nor Milverton are present, and makeweight characters fill the scene.
Another spectacle of privilege scene with Watson meeting Milverton at a society gathering. The painting they’re viewing takes centre-stage in the shot.
But there are a few nice moments that make this, overall, worth watching. One of my favourites comes 26 minutes in, when Holmes and Watson (the avuncular and likable Edward Hardwicke) are inspecting Milverton’s house from the outside, and noting the emphasis on security: locked gates, high walls. Watson notes: “He’s a man who loathes the human race.” Holmes: “What circumstances might bring him to that?” Watson: “Hmmm, boy brought up in lonely isolation, starved of affection, probably in one of London’s outer suburbs.” Cut to Holmes, who’s grimacing uncomfortably at that description of Milverton, obviously relating to those circumstances himself. Then they move on to other things. It’s a lovely moment, nicely underplayed: no actual direct information given on Holmes’ mysterious pre-Watson life, just a bare hint conveyed in a momentary expression.
Holmes reacts to Watson’s characterization of Milverton
A further element of the plot which is well explored while being nicely underplayed is the whole Sherlock-Aggie situation. This comes from a rather infamous passage in Doyle’s story, worth quoting in full:
“You’ll be interested to hear that I am engaged.”
“My dear fellow! I congrat-“
“To Milverton’s housemaid.”
“Good heavens, Holmes!”
“I wanted information, Watson.”
“Surely you have gone too far?”
“It was a most necessary step. I am a plumber with a rising business, Escott by name. I have walked out with her each evening, and I have talked with her. Good heavens, those talks! However, I have got all I wanted. I know Milverton’s house as I know the back of my hand.”
“But the girl, Holmes?”
He shrugged his shoulders.
“You can’t help it, my dear Watson. You must play your cards as best you can when such a stake is on the table. However, I rejoice to say that I have a hated rival who will certainly cut me out the instant that my back is turned.” – Arthur Conan Doyle, “Charles Augustus Milverton”, The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1904)
Doyle doesn’t return to this revelation at all, so we don’t know what happens to Aggie. Does she marry the “hated rival” mentioned? But this short passage in Doyle becomes a main thread of “The Master Blackmailer”. There are several scenes showing Holmes and Aggie as they hug, kiss and mess around together. There’s a complex mix of emotions visible in Brett’s Holmes in the scenes: tender, awkward, humorous, but always perhaps still with an eye on the main prize of information about Milverton and his household. In the shot below is the moment when Aggie asks Holmes for a kiss, and he responds forlornly: “I don’t know how”.
Aggie: Giz a kiss Sherlock: I don’t know how
Sherlock’s Guilt
And in some interesting scenes in the aftermath of the seduction scenes, Holmes’ feelings of guilt about his behaviour in seducing the maid are made clear. In the scene where he reveals the scheme to Watson, the contours of Doyle’s dialogue is followed, but Brett plays Holmes as testy and irritable when Watson questions him. At the end of the conversation, Holmes looks out through the rain-spattered windowpane, and pronounces in gloomy tones: “What a splendid day it is!”
“What a splendid day it is!”
Later, a new scene is added where Holmes visits Milverton at his house. This allows him to meet Aggie without his plumber persona. Milverton doesn’t recognize Holmes as his former plumber, but Aggie does. Holmes doesn’t acknowledge her – to do so would blow his cover, after all – but after she introduces him, there’s a long shot of her face as he walks away. Another great shot because of the slow and subtle build-up of emotion in Aggie (very well played in this episode by Sophie Thompson). One might also take this scene as a tacit rebuke to the Sherlock Holmes of the story, and to its author, who left this jilted housemaid as an uncharacterized plot-function.
Aggie sees her affianced lover.
And even then, they’re not finished. In the film’s closing scene, Holmes is once again seen in an unfamiliar light: subdued, depressed (Holmes does mention being prey to depression in Doyle, but it’s not really dramatized in the stories or in this series), and, it seems, torn by guilt.
No, Watson. there are certain aspects of which I am not proud. Bury this case deep in your pile.
Then the film ends on a couple of shots of Holmes looking tortured as he recalls something affecting, presumably the Aggie affair.
Holmes looking tortured in the film’s closing scene.
Finally, then, though this is a very imperfect and sometimes boring film, it does have areas of interest that go well beyond the source text. A small hint in the source is used for an exploration of Holmes’ psyche: his tender side, and his conscience. The tacit and restrained way in which these issues are addressed is effective, and I think compares well to the more overblown explorations of character in recent episodes of BBC Sherlock (e.g. the “redbeard” explanation for Holmes’ oddities – simplistic cod-Freudianism). If not consistently entertaining, it is one of the most memorable adaptations of Sherlock Holmes that have yet been made.
At the time of writing, “The Master Blackmailer” in its entirety is available on YouTube. Embedded below:
The Victorian Sage 
As David Stuart Davies points out in “Bending The Willow” “The Master Blackmailer” is probably the best 90 minutes production of one of Doyle’s Short stories. The Best adaptation of the novels is “The Sign of Four”. And The Worst long adaptation of one of the short stories is “The Last Vampyre”.
British novelist Graham Greene once pointed out that Holmes could be compared to Mr. Pickwick and that of Hamlet and Jeremy Brett promised Dame Jean Conan Doyle “never again” to produce long adaptations of the short stories. Having said which I also think “The Master Blackmailer” has far more to offer than that of Benedict Cumberbatch!
Thanks for commenting. I think Davies is probably right about “The Master Blackmailer”, but the competition is not that high. Doyle’s stories don’t lend themselves to long adaptations because, well, they’re not very long.
The Cumberbatch ones go for a different approach where they bring in loads of new elements, characters and plot lines to justify the 90 minute running-time, so they’re not really “adaptations” of single Doyle stories. They adapt the characters, setting and general structure of the detective story, but the plots tend to go their own way.
In some ways, that’s necessary given the simplicity of many of the stories, but it does lead to some odd choices from the BBC adapters.
I absolutely agree with your views on the BBC production of “Sherlock”, but I have always found it fascinating that though Doyle’s stories are very short, Greene has frequently compared Doyle with Dickens, which, in my book, is both an amusing and just verdict!
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What is always interesting to me are the linear notes of the complete series on DVD. In them, there is described a filmed scene in THE MASTER BLACKMAILER that was right out of the story. That is, the story ending of Lestrade in Baker Street describing the burglar who resembled Watson, so to speak. According to Richard Valley, this scene was actually filmed and yet, inexplicably, cut out of the episode before airing. One wonders if a collector, like myself, would be able to attain an uncut version or, rather, an extended version. It really would make the episode complete and to actually make a little more sense. The decision to exclude that very important scene was totally absurd. Any help out there ?
Sorry for the late reply. I can’t offer any help in finding the scene in any case, just my own opinions…
It would certainly provide an amusing ending for the episode, as it does in the original story. Perhaps, though, it jarred with the rather downbeat and serious tone of the closing scenes described above.
I would like to see the Lestrade scene, but not at the expense of the
ending as screened, which gives depth to the story. So perhaps the series makers got this one right!
Reblogged this on Eliza's Blog on Life and commented:
Wish the video was available. Still, beautifully put.
I remember reading the story long back, when I was more interested in the deductions and not on the human aspect. As I’ve grown older, I pay more attention to the emotional angle than the plot line.
You are right about one thing. The handling of the character Sherlock is quite different in Granada Holmes and in the BBC Sherlock adaptations.
Jeremy Brett has always made the character look like a perfect gentleman even with all his idiosyncratic attitudes. Would love to watch him play the conscientious side. Hope to, one day.
Reading your analysis, I feel like they have done an excellent job in creating a very human angle to Conan Doyle’s Holmes. Something that Jeremy Brett is so capable of pulling off!
Thank you for the post.
Thanks for commenting, Eliza. It’s well worth getting the whole set of Brett adaptations. I have them all on DVD. The quality varies but Brett and Hardwicke make a great double act (I prefer Hardwicke to Brett’s other Watson, David Burke). The Master Blackmailer isn’t perfect, by any means, but it has some lovely moments.
Absent other qualities, a memorable villain goes a long way. Even with other qualities, a memorable villain can steal the show. Demonic figures always seize the human imaginationg more deeply than angelic ones. This is probably behind all the 18th-century ruckus about Paradise Lost, with some saying Satan overtakes Adam and the Messiah as the hero and others recoiling in horror. Another link to Milton: When you say a small thread in the source text becomes the main thread in the adaptation, it reminded me of a contemporary critic of Milton — I’ll never find the name or the quote. But as Milton basically took one Bible verse and expanded it into a vast epic, this critic roasted Milton thusly: “[Of all the criticism one sees of the Bible these days, no one has ever complained that it is too short.]” I wish I could find that 🙂