The Return of the World's Greatest Detective

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.

Synopsis

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.

These strange occurrences take place at the same time of a case that has been baffling the LAPD: scandals that appear to involve a judge, the Honorable Clement Harley (Charles Macauley). Among these are the murder of an embezzler and a series of smoke-bombings. Holmes manages to solve both these cases—and expose an instance of judicial corruption in the process.

Partial production history

Dean Hargrove, who directed the film and jointly wrote and produced it with Roland Kibbee, loosely re-made the 1971 feature film They Might Be Giants in producing it. He and Kibbee both hoped it would become the pilot of a series titled Alias Sherlock Holmes, but NBC-TV declined to pick up that option.

Cast

• Sherman Holmes: Larry Hagman.
• Dr. Joan Watson: Jenny O'Hara.
• Lieutenant Nick Tinker: Nicholas Colasanto.
• Himmel: Woodrow Parfrey.
• The Landlady: Helen Verbit.
• Spiner: Ivor Francis.
• Judge Clement Harley: Charles Macauley.
• Dr. Collins: Ron Silver.
• Vince Cooley: Sid Haig.
• The Psychiatrist: Booth Colman.
• Mrs. Slater: Lieux Dressler.
• The Detective: Fuddle Bagley.
• Klinger: Benny Rubin.
• The Manager: Robert Snively.
• The Caretaker: Jude Farese.
• The Sergeant: George Brenlin.
• The Bailiff: Al Dunlap.
• The Delivery Man: Jefferson Kibbee.

See also

• Sherlock Holmes pastiches