The Seven-Per-Cent Solution
Tags: psychological, murder

Plot synopsis:
An introduction states that two canonical Holmes adventures were fabrications. These are "The Final Problem", in which Holmes apparently died along with Prof. James Moriarty, and "The Empty House", wherein Holmes reappeared after a three-year absence and revealed that he had not been killed after all. The Seven-Per-Cent Solution's Watson explains that they were published to conceal the truth concerning Holmes' "Great Hiatus".
The novel begins in 1891, when Holmes first informs Watson of his belief that Professor James Moriarty is a "Napoleon of Crime". The novel presents this view as nothing more than the fevered imagining of Holmes' cocaine-sodden mind and further asserts that Moriarty was the childhood mathematics tutor of Sherlock and his brother Mycroft. Watson meets Moriarty, who denies that he is a criminal and reluctantly threatens to pursue legal action unless the latter's accusations cease. Moriarty also refers to a "great tragedy" in Holmes' childhood, but refuses to explain further when pressed by Watson.
The heart of the novel consists of an account of Holmes' recovery from his addiction. Knowing that Sherlock would never willingly see a doctor about his addiction and mental problems, Watson and Holmes' brother Mycroft induce Holmes to travel to Vienna, where Watson introduces him to Dr. Freud. Using a treatment consisting largely of hypnosis, Freud helps Holmes shake off his addiction and his delusions about Moriarty, but neither he nor Watson can revive Holmes' dejected spirit.
What finally does the job is a whiff of mystery: one of the doctor's patients is kidnapped and Holmes' curiosity is sufficiently aroused. The case takes the three men on a breakneck train ride across Austria in pursuit of a foe who is about to launch a war involving all of Europe. Holmes remarks during the denouement that they have succeeded only in postponing such a conflict, not preventing it; Holmes would later become involved in a "European War" in 1914.
One final hypnosis session reveals a key traumatic event in Holmes' childhood: his father murdered his mother for adultery and committed suicide afterwards. It was Moriarty who informed Holmes and his brother of their deaths, and his tutor then became a dark and malignant figure in his subconscious. Freud and Watson conclude that Holmes, consciously unable to face the emotional ramifications of this event, has pushed them deep into his unconscious while finding outlets in fighting evil, pursuing justice, and many of his famous eccentricities, including his cocaine habit. However, they decide not to discuss these subjects with Holmes, believing that he would not accept them, and that it would needlessly complicate his recovery.
Watson returns to London, but Holmes decides to travel alone for a while, advising Watson to claim that he had been killed, and thus the famed "Great Hiatus" is more or less preserved. It is during these travels that the events of Meyer's sequel The Canary Trainer occur.

Review: The movie suggests that this story is merely a cover up for a period in time in which Holmes was getting help with his cocaine addiction from none other than famous psychiatrist Sigmund Freud.The settings and characters ring true to both Doyle's mysteries and the Sydney Paget illustrations that accompanied them.
The end of the film strays from the books in order to explore the uncharted territory of Holmes' childhood, providing a deeply moving climax.This may come truer to Sir Arthur's original vision than any other pastiche written for film so far, largely thanks to the efforts of writer/director Nicholas Meyer.
While the Seven Percent Solution may not appeal all fans of the legendary detective, it nevertheless gives us an interesting variation of the Conan Doyle character.In order to cure his friend of his cocaine addiction, Dr. Watson (Robert Duvall) and brother Mycroft create a ruse to get Holmes to Vienna where Holmes(Nicol Williamson) meets Dr. Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin).
There are those who say that the same thing happened to Conan Doyle, who eventually kicked the habit, but used in as a part of the Character of Sherlock Holmes, at least in the earlier stories, who claimed that the boredom that set in when his mind was not occupied on a case was only relieved by a seven percent solution of the drug that he would inject himself with.
Alan Arkin is an excellent Freud, and the film is a great adventure and touching drama, as Holmes, in the middle of his cure, once again brings his great intellect to bear on a baffling case..
Dr. Watson (Robert Duvall) prepares a scheme to Sherlock (Nicol Williamson) meets Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin) in Vienna to cure his drugs addiction .
Although Basil Rathbone will be forever identified as Holmes ; however , here Nicol Williamson is also played as an intelligent , cunning , broody and impetuous pipesmoking sleuth but addicted to cocaine , his interpretation is likeness to Christopher Plummer (Murder by decree) or Peter Cushing and Jeremy Brett in television .
The next best thing for me in terms of acting after Williamson and Arkin has to be Charles Gray as brother Mycroft(a role he would reprise in the Granada Sherlock Holmes series with Jeremy Brett).
I really enjoyed this little fantasy film about the supposed treatment Sherlock Holmes received for his cocaine addiction from Dr. Freud.
This is awfully strange, having a real-life and fictional character interact together, but the writers were able to make it work.Up front I should let you know that I am a huge Sherlock Holmes fan--having read all the stories several times.
This odd idea teams Nicol Williamson and Robert Duvall as Holmes and Watson and uses the idea that Holmes is neurotic and drug-addicted because of what happened to him as a child.
Enter Dr Freud (Alan Arkin), plus a woman in distress (Vanessa Redgrave).Duvall attempts a British accent but fails miserably (probably why he has hardly anything to say within this movie).
Till the late sixties,Sherlock Holmes was the brilliant sleuth,whose deductions the audience was invited to admire respectfully.Then came Billy Wilder and his admirable "private life of Sherlock Holmes":this director was so ahead of his time the movie was not successful when it was released(it was even cut:one hour is lacking and we are still waiting for the whole film).But it spawned a whole lot of SH movies which continued the destruction of the myth :Herbert Ross's "7 per cent solution" but also "young Sherlock Holmes "aka "pyramid of fear" (1986) and "without a clue" (1989) to name but two.None of these movies equals Billy Wilder's opus which I urge everybody to see .Herbert Ross had already tackled the detective story when he filmed "Seven-per-cent solution" but his "the last of Sheila" was more Agatha Christie influenced.Nicholas Meyer's screenplay was a very good idea:Sherlock Holmes meeting Freud ,why not?
And there are a lot of details that show that Meyer loves Conan Doyle:he refers to several affairs the sleuth was involved in ,he introduces -for a very brief time- Moriarty's character and Even Mycroft Holmes.Billy Wilder had already used Holmes' brother :and to think that Mycroft only appears in ONE of Conan Doyle short stories!And the orient express dear to Agatha Christie is also here.The film sets are marvelous,from Victorian England to Francis Joseph's Vienna.The first-rate cast (check the cast and credits) gives the movie substance.It's excellent entertainment.Nicholas Meyer was to continue in th e same vein:not only he wrote another story pitting HG Welles against Jack the ripper,but he also directed the movie starring Malcolm McDowell and David Warner (time after time,1979).
His best friend Dr. Watson (Robert Duvall) and brother Mycroft Holmes (Charles Grey) get him to Vienna to receive treatment for his problem by Dr. Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin).
One is that is of the brilliantly deductive sleuth, Sherlock Holmes (Nicol Williamson), the other is that of the cutting edge psychologist Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin).
A desperate Dr. Watson (Robert Duvall) believes that Freud may be the answer when Holmes falls victim to cocaine addiction and becomes increasingly unstable.
As luck would have it, Holmes is drawn into a kidnapping scheme involving Lola Deveraux (Vanessa Redgrave), one of Freuds' patients.Written by Nicholas Meyer, from his own novel, this is filmed exquisitely, with lots of attention to detail and an obviously decent budget.
There are solid supporting players, too: Laurence Olivier as a plaintive Moriarty, Joel Grey as the weaselly Lowenstein, Samantha Eggar (rather wasted, really) as Watsons' wife, Jeremy Kemp as the dastardly Baron von Leinsdorf, Charles Gray as Mycroft Holmes, Regine as a singing madame, and Georgia Brown as Freuds' spouse.Don't miss this one; it's a real gem.Nine out of 10..
Now you know how I feel.This film, then, in my opinion, has a silly plot; too many underdeveloped characterizations; and depends too much on Holmes' drug addiction and the invention with Sigmund Freud.
Alan Arkin is totally miscast as Freud, giving what may be his least convincing performance ever (he approaches the part like a giddy kid playing dress-up, and his over-enunciation is theatrical and phony); Nicol Williamson is serviceable as Holmes, but all his sweating and shaking is a terrible drag on the action.
The first half drags with Victorian drawing room melodrama as Watson pulls Holmes out of his stupor, then the final act lurches to and fro, attempting to become cinematic with action set pieces.Occasionally inspired, sometimes ridiculous, Meyer's script tries to explain Holmes' psychology and comes off looking a bit like fan fiction rather than the real thing.
(These movies invariably starred either Sean Connery or Richard Chamberlain.) Seems like trains and sword-fighting were the staples of this era of film-making, and in "Seven Per-cent" you get both.The performance that really saves this film is Nicol Williamson as Sherlock Holmes.
His closest associate, Dr Watson (Robert Duvall), resolves to relocate Holmes to Vienna, Austria, for treatment at the hands of none-other than Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin).
Toward the end of his treatment, Holmes becomes enmeshed in another case involving Freud and one of his patients.The movie then literally moves at full-speed ahead with chases, brothels, sword fights, and the obligatory train sequence.
Delving into pseudo-history, Watson (Robert Duvall) gets a drug addicted and neurotic Holmes (Nichol Williamson) to see the father of psychology, Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin) in a last ditch effort to cure him.
Indeed, the film explores a darker and much more human side to Holmes than most adaptations, delving into his past and the depths of his childhood that later informed his crime fighting abilities.Now this is not to say everything else is a slack: Duvall holds a decent British accent and is suitably supportive and patient as Watson, Redgrave is doe eyed and rather nervous as the troubled actress, and veteran Herbert Ross directs with a swift hand and tight pacing, taking us from the fog of London to the monuments of Vienna and even the top of speeding trains for the climax in good time.
Really, complaints are fairly minor, and are simply circumstantial of this type of production: Laurence Olivier is wasted as a rather weak and whiny Moriarty, little more than a cameo, and the film could've gone even more introspective with Holmes and Freud had it not also been bound to being a moderately budgeted adventure thriller, especially in its second half.In that sense, 'Seven Per Cent' may have benefited remaining a book rather than a film, but what we got was still very good and one of my favourite film versions of Doyle's master sleuth..
He's so real that within the time that Conan Doyle wrote his stories you can graft Holmes almost at any point within that time as a character as was done in this film.Robert Duvall as Dr. Watson has left Baker Street to resume his medical practice and soon enough gets a summons from Mrs. Hudson the landlady at Baker Street to come running.
Later on when a mystery surrounding another of Arkin's addicted patients Vanessa Redgrave surfaces it is Williamson the teacher and Arkin the pupil when they start playing Holmes's ballpark.The greatest mind in Vienna also suffered cruelly from the anti-Semitism of his time.
Freud's 'duel' on the tennis court with Baron Jeremy Kemp is a classic and as it turns out Kemp is the root of the mystery involving Redgrave.The Seven-Per-Cent Solution received two Oscar nominations for Best Costume Design and for adapted Screenplay.
The recreation of the London and Vienna of the 1890s is marvelous and the final climax with the locomotive chase with Holmes, Freud, and Watson chasing down the villains is well staged.By the way, though his role is brief Laurence Olivier plays Moriarty and it turns out he did a worse sin to Sherlock Holmes than be the head of all the crime in the British Empire..
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution is an excellent film for Sherlockians but also the fans of Williamson and Arkin who are excellent in this film as Holmes and Freud, respectively.
If someone sees this movie, having never read Sherlock Holmes books or heard of Freud, they will believe it is a perfectly ordinary crime film.I also cannot understand the common attempt to interprete the character of Sherlock Homes in a deep way, as it seems to have been modern in the 1970s (e.
Nicol Williamson's portrayal of the cocaine-addicted Sherlock Holmes is one of the best performances I have ever seen in any movie.
Williamson captures much of the Holmes persona that is both cannon and non-canonical from the great detective's remarkable ability of deduction (wonderfully demonstrated in his first meeting with Freud) to Holmes in the midst of a cocaine addiction to the wonderful finale of the film.
There's also Robert Duvall as Watson who pulls off the accent without any problems I could hear and is arguably amongst the best of the on-screen Watson's with his chemistry with Williamson's Holmes and Alan Arkin playing a wonderful Sigmund Freud who fits perfectly in the Holmes universe.
Then there's the truly remarkable supporting cast which ranges from Vanessa Redgrave as Deveraux to Charles Gray as Mycroft Holmes to Jeremy Kemp as the villainous Baron Von Leinsdorf and of course Laurence Olivier as a different kind of Professor Moriarty.
The players are magnificent, from Nicol Williamson's brilliant nervous Holmes and Robert Duvall's sturdy Dr. Watson to the always-reliable Alan Arkin as a thoroughly charming Freud.
Sherlock Holmes (Nicol Williamson) is suffering delusions from his cocaine use and convinced of Professor James Moriarty (Laurence Olivier) as a master criminal.
Watson (Robert Duvall) decides to create a fictional case for Sherlock to chase to Vienna where he could get treatment from experimental psychotherapist Dr. Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin).
Nicol Williamson plays Holmes in this adaptation of Nicolas Meyer's novel, which suggests that Sherlock's 'disappearance' in 1891 was due to a cocaine addiction.
This is indeed an excellent Holmes movie, though it is not based on Conan Doyle's books.Except some middle problems (the feminism, Sigmund Freud and the fight for getting of cocaine addiction are not what we want in a Holmes movie), the film is true to Holmes canon.We have here a Nicol Williamson playing perfect Holmes, and resembling physically sufficient to fool us;we really could think he IS Holmes.We have a Robert Duvall as an excellent Watson.We have a good Moriarty in Laurence Olivier.And we have the perfect Mycroft.We have the necessary deductions.We have Holmes sword skills.WE HAVE ALL.It is a serious comedy, which will make you laugh and will add for you a new case in Holmes casebook.A real must for Holmes fans..
However there is more to this film and to the viewers pleasure we have a crime that has occurred while Sherlock is under the care of Dr. Freud which means that these three problem solvers, Holmes (Nicol Williamson), Watson (Robert Duvall) and now the famous Dr. Freud (Alan Arkin) are connected at the hip to each other as they try and solve who kidnapped one of Dr. Freud's other patients, a woman named Lola Deveraux under his care who also suffered from an addiction to cocaine and who has appeared to have relapsed.Once Holmes is on the case he quickly assesses that the beautiful redhead Lola Deveraux (Vanessa Redgrave) did not relapse onto a dependency on to cocaine but was forced to take the drug under duress.
Kudos to the director Herbert Ross (known also for Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Play It Again Sam, The Turning Point, The Goodbye Girl, Steel Magnolias and many other Oscar nominated films) for his great use of the camera lens that allows the viewer some panoramic views of the countryside as if we were on the train with the sleuths.The ending provides some closure for Sherlock Holmes himself with the assistance of Dr. Freud and the audience is left with a happy ending.
Produced and directed by Herbert Ross, novelist Nicholas Meyer used Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's characters to write an interesting crime mystery involving Sherlock Holmes, his loyal and trusty companion Dr. Watson, and Dr. Sigmund Freud!Though the drama begins as an exploration into the destructive nature of cocaine addiction (the title refers to the concentration of cocaine Holmes self-injected), and how it almost leads to the famous detective's undoing, it devolves into a comedy adventure of sorts after Freud helps Holmes fight this weakness.The cast, which is excellent, includes Nicol Williamson as Holmes, Robert Duvall as Dr. Watson (and the film's occasional narrator), Alan Arkin as Dr. Freud, Laurence Olivier as Holmes's nemesis Professor Moriarty, plus Vanessa Redgrave, Joel Grey, and Jeremy Kemp, who figure in the mystery.
Screenplay writer Meyer and Costume Designer Alan Barrett received their only Oscar nominations for their work on this film.Watson (Duvall) is naturally concerned that his friend, the eminent detective Sherlock Holmes (Williamson), has become a paranoid recluse that believes that Professor Moriarty (Olivier) is out to get him.
Watson decides to visit Holmes's brother Mycroft (Charles Gray) who is able to use this secret past against Moriarty to get him to lead his brother to Vienna, where Dr. Freud (Arkin) has been able to help those with similar addictions.The most incredible display of the great detective's powers of perception and deductive reasoning occurs shortly after Holmes meets Freud - merely by walking through the doctor's flat, Holmes is able to tell Freud's life story to date!After a long and arduous 'drying out' period, wrought with hallucinations, and assisted by some hypnosis from Dr. Freud, Holmes is introduced to one of the doctor's former patients, a famous actress named Lola Deveraux (Redgrave).
Shortly after that, Nicholas Meyer appeared on the scene with one of the earliest (and best) Holmes pastiches, THE SEVEN PERCENT SOLUTION." I was too young to catch the pun in the title (I thought "solution" meant solving the puzzle; instead, it refers to an actual amount Holmes used in his cocaine injections).The story's premise is that Dr. Watson, worried about Sherlock Holmes' drug addiction, leads him to Vienna on a false trail where he will embark on a cure by Dr. Sigmund Freud.The biggest problem with the movie is that Sherlock Holmes is billed fourth.
Nicholas Meyers' tale bring the neurotic, drug-addicted Sherlock Holmes together with the Father of Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, in turn-of-the-century Vienna.
Watson's (Robert Duvall) ploy to bring Holmes to Sigmund Freud (Alan Arkin) is also well-done, but once "the game is afoot" in Vienna, things turn unintentionally (?) slapstick.
The film-makers have spun a unique film from an original concept by Nick Meyer (author/director of "Time After Time", which combined the forces of H.G. Wells and Jack the Ripper), but there are some problems with the directing that I feel bring the film down below its potential.The story finds Sherlock Holmes (Nicol Williamson) during his "lost" years when he was believed to be dead, but was in actuality (as this movie shows, anyway) deep in the throes of addiction to cocaine, the "7 percent solution" of the title.
In fact the real reason Microft and Watson are luring Holmes to Vienna is so that he can be treated by the celebrated Dr. Freud (Alan Arkin).
While in Vienna Holmes undergoes a harrowing cure, solves a mystery involving a prostitute (Vanessa Redgrave), and also lends a few ideas concerning dream analysis to young Dr. Freud.With such an original concept and such an outstanding cast, you would expect a film that is more than just slightly above average -- but you would probably be disappointed.
Olivier is good in his moments on screen, making us wonder if Moriarty truly is as harmless as Watson thinks he is just long enough to get the plot underway.What really brings the film down a notch, IMHO, is the direction by Herbert Ross.
There's even a nice bouncy score keeping everything moving.This is a good movie, well made and enjoyable, by all means watch it when you want something that's both fun and clever.(P.S. And if you can't live without more Sherlock Holmes comedies: "Without A Clue" is both hilarious and original.