Hmm, sounds familiar
Your powers of deduction are finely tuned! This 2002 film is the latest in long line of film adaptations, starting with the 1939 movie, featuring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as a bumbling Watson. Numerous other versions have been made with Peter Cushing, Ian Richardson, Matt Frewer, and even comedy legend Peter Cook playing the intrepid detective. This time, it's Richard Roxburgh as celebrity sleuth Holmes and Ian Hart as sidekick Watson.

So why the remake?
The tradition of Holmes on film does is not always faithful to the novels, and this version stick closer to the original stories. First off, Holmes's cocaine addiction, which was his defence against depression in the novel, is faithfully duplicated in the film. Second, Watson is no simple sidekick. He is as gifted as his detective friend and it's a refreshing change not to see Watson bumble around, being constantly astounded by Holmes's brilliance. You could even say that Watson is the hero of this story.

Face for the past
Richard Roxburgh is superb as Holmes. Despite his Aussie roots, he is perfect at the Victorian upper-class English gent schtick. What's more, it's the kind of role that he's used to playing, following his moustache-twirling turn as The Duke in Moulin Rouge. Ironically, in the recent blockbuster The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, he played Holmes nemesis Moriarty. In keeping with this strength, he'll next be seen in the horror action flick Van Helsing as Count Dracula.

The myth behind the story
Conan Doyle first heard of Dartmoor's hounds of hell in March 1901 while on a golfing holiday in Norfolk with his friend, journalist Bertram Fletcher Robinson. When their game was cut short by a storm, the two men retired to the Royal Links Hotel and Bertram Fletcher began to talk about the tale of Richard Cabell, a 17th-century squire who attacked his unfaithful wife in a jealous rage. When she fled across the moor with her hound, Cabell gave chase and eventually killed her. Still by its mistress's side, the hound ripped out his throat before dying itself of the squire's knife wounds. The dog was said to haunt each new generation of the family, and the rest is literary history.

Creating a monster
Can a writer be too successful? Sir Arthur Conan Doyle might have asked himself this question when his most famous character, Sherlock Holmes, became more powerful than Conan Doyle and he could no longer control the force he'd unleashed upon the world. Readers believed Holmes really existed to such an extent that they wrote to him about real cases. If you go to Baker Street in London there is a blue plaque on the wall of where Holmes lived. He's the only fictitious character to ever be bestowed with such an honour! Perhaps this phenomenon explains why Conan Doyle believed in the fictitious Cottingley Fairies when they emerged in 1917.