The episodes in vonderfull. Jeremy Brett is exellent actor and Edward Hardwicke is a best Dr.Watson

I've not ticked "contains spoiler" because I am working on the premise that a premature revelation that this episode (unlike all the others), is singularly bo**ocks, will be appreciated as it will save you from wasting 90 minutes of your life on it. Having conducted no small study of all the episodes, I can confirm with utmost confidence that this is the worst I have had the misfortune to encounter. The first half is disjointed, there is no deduction, everyone is out of sorts (perhaps Mrs Hudson slipped something in to the afternoon tea). There are only two key events, and rest is virtually irrelevant. For a while I was speechless with disappointment.

I am a longtime fan of the hour-long Jeremy Brett Sherlock Holmes dramatizations, but the three longer ones I have seen -- this one, The Sign of Four, and The Hound of the Baskervilles -- have left me disappointed. I was going to give this one a pretty negative review, until I went on-line and read the original story, Charles Augustus Milverton. The faults are almost all in the original, which Doyle wrote in 1904 and which feels pretty rushed and mechanical. Holmes does hardly any deducing or reasoning in this, but then he doesn't in the original, either. The dramatists have done an excellent job in creating a new foreground story and interweaving the central blackmail plot from the original story into several other blackmail plots. They have also developed the Watson character much more, and have fleshed-out Holmes' romance-in-disguise with the housemaid (the ever-excellent Sophie Thompson). Robert Hardy gives a masterful performance as the villain. As to the core scenes of the original story -- they are all here, practically verbatim. A pet peeve of mine is when dramatists take a classic character from literature and in an attempt to modernize and flesh-out the character, have the character do and say things that contradict the values of the original character. I thought that a bit of that had happened in this version, but again -- the Holmes here is the Holmes in the original story. It seemed to me that Holmes here was a bit too quick to go along with the lady's desire to hide the embarrassing letters from her about-to-be husband. After all, she wrote the letters, so doesn't the groom have a fair claim, at least, not to be deceived about his future wife? If the letters are really not so embarrassing, but the groom would terminate the wedding anyway, doesn't that tell us that perhaps he isn't so very suitable? That maybe this marriage should not happen? Is she really marrying the man for money and title, and not for love? The Holmes in the earlier stories would at least have given some thought to these questions, and the Doyle who wrote the earlier stories would have re-shaped his plot to answer all these concerns. But not in this story. While the dramatists did a good job in expanding the story, it would have been even better had they expanded it by developing the moral and romantic issues in the impending marriage that the original story overlooked.

The Master Blackmailer, based off of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's short story, "the Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton," is the first feature length Sherlock Holmes story with Jeremy Brett that I have seen. The story is interesting and dark. The film has a somewhat dreary, sad feel to it, but it is quite entertaining (with some especially funny scenes).*Spoilers* Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson attempt to uncover the identity of an illusive blackmailer who has been ruining some of the most prominent families of England by publishing private letters that will, in one way or another, destroy their lives. They eventually find out that he is Charles Augustus Milverton, an "art dealer," after the few tragic consequences for victims that could not pay up. Our heroes must next help Lady Eva Blackwell, who must pay a sum that is beyond her means or else her upcoming marriage will most definitely be called off. The scene in which Holmes and Watson burglarize Milverton's house are intense. Although the film has an essentially happy ending, the tone is sad and regretful.Outstanding performances by Jeremy Brett and Edward Hardwicke (as usual), and Robert Hardy as the notorious villain (most audiences probably recognize him today as Cornelius Fudge in Harry Potter), Serena Gordon as Lady Eva Blackwell, Norma West as Lady Swinstead and Sophie Thomson as Agatha (the scenes involving her and Holmes are a riot). I give it a ***1/2 out *****. My only complaint is that there wasn't enough Inspector Lestrade. (I wish they would have added in the scene at the end of the short story where he gives the description of the two burglars, one of which matches Watson.)