Great Film overall

Absolutely the worst movie.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Crucifer Of Blood is an entertaining pairing of two fine but sadly aged actors, Charlton Heston and Richard Johnson, as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Both in their sixties at the time, they were far too old to be cast as the umpteenth incarnations of the energetic super-sleuth and his intrepid assistant. Nevertheless both bring the roles to life better than any younger actors of the time likely could have.This high production values British picture, a loose adaptation of Conan Doyle's Sign Of The Four, is rather tongue-in-cheek in tone anyway. It's as florid and melodramatic as a silent movie with all the de rigueur Holmes artifacts ostentatiously displayed -- the deerstalker cap, the Victorian bulldog revolvers, the magnifying glass, the hansom cabs, and the great, billowing clouds of artificial fog. It's all jolly good fun if you're in the right mood and are not a picky Holmes purist. After a while, you don't mind that even the heavy ulster coat can't disguise Heston's curvature of the spine. Or that Johnson shows such frightful wrinkles in his closeup love scenes, it makes the object of his affections, 26-year old Susannah Harker, look like jail bait.Yours truly is admittedly not much a fan of the Sherlock Holmes movies or literature, but my picky, old wife is. And she liked this one about as well as any. Crucifer Of Blood is expertly directed by Charleton's son, Fraser C. Heston, who also wrote and produced. A fast-paced, atmospherically filmed, spirited, witty, inventive, and enjoyable picture from beginning to end.

Speaking as someone who is not necessarily the most well-read follower of all things Sherlock Holmes, but who is indeed a fan of Charlton Heston's work, this was an okay presentation featuring Heston as the legendary detective. Here, he joins up with Richard Johnson (as Dr. Watson) in unraveling the mystery of a 30-year-old curse involving a pretty young woman (Susannah Harker) and her aging father, who once made a blood pact with another man and whose life might be in jeopardy. For me it was fun just getting to see Heston as the calculating Holmes, and as someone who enjoys the old Basil Rathbone series of films, this retained a lot of similar ingredients such as Watson being slightly clueless, and Inspector Lestrade (Simon Callow) being made to look rather foolish around Holmes. Dr. Watson also gets to fall in love this time around. This being a Turner TV movie, it sometimes has the feeling of being rather slight or artificial in spots. Directed by Charlton's son, Fraser Heston. **1/2 out of ****

During the making of Khartoum Charlton Heston formed a lifetime friendship with Richard Johnson who played his aide in that film. They worked on a number of projects together and had a run in the United Kingdom in this play. We're fortunate indeed to have Heston give his interpretation of the master sleuth, Sherlock Holmes in a The Crucifer of Blood.Heston takes his place right along side Jeremy Brett and Basil Rathbone as a fine delineater of the analytical character of Sherlock Holmes. In the Rathbone series, Holmes purists are usually quite upset about Nigel Bruce's Dr. Watson being made more and more a bumbling idiot as the series progressed. Watson as conceived by Conan Doyle was not as bright as Holmes, but who is. His medical training in fact helps Holmes on more than a few cases.But in this film Watson is a fool though, a fool for love as he falls for Sussanah Harker, a woman who has sought out the help of Sherlock Holmes. Three men who thirty years earlier stole a maharajah's treasure while serving in India during the Sepoy mutiny are being targeted for terror and probably worse, one of them being Harker's father. Several dead bodies later Holmes does come up with the answer as we know he always does.Edward Fox and John Castle are two of the men who do the stealing and Castle as the opium addicted father of Harker is the best in the film. One man who is played as a bumbling idiot is Holmes's rival at Scotland Yard, Inspector Lestrade as played by Simon Callew. Dennis Hoey was never as dumb as this guy.I'm glad Charlton Heston's interpretation of Holmes for which he got good critical notices for the stage play is preserved here and his fans will like it. Holmes fans will like it as well.

Well made television movie based on the stage play by Paul Giovanni. (His play was based on the Doyle story "The Sign of Four.") Heston and Johnson make a fine Holmes and Watson and the direction by Fraser Heston, Charlton's son is well paced and timed for all the Sherlockians out there. Callow turns in a fine Inspector Lestrade.