Bill Reviews Case of the Cunningham Heritage (1954)

Bill reviews “The Case of the Cunningham Heritage,” the first episode in the 1954 “Sherlock Holmes” TV series.

This is part of the “Sherlock Holmes, They Watched” movie review project, in which Bill and Teresa Peschel will watch and discuss as many of the Sherlock Holmes adaptations before the end of time.

(c)2025 by Bill Peschel

Fidelity to Holmes: 2.5 knives

The mystery is original, and the meeting of Holmes and Watson underwent some rewriting, but Holmes is still inscrutable, and Watson bluff and blustery.

Quality of episode: 4 knives
A traditional, very truncated murder mystery with none of the bizarre trappings Conan Doyle favored. The charm lies in introducing Holmes, Watson, and poor Lestrade.

With only 23 minutes to tell a story, and some of that needed to introduce Dr. Watson to Holmes, it makes sense that A Study in Scarlet was abandoned in favor of a shorter mystery. But that doesn’t make this any less of a Sherlock Holmes story.

The opening was altered slightly from Scarlet. Stamford was elevated to a lordship, and they meet in the club rather than the bar. But Holmes is still beating a corpse to see if it raised welts after death, and he deduces Watson was a doctor serving in Afghanistan and the messenger was a former Royal Marine.

The message from Lestrade summons him to the scene of a murder. The case appears to be solved except: Why would the fiancée stab her beloved in the chest with a knife? Joan had nothing to gain by his death. But Cunningham’s mother dislikes the girl and wants her hanged — which seems a bit extreme even from a future mother-in-law — and the victim’s brother didn’t much like her either.

(Appropriate of nothing, the actress playing Joan was Miss Blacklock in the Joan Hickson/Miss Marple adaptation of A Murder Is Announced in 1985.)

Holmes jumps into his knees-on-the-ground detecting routine and discovers a cut in the carpet. He also observed that Joan and the victim was married within the last week. He saw untanned skin on the body’s ring finger. Must be from a wedding ring. But the skin was not depressed, so it hadn’t been worn long. Joan confessed they were married last weekend in Brighton, so there’s the motive for murder.

Lestrade was jubilant with only the trial followed by a quick hanging to arrange. Holmes objects. He points out that the victim had regularly withdrawn £1,000 in cash. Lestrade dismisses Holmes as someone always looking for trouble.

This inspires a common trope in the canon: burglary or breaking and entering. But rather than finding evidence, they’re confronted by the brother who monologues the solution until Watson knocks him out.
Apart from the cliché ending, the episode worked. It was a good introduction of Holmes and Watson to newcomers and satisfies the fans except for those who demand faithful adaptations. They won’t find their Holmes until Jeremy Brett dons the deerstalker.

General Information
Based on: Original story
Run time: 27 min.

Writer: Jack Gage
Director: Sheldon Reynolds
Cast
Ronald Howard as Sherlock Holmes
Howard Marion-Crawford as Dr. John Watson
Archie Duncan as Inspector Lestrade

Meg Lemonnier as Mrs. Cunningham
Ursula Howells as Joan
Roland Bartrop as Lord Stamford
Pierre Gay as Ralph Cunningham