Jewett attended teaching school during his winter vacations, and was recruited by Josiah Holbrook, founder of the lyceum system, to lecture for the cause of common (public) schools in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and Connecticut. There he received instruction from Leonard Woods, an influential professor of theology. Abandoning law in 1829, Jewett entered the Andover Theological Seminary to prepare for the Congregational ministry. He then spent a year as the principal of Holmes Academy in New Hampshire, simultaneously studying law under Josiah Quincy. Educated at an academy in Bradford, Vermont, he attended Dartmouth College where he graduated in 1828. The meeting of Matthew Vassar, a wealthy and forward-thinking business man, and Milo Jewett, a conscientious clergyman and dedicated educator, was a fortunate one that laid the foundations for Vassar College. That it is Nicholas Rowe, who played the title character in 1985’s “ Young Sherlock Holmes,” appearing in the black-and-white picture is a neat trick, indeed.Milo Parker Jewett, Vassar’s first president, left an indelible mark on the college’s history by departing from the institution he helped construct before it opened. Watson’s much-embellished written renderings of his friend’s exploits. In fact, Condon has some fun with having the elder Holmes head to the theater to check out one of the overwrought B-movies based on Dr. The case itself ultimately proves less an involving puzzle for the audience than a lesson for Holmes in humility-a state that he has rarely if ever exhibited in his many incarnations, whether in the original tales, Basil Rathbone’s cinematic version from the ‘30s and ‘40s or Jeremy Brett’s TV portrayal in the ‘80s and ‘90s. ![]() As Holmes scribbles what happened on parchment, we are taken back to 1917, when the husband of a woman named Ann Kelmot ( Hattie Morahan) hired Holmes to check up on his wife’s strange behavior following two miscarriages. In order to pay Roger back for his services and also prod his own memory, he devotes himself to recalling details of his final and least successful case in story form, which the boy eagerly reads as each page is done. There is something sadly discomforting in witnessing this genius in decline, his blue eyes going opaque to indicate senior moments and his fading voice expressing deep regret over the past, especially his valuing of logic over emotion. The collusion between a crusty yet still-ticking Sherlock and Roger (a tiptop Milo Parker, whose boyish resilience and innate curiosity is reminiscent of onetime Disney child star Bobby Driscoll) as he teaches the lad about both bee farming and the art of detecting is the heart and most compelling part of “Mr. Watson, Sherlock’s faithful sidekick, in the form of the widowed housekeeper’s young son. There is a fount of welcome youth to be found on the premises to fill in for the late Dr. Or, as his disbelieving physician calls it, “ashly prick”-which is as close to bawdy as “Mr. When we first see him, the former private eye is freshly back from a Japan that is still reeling from the effects of the atom bomb after securing a batch of a mysterious restorative herb known as prickly ash. He has taken up beekeeping as an avocation, partly to gather royal jelly that supposedly wards off forgetfulness. Not that Holmes, first seen as a 93-year-old retiree spending his waning twilight years at a picturesque cottage by the sea in the southern part of post-World War II England, isn’t attempting to fight back against the infirmities of old age. Much like “ Woman in Gold,” where the glowing presence of Helen Mirren was compensation enough to sit through a rather spotty enterprise, the 76-year-old actor-donning rivulets of extra wrinkles and a padded aquiline nose-overcomes a script with an excess of flashbacks to convince us that we are truly witnessing the one and only Sherlock in his dotage. Here, she dowdies herself down nicely as Holmes’ often-disapproving housekeeper.Ĭondon does right by both actors again, although the film is at its best as a showcase for the splendid and spell-binding Sir Ian, who has taken on two other pop-cultural icons, Gandalf the wizard and X-Men nemesis Magneto, since they last collaborated. Holmes’ also features one of his stars from 2004’s “ Kinsey,” Laura Linney, who earned an Oscar nod as the noted sex researcher’s wife. Holmes’ provides a perfect chance for a reunion with Ian McKellen, who was Oscar-nominated for his wily and witty work as the original “Frankenstein” director James Whale in 1998’s “Gods and Monsters,” which won the filmmaker an Academy Award for his adapted screenplay. “Mr.
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