The secret of the hidden temple

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Movie
German title The secret of the hidden temple
Original title Young Sherlock Holmes
Country of production USA ,
UK
original language English
Publishing year 1985
length 104 minutes
Age rating FSK 12
Rod
Director Barry Levinson
script Chris Columbus
production Mark Johnson ,
Henry Winkler
music Bruce Broughton
camera Stephen Goldblatt
cut Stu Linder
occupation

The Secret of the Hidden Temple is a co-production between the USA and Great Britain in 1985, a mixture of adventure film , crime film and thriller . Directed by Barry Levinson and produced by Steven Spielberg , it describes the fictional first encounter between Arthur Conan Doyle's fictional heroes Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in adolescence. In England the film was released under the title Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear .

action

London , mid-19th century, at the height of Victorian England . The chubby and bespectacled doctor's son John Watson from the English provinces has to leave his old school in the middle of the school year and move to the Brompton boarding school in the heart of the capital. There he has to endure the mockery of his fellow students of the same age. Only the somewhat distinguished looking eccentric Sherlock Holmes is at his side to help. Holmes is a highly gifted student, has a quarrel with his parents and loves Elizabeth, who is of the same age, who has lived with her uncle, the eccentric ex-teacher and tinkerer Waxflatter, in his attic apartment above the school since the death of her parents.

The intellectually somewhat immobile Watson and the quick-witted Holmes quickly become friends. You begin to become active as a duo of investigators in criminal matters. Meanwhile, several London businesspeople are murdered by being blown into a hallucinogenic drug , driving them insane and then to their deaths. In addition, several young girls are reported missing. The murders, dismissed as accidents and suicides, are making headlines in the press. But where the police (primarily the hard-working, but slightly restricted Sergeant Lestrade) are at their wits end, Watson already recognizes the connections between the deaths. The investigation is made more difficult by the fact that Holmes is expelled from school after his classmate Dudley gives him a cheat sheet with Holmes forged handwriting. In order to be able to continue investigating, Holmes hides in Waxflatter's apartment.

When he is also killed, he gives Holmes the name Eh Tar while he dies . This time the assassin lost his blowpipe at the scene. The boys find it and take it to an antique dealer who tells them it is an Egyptian blowpipe. When Holmes and Watson show the blowgun to an Egyptian bar owner, he scares the name Rame Tep and orders them to leave. The research of the boys shows that the Rame Tep is an Egyptian secret society of fanatical members of the ancient Egyptian religion, who used poison arrows with hallucinogens as weapons. Traces of paraffin on a scrap of cloth they found at the crime scene lead them to a general store. In its basement, Holmes, Watson and Elizabeth find a wooden pyramid, the secret headquarters of the Rame Tep. They witness a ritual in which the Rame Tep mummify a young girl with boiling paraffin. After Holmes and Watson escaped the effects of the drugs themselves, they seek out a man named Chester Cragwitch, who visited Waxflatter shortly before his death and was also at his funeral. From him they finally learn the motive for the crime: Cragwitch, Waxflatter and the other murder victims once looked for treasure in Egypt. A young Egyptian named Eh Tar and his sister led them to a secret tomb in which five princesses were buried. The men stole the grave goods and also the mummies of the princesses to sell them. For this blasphemous desecration of the grave, Eh Tar, who now heads the Rame Tep, and his sister want revenge. The girls kidnapped her to replace the princesses. Cragwitch is also poisoned, but at that moment Lestrade, who now believes Holmes, and other police officers storm Cragwitch's house and save him.

Meanwhile, Elizabeth finds out who Eh Tar is: It is the lecturer Professor Rathe (Eh Tar read backwards) who was not only the fencing teacher and mentor, but also a father substitute for Holmes. Rathe and his sister, who also worked at the boarding school under the name Mrs. Dribb, kidnap Elizabeth to replace the fifth princess. Holmes and Watson, who have figured it all out in the meantime, also go to the pyramid. At the last moment they can save Elizabeth, but set the pyramid on fire. Mrs Dribb dies in the flames, Holmes is knocked out. With a brilliant idea, Watson manages to stop Rathe at the same time and to save Holmes from the burning pyramid. Together, Holmes and Watson finally succeed in cornering Rathe. In a fencing duel on the icy Thames , Holmes can defeat Rathe. But the story ends tragically: Elizabeth dies after being hit by a bullet intended for Holmes.

In the end, Holmes leaves school because it reminds him too much of Elizabeth. He wants to dedicate himself to a career as an investigator and says goodbye to Watson, but not without the promise that they will meet again. At the end it turns out that Rathe survived his fall into the icy Thames: During the credits you see him stopping at a snowy mountain hotel and now living under a new name: Professor Moriarty .

Awards

The film was nominated for an Oscar in 1986 for visual effects . Bruce Broughton won the Saturn Award in 1986 for film music ; the film was nominated for the Saturn Award for Best Fantasy Film and for the screenplay by Chris Columbus. The film received a 1987 Young Artist Award nomination .

backgrounds

  • The film was shot on location in England . a. also in Oxford and the university there. For the scenery of a winter landscape, artificial snow was used, which ruined the lawn in Oxford. Producer Spielberg reimbursed the costs.
  • The film effects were created by George Lucas' effects company Industrial Light and Magic (ILM). In one scene, a glass knight leaps out of a church window. This knight was the first human-like CGI creature shown in a movie . It took four months to work on it.
  • Watson actor Alan Cox was through puberty while filming and went through several growth spurts. As a result, he was taller towards the end of the shooting than before. In order to make it look the same size throughout, it was either recorded from a distance, in a sitting position, or other participants had to stand on galleries or stairs.
  • For a while, Trevor Howard was in discussion for one of the adult lead roles . Master Snelgrove, played by Brian Oulton, was originally supposed to play Maurice Denham .
  • One scene shows a flight structure reminiscent of a bicycle, which flies past the clock face of Big Ben. This is a reminiscence of Steven Spielberg and his company Amblin Entertainment , whose logo is the bicycle in front of the likewise circular moon. The scene itself originally comes from the strip ET - The Extra-Terrestrial and is one of the most cited scenes in film history.
  • The actor Ralph Tabakin can be seen in almost every film directed by Levinson . Here he works as a police officer.
  • Patrick Newell, the Bentley Bobster from the film, starred in the Sherlock Holmes franchise Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson with Geoffrey Whitehead and Donald Pickering the Inspector Lestrade. He also played in the Sherlock Holmes series with Jeremy Brett in the episode The permanent patient, the eponymous permanent patient Mr. Blessington.

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