The Crucifer of Blood

Play by Paul Giovanni

The Crucifer of Blood is a play by Paul Giovanni that is adapted from the Arthur Conan Doyle novel The Sign of the Four. It depicts the character Irene St. Claire hiring the detective Sherlock Holmes to investigate the travails that her father and his three compatriots suffered over a pact made over a cursed treasure chest in colonial India during the Indian Rebellion of 1857.

Broadway production

The play, directed by the author, opened on Broadway at the Helen Hayes Theatre on September 28, 1978, and ran for 236 performances.

The production was nominated for four Tony Awards, including Giovanni for Best Direction of a Play, and won the award for Roger Morgan's lighting design. It also received Drama Desk Awards for Morgan as well as for John Wulp's scenic design. Bran Ferren received the Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle award for Special Visual & Sound Effects.^[1]

Cast

Paxton Whitehead - Sherlock Holmes
Glenn Close - Irene St. Claire
Christopher Curry - Jonathan Small
Andrew Davis - Mohammed Singh & Mordecai Smith^[2]
Martin LaPlatney - Hopkins
Timothy Landfield - John Watson, M.D.
Melvin Lum - Fung Tching, A Chinaman
Tuck Milligan - Wali Dad & Birdy Johnson
Roumel Reaux - Tonga
Dwight Schultz - Major Alistair Ross
Nicolas Surovy - Captain Neville St. Claire
Edward Zang - Durga Dass & Inspector Lestrade

London production

The play, directed by the author, opened in London at the Theatre Royal Haymarket on March 15, 1979, and ran for 397 performances. Denis Lill, who played Dr. Watson, would later go on to play Inspector Bradstreet in Sherlock Holmes (1984 TV series). In September 1979, the roles of Holmes, Watson and Irene were taken over by Gerald Harper, David Horovitch and Kate O'Mara respectively.^[3]

Cast^[4]

Keith Michell - Sherlock Holmes
Susan Hampshire - Irene St. Claire
Nicholas Day - Jonathan Small
Geoffrey Snell - Mohammed Singh & Mordecai Smith
James Curran - Hopkins
Denis Lill - John Watson, M.D.
Klim Leh T'Chei - Fung Tching, a Chinaman
Billy McColl - Wali Dad & Birdy Johnson
Reis Etan - Tonga
John Quentin - Major Alistair Ross
Edward Petherbridge - Captain Neville St. Claire
John Cater - Durga Dass & Inspector Lestrade

Los Angeles production

The play, directed by the author, premiered in Los Angeles at the Ahmanson Theatre in the Los Angeles Music Center on December 5, 1980, and ran through January 17, 1981. A notable feature of this production was that Jeremy Brett, who later became one of the most famous portrayers of Sherlock Holmes, played Dr. Watson.

Cast^[4]

Charlton Heston - Sherlock Holmes
Jeremy Brett - John Watson, M.D.
Suzanne Lederer - Irene St. Claire
Christopher Curry - Jonathan Small
J. Christopher O'Connor - Mohammed Singh
Richard Denison - Hopkins
Liu Han T'Seng - Fung Tching, a Chinaman
Ronald Dennis - Tonga
Dwight Schultz - Major Alistair Ross
Ian Abercrombie - Durga Dass & Inspector Lestrade
Alan Coates - Captain Neville St. Claire
Tuck Milligan - Wali Dad & Birdy Johnson
C. Edward Pogue - Mordecai Smith

Film

The Cruifer of Blood was adapted into a television movie for Turner Network Television and first broadcast on November 4, 1991. The cast featured Charlton Heston as Holmes, Richard Johnson as Watson, Clive Wood as Small, John Castle as St. Clair, Edward Fox as Ross, Simon Callow as Inspector Lestrade, Susannah Harker as Irene St. Claire, Stefan Kalipha as Wali Dad, Kaleem Janjua as Durga Das, Lloyd McGuire as Kiran Shah, Sidney Livingstone as Roly Lamas Dir, and James Coyle as Birdy Johnson. It was directed by Heston's son Fraser Clarke Heston.^[5]

References

^ "Los Angeles Drama Critics Circle - 1980 - 1989 LADCC Awards". 2009-02-10. Archived from the original on 2009-02-10. Retrieved 2017-06-14.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown (link)
^ Andrew Davis - IBDB
^ "Production of the Crucifer of Blood | Theatricalia".
^ ^a ^b Vol. 3, Section 10K, Actors, Performances and Recordings-Plays, C20172 Through C20489
^ Terry Rowan, Whodoneit! A Film Guide (2014), p. 228

External links

The Crucifer of Blood! at IMDb
The Crucifer of Blood at the Internet Broadway Database

Screen adaptations of Sherlock Holmes

Theatrical films

Silent

Sherlock Holmes Baffled (1900)
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; or, Held for Ransom (1905)
Sherlock Holmes in the Great Murder Mystery (1908)
Arsène Lupin contra Sherlock Holmes (1910)
Éclair film series (1912–1913)
Der Hund von Baskerville (1914)
Detektiv Braun (1914)
A Study in Scarlet (1914 British film)
A Study in Scarlet (1914 US film)
The Valley of Fear (1916)
Sherlock Holmes (1916)
Sherlock Holmes (1922)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1929)

Stoll series	The Dying Detective (1921) The Devil's Foot (1921) The Man with the Twisted Lip (1921) The Hound of the Baskervilles (1921) The Sign of Four (1923)

Wontner series

The Sleeping Cardinal (1931)
The Missing Rembrandt (1932)
The Sign of Four (1932)
The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1935)
Silver Blaze (1937)

Rathbone–Bruce
series

The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939)
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)
Voice of Terror (1942)
Secret Weapon (1942)
Sherlock Holmes in Washington (1943)
Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943)
The Spider Woman (1943)
The Scarlet Claw (1944)
The Pearl of Death (1944)
The House of Fear (1945)
The Woman in Green (1945)
Pursuit to Algiers (1945)
Terror by Night (1946)
Dressed to Kill (1946)

Downey series

Sherlock Holmes (2009)
A Game of Shadows (2011)

Other films

The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1929)
The Limejuice Mystery (1930)
The Speckled Band (1931)
Lelíček ve službách Sherlocka Holmese (1932)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1932)
Sherlock Holmes (1932)
A Study in Scarlet (1933)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1937)
The Grey Lady (1937)
The Man Who Was Sherlock Holmes (1937)
Deduce, You Say! (1956)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959)
The Deadly Necklace (1962)
A Study in Terror (1965)
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)
They Might Be Giants (1971)
The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother (1975)
The Seven-Per-Cent Solution (1976)
The Hound of the Baskervilles (1978)
Murder by Decree (1979)
The Case of Marcel Duchamp (1984)
Young Sherlock Holmes (1985)
The Great Mouse Detective (1986)
Without a Clue (1988)
Zero Effect (1998)
A Samba for Sherlock (2001)
Case Closed: The Phantom of Baker Street (2002)
Holmes & Watson. Madrid Days (2012)
Mr. Holmes (2015)
The Empire of Corpses (2015)
Sherlock Gnomes (2018)
Holmes & Watson (2018)
Sherlock Holmes and the Great Escape (2019)

Television/
streaming/
direct-to-video

Films

Ian Richardson	The Sign of Four (1983) The Hound of the Baskervilles (1983)
Peter O'Toole (animated)	Sherlock Holmes and a Study in Scarlet (1983) Sherlock Holmes and the Baskerville Curse (1983) Sherlock Holmes and the Sign of Four (1983) Sherlock Holmes and the Valley of Fear (1983)
Vasily Livanov series	Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (1979) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (1980) The Hound of the Baskervilles (1981) The Treasures of Agra (1983) The Twentieth Century Approaches (1986)
Christopher Lee	The Leading Lady (1991) Incident at Victoria Falls (1992)
Matt Frewer	The Hound of the Baskervilles (2000) The Sign of Four (2001) The Royal Scandal (2001) The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire (2002)
Ian Hart (as Watson)	The Hound of the Baskervilles (2002) The Case of the Silk Stocking (2004)
Other films	The Three Garridebs (1937) The Man Who Disappeared (1951) The Hound of the Baskervilles (1972) The Longing of Sherlock Holmes (1972) Doctor Watson and the Darkwater Hall Mystery (1974) The Return of the World's Greatest Detective (1976) Sherlock Holmes in New York (1976) Silver Blaze (1977) The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It (1977) The Hound of the Baskervilles (1982) The Masks of Death (1984) The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1987) Hands of a Murderer (1990) The Crucifer of Blood (1991) 1994 Baker Street: Sherlock Holmes Returns (1993) The Hound of London (1993) Sherlock: Case of Evil (2002) Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars (2007) Sherlock Holmes (2010) Tom and Jerry Meet Sherlock Holmes (2010)