Incident at Victoria Falls

The three-hour version of this magnum opus, from a complicated script by Bob Shayne out of Gerry O’Hara, is a most rarefied apparatus to contend with, resolving as it does on the false Marconi secreting the Star of Africa in Theodore Roosevelt’s motion picture camera.

Holmes is no match for this, at first. Lillie Langtry has an eye on him, Watson’s commander in the Second Afghan War is upon them, the intrigues of the plot appear to everyone but Holmes (very keen soon enough) as requiring Thuggee and Matabele collusion.

The location filming, the casting (Lee, Macnee, Seagrove, Akins, Todd, Ackland, and so on down the line), the splendid anti-American satire and various other figurations, stamp this as among the very finest of Harry Alan Towers’ always superlative productions.