I rate it PG-13 for the intense hallucinations than Holmes endures while fighting and overcoming his long addiction to cocaine and it's a bit bloody. Sherlock was using a solution of 7% cocaine for many years. From Nickolas Meyer's novel and directed by Herbert Ross. So rich in dialogue, mystery, and action. Well-filmed on-location in the UK and Austria. Many wonderful characterizations of all the usual characters including Mycroft Holmes and Mrs. Watson. Segmund Freud and Holmes work together to solve both Holmes's addiction and this case. Vanessa Redgrave plays the operatically-talented redheaded beauty who is kidnapped by a rich "Sheik" of the Ottoman Empire. A bit graphic at times and nightmarish scenes, as mentioned before. A rousing climax involving two trains and a duel-to-the-death between Holmes and the villain who somewhat resembles "Gert Frobe" and looks more German than Turkish. Great observations from "Freud" including sexual comments about the fascination of "Redheaded Woman" by Arabic cultures. I will not reveal the revelation and connection between Moriarty and Holmes discovered under hypnosis. It is unique to this Sherlock Holmes story. Toby the Bloodhound "steals" every scene he is in, from England to Austria!

Produced and directed by Herbert Ross, novelist Nicholas Meyer used Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's characters to write an interesting crime mystery involving Sherlock Holmes, his loyal and trusty companion Dr. Watson, and Dr. Sigmund Freud!Though the drama begins as an exploration into the destructive nature of cocaine addiction (the title refers to the concentration of cocaine Holmes self-injected), and how it almost leads to the famous detective's undoing, it devolves into a comedy adventure of sorts after Freud helps Holmes fight this weakness.The cast, which is excellent, includes Nicol Williamson as Holmes, Robert Duvall as Dr. Watson (and the film's occasional narrator), Alan Arkin as Dr. Freud, Laurence Olivier as Holmes's nemesis Professor Moriarty, plus Vanessa Redgrave, Joel Grey, and Jeremy Kemp, who figure in the mystery. Samantha Eggar appears briefly as Watson's wife, Morstan. Screenplay writer Meyer and Costume Designer Alan Barrett received their only Oscar nominations for their work on this film.Watson (Duvall) is naturally concerned that his friend, the eminent detective Sherlock Holmes (Williamson), has become a paranoid recluse that believes that Professor Moriarty (Olivier) is out to get him. In fact, it is Moriarty, who Holmes is stalking, that makes Watson aware of the detective's irrational obsession.Upon investigation, Watson discovers that Holmes is under the influence of cocaine. He'd also learned that there is some tragedy in the two's shared past beyond the fact that Moriarty was a difficult calculus instructor of Holmes's; Moriarty refused to reveal anything else. Watson decides to visit Holmes's brother Mycroft (Charles Gray) who is able to use this secret past against Moriarty to get him to lead his brother to Vienna, where Dr. Freud (Arkin) has been able to help those with similar addictions.The most incredible display of the great detective's powers of perception and deductive reasoning occurs shortly after Holmes meets Freud - merely by walking through the doctor's flat, Holmes is able to tell Freud's life story to date!After a long and arduous 'drying out' period, wrought with hallucinations, and assisted by some hypnosis from Dr. Freud, Holmes is introduced to one of the doctor's former patients, a famous actress named Lola Deveraux (Redgrave). Deveraux had been 'cured' of her cocaine addiction by Freud, but she is found in a hospital, partially under its influence again, after allegedly trying to kill herself. Holmes deduces that she'd been bound and forced into using the drug, and had actually been trying to escape.This leads the three men (Holmes, Watson, & Freud) to follow a strange little man (Joel Grey, playing Lowenstein) that fits Deveraux's brief description of her abductor. After this man leads them into a trap in which they're almost killed, Holmes realizes to late that they'd been distracted so that the perpetrator could recapture Ms. Deveraux.It turns out that the man responsible for her abduction is Baron von Leinsdorf (Kemp), who had earlier made an antisemitic comment to Freud at their club and lost a real tennis (not what you think) match to the doctor, who'd wanted satisfaction. Assisted by Deveraux, who'd dropped flowers like 'bread crumbs' enabling them to follow her, the three men capture Lowenstein and figure out that the Baron is responsible.It is at this point in the story that the film becomes a wild, cross continent chase more than anything else, with predictable results. However, one does finally learn, while Freud has Holmes under hypnosis, the root causes of the detective's cocaine addiction and the reason why Moriarty was involved in his fantasies.

Nicholas Meyers' tale bring the neurotic, drug-addicted Sherlock Holmes together with the Father of Psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud, in turn-of-the-century Vienna. (Actually Prague.) It's one of those novel ideas that people have during a bull session and too many lattés. Other films have pitted Holmes against his contemporary, Jack the Ripper, but though the notion has promise it's never worked too well because, after all, Jack the Ripper got away. One pastiche had Holmes a visitor from the future. They will stop at nothing.There are pitfalls in any story that makes companions of two famous people, even if one of the characters is fictional. Mainly, giving too much weight to one or the other in the plot, inducing an imbalance that leaves one of the characters not much more than an observer. It doesn't happen here. Meyers gives both geniuses equal time. And they both complete their tasks. Holmes solves a somewhat cloudy mystery. Freud cures Holmes of his addiction AND his neurotic obsession with Professor Moriarty, played with mousy disquiet by Lawrence Olivier, whose skill hasn't declined with age.The supporting cast does well enough. Samantha Eggar, she of the elegant yet sensual features, is the wife of Doctor Watson, Robert Duvall, with a vaudeville British accent, something like Chico Marx's Italian accent. Jeremy Kemp is outstanding as the anti-Semitic Baron von Leinsdorf. He's a great German, even if he's English. He's better at being a German, usually a nasty one, than most German actors, with the exception of Otto Preminger. I revel in Kemp's pebbly complexion and haughty demeanor, though. And he's done superb work in more demanding roles, as in "The Blue Max." The German accent of Anna Quayle, as Freud's housekeeper, is as ludicrous here as it was in "Casino Royale." John Addison's musical score isn't overdone. It's apt and sometimes bumptiously comic, as during the tennis duel between Freud and von Leinsdorf. The art direction and set dressing are convincing. (Plenty of brass, scarlet carpets, and delicate green ferns.) Prague has recently been a serviceable stand in for other European cities, since it was never bombed into oblivion during the war and you can still find ancient buildings and cobblestone streets. Somebody got Freud's Vienna street address right -- Berggasse 19. The façade even LOOKS like Freud's real residence.Vanessa Redgrave appears as a kidnapped soprano who is tracked down by Holmes, Freud, and Watson. The climax has two speeding old-fashioned trains chasing one another and a saber duel atop one of the cars. Not a moment of it is to be taken seriously. Holmes solves his case, the kidnapped beauty; Freud cures his case, Sherlock Holmes

Ever since Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote those immortal words "quick Watson the needle", people have been interpreting that to mean that Sherlock Holmes is a drug addict. That's the point in which Dr. Watson decides that his old friend has been abusing long enough and needs a cure. And there's this new doctor in Vienna named Sigmund Freud who is breaking new grounds with mental health therapy. That is the basis of The Seven-Per-Cent Solution where the fictional world of Holmes and the and real world of Freud meet and essentially mate.The Baker Street purists are like highbrow Trekkies, for them Holmes is an absolutely real character. In fact I just saw the John Mills-Leslie Banks film Cottage To Let where one of the characters, a young cockney lad proclaims that for him "Sherlock Holmes was the greatest person whoever lived". He's so real that within the time that Conan Doyle wrote his stories you can graft Holmes almost at any point within that time as a character as was done in this film.Robert Duvall as Dr. Watson has left Baker Street to resume his medical practice and soon enough gets a summons from Mrs. Hudson the landlady at Baker Street to come running. Holmes's craving for cocaine has gotten out of hand and she's at her wits end.Nicol Williamson plays Sherlock Holmes and he's going through some bad withdrawal, keeps raving about one Professor Moriarty as the root of all evil in the British Empire. Appealing to his inability to pass up a mystery and his obsession with the Professor who is a teacher of mathematics at some English public school, Duvall tricks Holmes into a trip to Vienna to see Dr. Freud.Alan Arkin plays Freud and the scenes between Dr. Freud and patient Holmes are something else. At the time Freud was using hypnotic techniques which up to that time were just parlor game tricks or used for more sinister purposes to get at the root of Holmes narcotic dependency. Later on when a mystery surrounding another of Arkin's addicted patients Vanessa Redgrave surfaces it is Williamson the teacher and Arkin the pupil when they start playing Holmes's ballpark.The greatest mind in Vienna also suffered cruelly from the anti-Semitism of his time. Freud's 'duel' on the tennis court with Baron Jeremy Kemp is a classic and as it turns out Kemp is the root of the mystery involving Redgrave.The Seven-Per-Cent Solution received two Oscar nominations for Best Costume Design and for adapted Screenplay. The recreation of the London and Vienna of the 1890s is marvelous and the final climax with the locomotive chase with Holmes, Freud, and Watson chasing down the villains is well staged.By the way, though his role is brief Laurence Olivier plays Moriarty and it turns out he did a worse sin to Sherlock Holmes than be the head of all the crime in the British Empire.