The Sign of Four

Name: The Sign of Four
Genre: Mystery
Released: 2001-03-23
Duration: 1 h 30 min
Rating: 5.9
Cast: Matt Frewer, Kenneth Welsh, Sophie Lorain

TV Movie
2001
1h 30m

IMDb RATING

5.9/10

592

YOUR RATING

Mystery

Greed, betrayal and vengeance set the stage for this Sir Arthur Conan Doyle classic. Mary Morstan, a young governess, has been receiving a rare and lustrous pearl annually from an anonymous ... Read allGreed, betrayal and vengeance set the stage for this Sir Arthur Conan Doyle classic. Mary Morstan, a young governess, has been receiving a rare and lustrous pearl annually from an anonymous benefactor. This mysterious person now wants a meeting. Anxious and bewildered, Miss Morst... Read allGreed, betrayal and vengeance set the stage for this Sir Arthur Conan Doyle classic. Mary Morstan, a young governess, has been receiving a rare and lustrous pearl annually from an anonymous benefactor. This mysterious person now wants a meeting. Anxious and bewildered, Miss Morstan enlists Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson to escort her to this meeting. Together they go ... Read all

Director
- Rodney Gibbons
Writers
- Arthur Conan Doyle
- Joe Wiesenfeld
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

5.9/10

592

YOUR RATING

Director
- Rodney Gibbons
Writers
- Arthur Conan Doyle
- Joe Wiesenfeld
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

Photos

Storyline

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Did you know

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Trivia
The actor who plays Wiggins here, Daniel Brochu, also played Wiggins in The Royal Scandal (2001). He incidentally bears a remarkable resemblance to a young Anthony Newley.

Goofs
While bluffing to get information from Mrs. Smith about the Aurora, Holmes says "Judge Jeffereys and Dr. Crippen have beaten us to it". This is clearly intended as a joke, as well as perhaps a nod to Holmes' encyclopedic knowledge of crime. Of the two, the only one Holmes would have known about is Jeffereys, a seventeenth century judge famous for handing down executions. Dr. Crippen was an alleged murderer who was accused of poisoning his wife, caught, tried, and executed. However, this event did not happen until 1910. "The Sign of the Four" takes place in 1890, a good 20 years before Crippen's name would have hit the papers.

Connections
Followed by The Royal Scandal (2001)

User reviews17

Review

Featured review

6/10

A sweet and sour Holmes

At first Matt Frewer's Holmes portrayal is irritatingly precise and priggish. But then we see a warmth not very often seen in the detective especially towards his friend Watson at the end of this production. I enjoy watching Frewer's wide letterbox mouth that he works a little bit like old British comedy star Will Hay. He also has a habit of lifting his eyebrows like Hay. Frewer's Hound of the Baskervilles had been too comic so it was good to see a more sober production in this Sign of Four follow-up. There are a couple of prize harridan types that briefly entertain us in this one. Mrs Benstone scrutinizes Holmes through her pince-nez glasses as though he is an imposter. Mrs Smith comes later in the lengthy anachronistic Dr Crippen joke. There are some good horse and carriage in foggy gas-lit sequences that are classic Holmes mystery scenarios. The usual riverboat chase scene of the Sign of Four story is forsaken for a stand-off on fogbound dockyard jetties. Even though this is not the best version of Sign of Four it entertained me enough to want to see it again sometime.