The truth about the sleuth: forget Hollywood's myriad misrepresentations concerning the great detective. The genuine Sherlock Holmes is alive and well on DVD. Quick, the game is afoot!(Entertainment)

• Author: Barrett, Wayne M.

"THE BOOK is much better than the movie" is a common expression that has proved all too tree over the years. Yet, of all the injustices done to literature by the wide--and small--screen, none has suffered more than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's great detective, Sherlock Holmes. From the misuse of his deerstalker cap to insisting that sidekick John Watson was a bumbler to overplaying his cocaine addiction to ... well ... flat out just not getting it right on any level. Then there was the dawn. Great Britain's Granada Television and PBS's long-running "Mystery" series struck gold when Jeremy Brett was cast as Holmes and Edward Hardwicke as Dr. Watson. (The real mystery is what took so long.)

"The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes" and "The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes" recently have joined "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" on DVD thanks to MPI Media Group, Orland Park, Ill. Each set features multiple tales of mystery, deduction, and suspense in which Brett perfectly personifies Holmes.

"I find it extraordinary that no one had done the original stories before," Brett related in an early-1980s cable TV magazine interview after the series' first season. The actor, whose film credits include "My Fair Lady" and "War and Peace," died in 1995. While a proper portrayal of the lead character is vital to these faithful adaptations, it also must be noted that Holmes' trusted companion and chronicler, Dr. John Watson, sheds his Hollywood-imposed image of a buffoon. Instead, he is depicted as Doyle intended: an intelligent man of medicine and Holmes' irreplaceable companion.

"One of the most important elements of this series is Watson," stated Brett. "I really believe that Holmes would be dead without him. We hope to show that Watson is of no small value. The audience should see how he makes Holmes work better. It's a very exciting relationship to behold.

"Holmes is an extraordinary creature," added Brett. "We've thrown him in a different light: not the person in the deerstalker cap who tackles tough problems merely by puffing on his pipe all day long and thinking. He is much more outgoing and active than that. He is the original sleuth, and there is no reason for him to be any less exciting than James Bond."

Like the latter-day 007, Holmes is quite fashion conscious. "All the clothes we use are designed from the original Sidney Paget illustrations that appeared with Doyle's stories in The Strand Magazine. People always think of Holmes as wearing that famous deerstalker...