WITHOUT A CLUE, yet another sendup of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson, this one clawing for purchase in 1988, has an okay premise but is clueless in presenting it, let alone maintaining the one-joke idea for 107 minutes. Spoofing a spoof is a sticky wicket, and along with mystery and danger, a number of the Doyle stories had tongue in cheek built-in to the basic conceit of the detective as an infallible genius. Despite expected deft work from its two stars, this case of little & late solves itself after about twenty minutes and then devotes an hour & a half milking the bovine plot to exhaustion. *

Written by Larry Strawther and Gary Murphy, the gimmick has Dr. John Watson shown to be the literary creator of the fictional Sherlock Holmes as an alter ego stand-in for Watson’s repressed desires to practice crime solving rather than medicine. Watson employs  stage actor ‘Reginald Kincaid’ to portray Sherlock for the public. Away from the role, Kincaid is a drunkard and a fool. When the government needs help solving the robbery of printing plates, they call the famed pair to action; Watson and Kincaid discover that behind the theft is notorious Professor Moriarty.

The only saving grace is that Michael Caine does Kincaid/Holmes and Ben Kingsley is Watson. The consummate pros do their best to enliven wan material. For some, fondness for these estimable gentlemen will suffice; we’ll spend time with them elsewhere.

Lethargically directed by Thom Eberhart, made for in excess of $9,000,000, it tanked with critics and sputtered at 99th in ’88, grossing just $8,539,000. With Jeffrey Jones (as ‘Inspector Lestrade’), Lysette Anthony (out on her limbs), Paul Freeman (as Moriarty), Nigel Davenport, Pat Keen and Peter Cook. Henry Mancini did the decent music score.

True, speaking of ‘elementary’, there is Lysette Anthony…

 * Clue queue—better evidence for Baker Street smiles can be discovered pursuing 1970’s The Private Life Of Sherlock Holmes, 1971’s They Might Be Giants or The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother from 1975. Also in 1988, Caine and Anthony revisited the Holmesian Era on TV in Jack The Ripper, with Caine as Scotland Yard’s Inspector Frederick Abberline and Anthony as Mary Kelly