The Elgin Hour Sting of Death (1954–1955) Online

As a fan since childhood of both Boris Karloff and of Sherlock Holmes, I was delighted to run across this live teleplay, in which the skilled actor takes the role of a "Mr. Mycroft" who it is strongly suggested is a retired Holmes. It's based on H. F. Heard's novel "A Taste for Honey," which I read and loved beforehand, and is quite an excellent adaptation for television.

Alvin Sapinsley absorbs and reproduces the dryly humorous and playful yet eerie tone of the novel and reproduces it it well. There are some changes to the details of incident and sequence all of which assist in the transition to the live television medium, which much resembled a transmitted stageplay. As such emphasis is drawn to character and dialogue, both of which are pulled over very well with a creative but subtle reimagining of the first person prose of the book into scenes. Most accented are the idiosyncrasies of the tetchy, punctilious Sydney Silchester with Mycroft and with his maid Alice, all of which are pulled off with excellent interest and humor.

With a cast of only four a lot rests on the actors and they more than carry it off. Karloff is satisfyingly the highlight. He captures wonderfully the insouciant and overbearing yet captivating quality that Mr. Mycroft is presented with, while projecting the intellect of a Holmes; he could easily be the detective. His real triumph is in putting across in just a few short scenes at the end Mycroft's troubling over the moral dilemma of how he had to deal with his criminal.

Robert Flemyng is more of a neat-freak, English-professor type that I imagined for Silchester, but not in a bad way; his characterization is believable, funny, and meshes well with the rest of the production. And of course Hermione Gingold is spot-on and hilarious as the always-singing, loquacious busybody maid Alice.

This is a great showcase for Boris Karloff (who must have like "A Taste for Honey" well enough not just to star in its TV adaptation but also to provide a blurb for the cover!), but a strong and fully entertaining adaptation of the source (though I wish it had more running time to play with and did not have to rush so much) and a great example of effective live 1950s TV drama.

I happened upon this little gem on a set containing film and television dramas relating to a certain, very famous detective. I didn't expect much from it, but I was very pleasantly surprised: this is a corker of a little mystery, just the right scope for what is, basically, a stage play on TV.

Boris Karloff and Robert Flemyng both give great performances. I don't want to give away whom Karloff is really playing - he tells Flemyng's character, "You can call me Mr. Mycroft, if you will" - but I think any smart amateur sleuth will figure it out and be absolutely delighted with Karloff's unusual interpretation.

Well worth seeking out.

Apparently the script won some award according to IMDB....perhaps 1955 was a slow year. All I know is that I didn't enjoy "Sting of Death" one bit...even with Boris Karloff being in it.

The story involves some professorial type guy who loves honey...so much that he eats as much as 10 families put together. But when his local source of honey dries up, he's forced to get honey from a man who locals believe is using his bees to kill! Sounds silly...and I wish it was, because silly CAN be enjoyable. This, on the other hand, was stodgy and the dialog incredibly stilted (such as using the word 'loquacity'...when most people have no idea what that means). Overall, a big disappointment.

STING OF DEATH is a TV episode from the 1955 US show THE ELGIN HOUR, an hour-long drama series showcasing the talents of numerous famous faces. It's based on a book about killer bees and to say that it has dated in the years since is an understatement, but fans might still enjoy it a little.

The reason most horror fans will want to check this one out is the supporting role for Boris Karloff, playing the genial Mycroft in support. Karloff gives a nice turn, but his character isn't too interesting; for better work from this era, check out COLONEL MARCH INVESTIGATES. There's also a performance from genre actor Robert Flemyng (of THE TERRIBLE DR HICHCOCK and THE BLOOD BEAST TERROR fame), so it's not all bad, but the story itself is resolutely stodgy and rather dull.

Based on the 1942 HF Heard book "A Taste For Honey," Takes place in a small English village where a crazy beekeeper has developed a strain of killer bees which kill other keepers' bees. One keeper, Mr. Mycroft, becomes concerned after his dog is killed by killer bee stings, that the rogue beekeeper is further developing the bees so that they will kill ever bigger prey, including humans. A at first skeptical ally of his is a vacationing academic, Mr. Silchester, who has a great taste for honey, becomes convinced that Mr. Mycroft is right. The solution to the problem presents a moral dilemma for Sichester but not for Mycroft. At the end, Silchester no longer cares for honey. Considered to be a pastiche of the Sherlock Holmes stories because Mr. Mycroft has the looks of an elderly Holmes, his interest in beekeeping and his deductive reasoning skills - and thus it is understood that the Mycroft character (I don't think he was called that in the book, too much a giveaway as Mycroft was the name of Sherlock Holmes' brother) is in fact the retired Sherlock Holmes. I read the book many decades ago and remember not caring for it much. I didn't care much for this television adaption either; for me it just wasn't that engaging. Historically interesting, yes; highly entertaining, no. As an aside, 'Sting of Death' won the Mystery Writers of America's Edgar Award for best episode in a television series for 1956, so obviously many mystery writers found it thoroughly engaging. The best part of the show was Boris Karloff as Mr. Mycroft and Hermione Gingold as the maid, Alice. Glad I saw this show and it is worth a watch.