This whimsical adventure is “Steven Spielberg Presents” and then some; the film was retitled Young Sherlock Holmes and the Pyramid of Fear in England, as it definitely resembles a Saturday matinee serial (and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom) more than anything Arthur Conan Doyle ever wrote. Young Sherlock features a teenage Holmes and Watson experiencing “an adventure of a lifetime before a lifetime of adventure” — their first case involves several people being killed after suffering from terrifying hallucinations, including a man’s pheasant dinner attacking him in a restaurant and a stained glass knight coming to life in a church. The effects were created by Industrial Light and Magic, and the stained glass knight scene was overseen by John Lasseter, who would later go on to direct Toy Story, Toy Story 2 and Cars. A fun little romp, even if it didn’t jump-start the new franchise the producers were certainly hoping for — that franchise wouldn’t come until almost 25 years later, when Warner Bros. brought us Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law in Sherlock Holmes.
