| Jude Law as Dr. John Watson introduces his fiancé Mary Morstan (played by Kelly Reilly) to Sherlock Holmes while meeting for dinner in a restaurant in the 2009 production of Sherlock Holmes. Watson wears a military frock coat and much of the discussion with Holmes in this scene references Watson's service during the Afghan War of 1878-80. The coat appears to be a costume designers simplified interpretation of an actual Medical Department frock which was a bit more ornate with a shawl collar. A small detail that the costume designer seemed to have missed but would have been a nice touch would have been the addition of a miniature 1881 Afghanistan Campaign Medal to Law's costume. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's character is described as having been a surgeon attached the 66th (Berkshire) Regiment of Foot and a survivor of the disastrous Battle of Maiwand. He was also described as having been wounded in that same battle although the account of that wounding differs in Doyle's books. In A Study in Scarlett Watson states: "I was struck on the shoulder by a Jezail bullet, which shattered the bone and grazed the subclavian artery." while later in The Sign of the Four he says that he: "sat nursing my wounded leg. I had had a Jezail bullet through it some time before, and though it did not prevent me from walking it ached wearily at every change of the weather.". Perhaps Doyle realized this discrepancy because the third and last time he mentions Watson's battlefield injury in The Adventure of the Noble Bachelor he simply has Watson state: "the Jezail bullet which I had brought back in one of my limbs as a relic of my Afghan campaign throbbed with dull persistence." Digital Production Still 20 Inches x 10.75 Inches (51cm x 27.5cm) 96 dpi .jpg Format Warner Brothers Pictures Hollywood, California, United States 2009 |
