‘He is the Napoleon of crime, Watson. He is the organiser of half that is evil and nearly all that is undetected in this great city. He is a genius, a philosopher, an abstract thinker. He has a brain of the first order. He sits motionless, like a spider in the centre of its web, but that web has a thousand radiations and he knows well every quiver of each of them.’
Sherlock Holmes, ‘The Final Problem’
And so goes the Master Detective’s most famous introduction of the Master Criminal, Professor James Moriarty. A character who made just one proper appearance in Conan Doyle’s stories (‘The Valley of Fear’ is usually counted as his second but to my eyes he is only mentioned), and that was as a narrative device to kill of Holmes. The fiend’s impression on the imaginations of the reading public was far from fleeting. He was, undoubtedly, the very first super-villain, from whom all those since are derived – The Master in Doctor Who, The Joker from Batman and James Bond’s Blofeld are just a few examples.
It was clear from the off that Doyle had struck gold with the character and many writers and filmmakers have since resurrected Moriarty from the depths of the Reichenbach Falls to face his nemesis again and again. Here is short guide to some of the most prominent.
Several adaptations of the stories have shown more-or-less faithful renditions. For instance, the popular Basil Rathbone film series featured Moriarty on several occasions played by three different actors, each of who seemingly plummeted to their deaths at the end of each film. The Granada television series starring Jeremy Brett is still adored for its dedication to the canon and Eric Porter as a chilling Moriarty did not disappoint. In recent years, the original interpretation of Moriarty has been shunned a little but a decent attempt was made by Jared Harris in the blockbuster movie ‘Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows’. Interestingly, Harris physically resembled one of Conan Doyle’s real-life inspirations for the villain; Simon Newcomb, a celebrated mathematician who earned a malicious reputation.
On the other hand, there have also been several more off-the-wall interpretations over the years. Laurence Olivier played the character in The Seven Per-Cent Solution but as an ordinary man who a paranoid Holmes imagines as a mastermind. The cartoon series Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century updates the criminal and his enemy to the far future while a holographic Moriarty has even appeared in Star Trek!
However, the most striking of these different takes on the classic villain can be found in the BBC series Sherlock as played by Andrew Scott. Scott’s performance is perhaps like none that have gone before. Instead of the cool, calculating professor simmering in the shadows, he delivers a zany, fashionable consulting criminal, who isn’t afraid to loose 30 million pounds, steal the crown jewels and be the subject of ‘the court case of the century’ in order to get Sherlock to “come out and play”. He and Cumberbatch’s Holmes are two outsiders who do not and never will fit into ordinary society, yet Holmes, unlike his enemy, grasps the difference between right and wrong. In short, His is a Moriarty who is not only nasty and a genius, but who is irrevocably, irretrievably insane.
At the end of the latest series of Sherlock, we saw both Moriarty and Sherlock die before our eyes and yet one somehow survived; so maybe the other will too? Based on the persistence of the character who has stayed in the public eye for over a hundred years, Moriarty is not one who takes to disappearing easily. So, I’ll hazard a guess, and say I think we will see the great nemeses locked in a battle of wits for many years to come.
As the man himself says to Holmes in ‘The Final Problem’;
‘You hope to beat me. I tell you that I will never beat me. If you are clever enough to bring destruction upon me, rest assured that I shall do as much to you.’
