This exploration of movie series detectives began with a mention of the best known and most loved of detectives, Sherlock Holmes, and that’s also a good place to finish. Holmes was the first detective to appear in ‘cinemas’ back in 1900, though not on celluloid and not on a big screen.
Sherlock Holmes Baffled was produced by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company and was shown exclusively on their Mutoscope machine. Like Edison's Kinetoscope it could only be viewed by one person at a time, worked on the same principle as a flip book, with individual images printed on flexible cards lit by electric light bulbs inside the machine. By inserting a coin, then turning a crank the viewer could watch this 45 second ‘film’.
Unlike every other Sherlock Holmes film, and as the title suggests, Holmes is completely baffled. Audiences likely felt the same way as the crook repeatedly appeared and disappeared before their eyes. You can check it out below.
Holmes returned in 1905, this time to the big screen in what is usually regarded as the first "serious" depiction of the character. The film’s story was adapted from the 1890 novel The Sign of the Four and unlike its predecessor has Holmes actually solving the mystery. This was however a Holmes most of us would not be familiar with.
Being known for his sharp mind, penetrating logic and clever repartee, silent film didn’t allow the character any way to express these strengths. As a result Holmes was transformed from an intellectual, armchair detective into a man of action who energetically pursued the crook.
Movie projectors at this time were hand cranked so the speed of the film varied with the energy of the projectionist and his level of fatigue, regardless the case would have wrapped up somewhere around 10 minutes. That film is mostly lost with only some of the surviving fragments stored by the Library of Congress.
This was followed by the German five chapter serial Arsène Lupin contra Sherlock Holmes in 1910 (lost), a 1914 feature length British production A Study in Scarlet (also lost) and five other stand alone silent features.
In 1920 Stoll Pictures, owned by Australian born Irish theatre manager Sir Oswald Stoll, purchased the film rights and produced an initial series of fifteen short films entitled The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 1921 which they followed up with the feature length The Hound of the Baskervilles. Another fifteen short film were packaged up into The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes in 1922, and then a third series, The Last Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, came in 1923.
The films were remarkable for their star Eille Norwood who was obsessed with portraying Holmes true to the written stories. Arthur Conan Doyle was so impressed with his portrayal that he gifted Norwood a dressing gown which he wore in many of the films.
Between 1931 and 1937 a series of British films were produced with Arthur Wontner in the title role of what was a mostly lacklustre series, popular enough to support five films none of which set the world on fire.
When the films made a move across the Atlantic in 1939 the films gained a whole new energy in large part because of the performances of Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as Dr Watson. The first two films in the series, The Hound of the Baskervilles (1939) and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939), were produced by 20th Century Fox and benefited from much larger budgets than they’d had in the past.
The rest of the series then moved to Universal who made another twelve films in the series, keeping some things the same while changing others radically. Holmes was placed in a more contemporary setting, moving the action to the present day and giving Holmes the opportunity to fight the Nazis. While Universal lowered the budgets, they did the right thing by audiences by hanging on to both Rathbone and Bruce in the central roles.
The series turned out to be incredibly influential. While many actors have played both Holmes and Watson, many people consider both Rathbone and Bruce to be the consummate Holmes and Watson respectively.
Brilliant writer-director Billy Wilder tried to put his own spin on the detective with The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970). Wilder had been a long time fan of Holmes and had tried to create a musical adaptation in 1955 and 1963 both of which mercifully failed. He collaborated with long-time co-writer I. A. L. Diamond and had hoped to cast Peter O'Toole as Holmes and Peter Sellers as Watson.
Wilder’s intention was to portray Holmes as a repressed gay man who even lied to himself about his sexuality and needed opium to manage his demons. Wilder’s final cut ran to 200 minutes and was cut by the studio down to 125 minutes, losing entire scenes in the process. The film elicited mixed responses from both critics and audiences.
The 80s saw a repositioning of Holmes for the Youth market with films like Young Sherlock Holmes (1985), The Great Mouse Detective (1986) and comedy Without a Clue (1987) being his only appearances across the decade.
Holmes skipped the 90s but in the noughties Guy Ritchie took a stab at Holmes making Sherlock Holmes (2009) and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011) starring Robert Downey Jr. While the jokey, light hearted film was good for Downey Jr. it didn’t do much for Ritchie who never really recovered from being married to Madonna and having to cast her in Cast Away (a movie which showed she couldn’t act and wasn’t young any more… which hurt Guy way more than it hurt Madonna.
To date there have been 97 Sherlock Holmes films, and he’ll likely keep popping back up in the foreseeable future… maybe in a musical like the one Billy Wilder had hoped to make.
The use of the Mutoscope, a precursor to modern film projectors, emphasises the innovative and evolving nature of storytelling through visual media.
Cinema, from its humble beginnings, has always pushed the boundaries of technology and narrative. The evolution of detective films, mirroring the development of cinema itself, demonstrates the enduring appeal of mystery and intrigue on screen.
Maurice Costello never played Sherlock Holmes, it was Gilbert M. Anderson who played the role in
Adventures of Sherlock Holmes aka Held For Ransom (1905), which btw was not based on The Sign of the Four.
1905 -The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, or Held For Ransom (UK)
Gilbert M. Anderson (1880 - 1971) as Sherlock Holmes, No Dr. Watson in film.
The Vitagraph Company
725 feet. 9 Minutes. 7 October 1905.
Dir.: Gilbert M. Anderson
Plot: A group of bandits, who sign their ransom note 'The Sign of the Four', kidnap a millionaire's daughter. The panicking father visits the famous detective Sherlock Holmes and pleads for help. Sherlock Holmes meets the bandits at the rendezvous location, and after a number of adventures with narrow escapes, he rescues the child, returning him to 221B Baker Street for the joyful reunion with the father.
Cast: Gilbert M. Anderson, others unknown (likely Paul Panzer and J. Barney Sherry are some of the villains)
Odds and Ends: The Library of Congress has a copyright strip of 35mm paper print (236 frames).