 |
| Arthur Wontner as Sherlock Holmes |
Arthur Wontner (1875 –
1960) starred as Sherlock Holmes in a total of 5 productions from 1931 to 1937:
‘The Sleeping Cardinal’, ‘The Missing
Rembrandt’, ‘The Sign of Four:Sherlock Holmes’ Greatest Case’, ‘The Triumph of
Sherlock Holmes’ and ‘Silver Blaze’. One of them ‘The Missing Rembrandt’ is
officially a lost film.
Wontner made a very
stately Holmes and has a striking resemblance to Sidney Paget’s portraits. Despite Wontner's advanced age (he was 56 when he made his first appearance), his Holmes has a great sense of humor. Even while reading
the canon, I was always enamored by Holmes’s levity that came to the fore time
and again in so many of Sir Doyle’s works.
A discussion of Holmes is
never complete without Watson. Ian Fleming (not the author) played Dr Watson in
all the productions excepting ‘The Sign of Four’, where Ian Hunter replaced Ian
Fleming. Fleming plays Watson as nice but little bit dense. Thankfully he stops
short of making his Watson a laughing stock a la Nigel Bruce.
 |
| Ian Fleming as Dr Watson |
I have seen couple of
Wontner’s movies: ‘The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes’ and ‘Silver Blaze’. A
noticeable feature is that Holmes’ archenemy Moriarty is the recurring villain
in almost all of these movies.
In ‘Silver Blaze’, he
engineers the disappearance of Silver Blaze in order to ensure the success of
his client in winning the lottery. This adaptation takes a liberty, by setting
the story 20 years after ‘The Hounds of Baskerville’. Henry Baskerville still
resides at the Baskerville hall and has a young daughter, about to be
betrothed. Tragedy strikes as the famed horse, Silver Blaze is missing and his
trainer is found murdered. Inspector Lestrade suspects the prospective
son-in-law of Baskerville. As luck would have it, Holmes and Watson are
visiting Baskerville and Holmes solves the case. The rest of the plot is pretty
faithful to the canon.
Silver Blaze is my all-time
favorite among the 56 short stories. The story contains 2 of my favorite lines
of all time, regarding ‘The Curious incident of the dog at night’ and ‘The
sudden epidemic among the sheep’. Both of these lines appear verbatim in this
adaptation much to the joy of the Holmes fan inside me !
 |
| Holmes and Watson decipher the message in 'The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes' |
‘The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes’ is based on ‘The Valley of Fear’.
Next to ‘The Hound of Baskervilles’, The Valley of Fear is my favorite novel.
Holmes’s deduction of the identity of the victim and the
murderer is in my humble opinion, one of the best works by Sir Doyle.
I have seen many different adaptations of Sherlock Holmes and
unfortunately, there are very few adaptations of ‘The Valley of Fear’ so far.
Other than this one, the only others I have seen are the one with Ronald Howard
in the 1954-55 series (titled ‘The Case of the Pennsylvania Gun’) and an
animated adaptation in 1984 with Peter O’Toole voicing Holmes. 'Sherlock Holmes
and the Deadly Necklace' with Christopher Lee as Holmes is also very loosely
based on 'The Valley of Fear'.
The adaptation with Wontner is probably the best of the lot and
Professor Moriarty makes a direct appearance at the end. In the canon, he sends
a letter to Holmes instead.
This series is highly recommended for fans of Sherlock Holmes.
Wontner is an excellent Holmes on-screen !
Related Posts
Image Source: The
Baker Street Blog, Aveleyman, Mystery Movies Online
Copyright ©2011-2012 -
buddy2blogger.blogspot.com. All rights reserved. All text are copyrighted and
owned by the author of this blog. No part of the content or the blog may be
reproduced without prior written permission.
0 Comments:
Post a Comment