Sherlock Holmes on Film
The Great Detective is Cinema's Greatest Hero
Aug 13, 2009 Jonathan Squirrell
The stories of Arthur Conan Doyle’s great detective has been adapted more than 200 times for film, giving him far more screen appearances than any other character. The fact that Holmes, a literary creation, has become so instantly physically recognisable - with his pipe, deer-stalker hat and cape - is a testament to his popularity on screen.
The Early Years of Sherlock Holmes in Cinema
The first Holmes’ movie is believed to be A Study in Scarlet (1914) a silent film starring James Bragington. This film is lost to posterity, but many more were soon in production. Two further silent films, both titled simply Sherlock Holmes were released in 1916 and 1922, before the first - but by no means last - spoof of the genre arrived in 1924, when the legendary Buster Keaton played a projectionist dreaming the great detective in Sherlock Jr.
In 1929 Clive Brook played the detective in The Return of Sherlock Holmes. A film perhaps most notable for coining the line ‘Elementary, my dear Watson’ which was never used by the character in any book.
That was as imaginative as the titles were to get for a while, however, as the next outing for Holmes, in 1932, was once again named simply Sherlock Holmes. This version was based on a stage play by William Gillette, who himself had played Holmes in the 1916 film. In 1933 a second A Study in Scarlet was made, but this time only the title was borrowed directly from Conan Doyle, and the plot was largely original.
Basil Rathbone as the Definitive Sherlock Holmes
In 1939 Twentieth Century Fox produced two films that were to define the Holmes character for years to come: The Hound of the Baskervilles, and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. In the lead role was Basil Rathbone, until then the quintessential screen villain. Rathbone made a convincing Holmes, appearing strikingly like the original illustrations of the detective. Because of this, and because the adaptations were faithful to the spirit of Conan Doyle’s works, if not always to the actual plots, Rathbone began to become synonymous with Holmes.
Rathbone donned the dear-stalker hat in twelve more films before 1946, this time for Universal pictures. These movies were not set in the Victorian era, but in the present day, and the plots often had little to do with the classic Holmes stories, as Rathbone’s character spent much of his time battling Nazi’s.
Despite these inaccuracies, the impression that Rathbone was the definitive Holmes was only strengthened, and even actors of the calibre of Roger Moore and Peter Cushing have made comparatively little impact in the role.
Spoofs and Different Takes on the Sherlock Holmes Stories
Perhaps because of this, serious Holmes films have rarely been attempted since. Instead the Rathbone version of Holmes has been targeted in a slew of send-ups.
The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes directed and produced by Billy Wilder in 1970, took a sideways look at the man behind the myth, while They Might be Giants (1971) was based on a delusional character who only believed himself to be Holmes. The trend continued in 1975 when Gene Wilder starred in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes’ Smarter Brother, while yet another comedy legend, John Cleese, played a modern day Holmes in the 1977 film The Strange Case of the End of Civilisation as we Know It.
Young Sherlock Holmes (1985) depicted the hero at boarding school - along with Doctor Watson and arch-enemy Moriarty; while in 1986 Disney got in on the act with Basil, The Great Mouse Detective, in which the epony mouse hero was named after Rathbone. Without a Clue, made in 1988, presents Holmes as the figment of Watson’s imagination, and the Doctor as the true hero.
The more serious films made since the Rathbone era have tended to be of a revisionist bent. A Study in Terror (1965) and Murder by Decree (1979) both feature Holmes trying to identify Jack the Ripper.
Robert Downey Jr and Sacha Baron Cohen take on Sherlock Holmes
Now Holmes is to be revived again. Firstly by Guy Ritchie, the British director made famous by his gangster movies. Although set in Holmes’ traditional haunt of Victorian London, this seems set to be a very modern adaptation of the tale, more of an action film than anything else, with a stronger emphasis on Holmes’ physical capabilities than his cranial capacity. Robert Downey Jr takes on the title role, bringing a touch of class to proceedings, much as he did in the otherwise unmemorable super-hero film Iron Man, while Jude Law makes an unlikely Watson.
And, as always, wherever a Holmes film is to be found, a spoof is not far behind, and some of the biggest current names in comedy are currently lining up for the latest in a long line of humorous imitations. With the involvement of Sacha Baron Cohen, Will Ferrell, and Jud Apatow, this as yet untitled project seems likely to provide yet another box office success for cinema’s most popular hero.
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