Sherlock Holmes (1916)

Originally posted to Facebook on 6/18/2016

Sherlock Holmes was the first movie we watched from 1916. The play upon which it was based was first produced in 1899, and William Gillette, the star and author, had been a playwright and actor for decades earlier. He was born in 1853, and by the time this movie was filmed he had been playing the role on stage on-and-off for almost twenty years, and would continue reviving it for another fifteen years, into the thirties. The movie itself was lost for many years, until a copy was found in 2014, so it is a minor miracle that we are able to see it. Film-wise it seems relatively modern for its time, with camera movements, and cross-cutting, and a long complex narrative, and all of the other elements that seemed pretty standard by 1916, but were extremely uncommon just five years earlier. You can see some of its stage roots in the fact that there are a large number of verbose title cards, and numerous scenes involve people having long conversations. I don’t know what changes were made to the play, but some of the plot seemed a little disjointed and bizarre. For example, at one point Alice Faulkner, the female lead, played by Marjorie Kay, is being held prisoner in a house in or near London. Holmes visits the house, figures out what is going on, and manages to speak with her, but then leaves both Alice and the criminals still at the house with nothing more than a stern warning to the criminals. They predictably ignore him. (In Holmes’ defense, Alice probably should have left the house as well at this point.) At another point, Professor Moriarty (Ernest Maupain) gets involved, and decides to do away with Holmes. His clever plan? Get Holmes alone in his house and shoot him. This is foiled because Holmes has a gun as well. If only that were something a criminal mastermind might have foreseen! The entire last quarter of the film is a little anticlimactic. The main criminals have been disposed of, but Moriarty is still at large, and is seeking revenge on Holmes with only slightly more sophistication than his earlier “break into his house and shoot him” scheme. This section actually involves Watson (played by Edward Fielding), who has been largely absent through most of the film. Holmes is seeing clients at Watson’s office, rather than at 221B Baker Street, which, we are informed in a title card, has burned down. That seems like a pretty important event to be told about as an aside, but that’s how it’s handled. Despite all of these plot issues, Gillette makes a convincing Holmes, and it is interesting to see how much of Holmes’ iconic nature was already set by 1916. There was a 1922 movie based on the play as well, starring John Barrymore, which we may possibly see if we get that far. (I also dimly remember seeing a filmed version of the play -- actually on a stage with a seated audience -- starring Frank Langella on cable in the 1980s.)

As far as I can tell neither Gillette nor Marjorie Kay ever appeared in another film. Ernest Maupain popped up in a few films up through the end of the silent era, while Edward Fielding, on the other hand, was in a handful of movies until 1940, and then somehow got on someone's list, and started playing small parts in a dozen films every year up until his death in 1945.

Next week we begin our second film from 1916, the twelve-part serial Judex. It is directed by Louis Feuillade, who also directed 1913's Fantomas, which we saw a few months ago. Like that film, this one is long enough at 300 minutes that we are going to watch it over two successive weekends. Our list of films, as always, is here: https://bit.ly/2lZtfmT