Between 1921 and 1923, Stoll Pictures produced three separate series of Holmes adaptations (The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, The Further Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, and The Last Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes), comprising 45 short episodes and 2 feature length films, all directed by Maurice Elvey and starring Eille Norwood as Sherlock Holmes and Hubert Willis as Doctor Watson.
The three episodes here include one from each series, A Scandal In Bohemia from The Adventures…, The Golden Pince-Nez from The Further Adventures… and The Final Problem from The Last Adventures…
A Scandal in Bohemia is probably the weakest of the three episodes here, although that’s largely down to the soruce material, a story that reduces Sherlock Holmes to a petty thief of absolutely buffoonish incompetence. Apparently robbing an innocent woman (and drugging her and also throwing fireworks through hr front room window) is perfectly okay if a German prince asks you to do it.
Luckily Irene Adler (renamed Irene Adair here for some reason, one of the few changes in what are generally very close adaptations of the source material) has the amazing super power of not being an idiot, and sees through Holmes’s elaborately useless plans immediately, earning Holmes’s undying admiration (and also probably his scorn).
The Golden Pince-Nez is better, actually allowing Holmes to do some crime solving. The mystery here is a locked room style problem, where a man has been murdered in his study and the murderer has subsequently vanished into thin air. The police are stumped, Watson is confused, but Sherlock solves it all pretty much instantly, with a twinklish smile and lots of cigarettes.
In the very last episode of the regular series, The Final Problem finally sees Holmes tangling with Moriarty, played with swaggering Orson Welles-esque menace by Percy Standing. Pretty much everything about this episode is great, even the choice to replace the Reichenbach Falls with the Cheddar Gorge, which looks genuinely spectacular on screen, its impossibly imposing cliffs rendered in (perfectly restored) stark black and white.
The slightly shocking end to the episode (although not that shocking if you know the story, obviously) is undercut somewhat by the “Sherlock Holmes Will Return!” title card that immediately follows its conclusion (and indeed Sherlock Holmes did return in The Sign Of Four, the second of the feature length episodes, although whether that actually resolves the end of this episode or simply ignores it I do not know).
After finishing The Last Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes, Stoll Pictures moved on to making The Mystery Of Fu-Manchu, which is unsurprisingly quite similar in setting, structure, look and tone (why break a winning formula, really), essentially being an answer to the question “What if Holmes and Watson had to fight Moriarty every single week instead of only once?”.
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Notes
1. I watched these at Firstsite in Colchester, where they were showing as part of the BFI’s current Silent Sherlock presentation.
2. They also showed this ten minute explanation/overview of the BFI’s restoration project (which apparently is going to eventually include restorations of all 40-odd episodes and both films).
3. Anyway, this means that you’ll presumably have to go and see them at a nearby cinema or arts centre for now (if they’re showing them.
4. It also means the pictures above are BFI publicity stills rather than screen grabs I’ve made from youtube.
5. Which is why they look so nice, I suppose.
6. Although it would have been nice to show you how bloody lovely the shots of Cheddar Gorge look in The Final Problem.
7. At least a hundred times nicer than Switzerland ever could have, obviously.
8. Also I think this means I’ve seen two films this year which end with brutal deaths at Cheddar Gorge (along with 28 Years Later).
9. Which is probably two more than I’d ever seen before.
10. Unless you count all the episodes of Robin of Sherwood in the 80s.
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Film Information
Titles: A Scandal In Bohemia; The Golden Pince-Nez; The Final Problem
Director: Maurice Elvey
Duration: 25 minutes each
Further Reading: Inside The Archive: estoring Conan Doyle’s favourite screen Sherlock (10-minute video); Silent Sherlock: Three Classic Cases (2024 Sight and Sound review); Restoration Of Silent Sherlock (2024 BFI article); The Adventures Of Sherlock Holmes (wikipedia article on the Stoll series)