The Sign of Four: Sherlock Holmes' Greatest Case

I have been a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes for many years, both in book form and movie/TV versions. Movie versions have been churned out for well over 100 years and there have been some odd casting for the great detective e.g. Clive Brook, Rupert Everett & even Roger Moore! Personally, I have always favoured the Rathbone/Bruce versions even though they stretched the imagination on occasions by leaping from Victorian London to London during the second World War. I only recently managed to obtain copies of Arthur Wontner in The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes and The Sign of Four and I have to say Wontner seems to be the perfect Sherlock Holmes. What a pity he didn't make more Sherlock Holmes movies! Apart from the sound quality of the print (which has been mentioned in other reviews), his physical similarity to the original Strand Magazine illustrations by Sydney Paget (and others) and his portrayal of Sherlock Holmes is quite remarkable.

This Arthur Wontner version of the Sherlock Holmes story "The Sign of Four" is pretty good for the early sound era, and it makes good use of its limited resources. The production doesn't look very impressive, but Wontner is believable as Holmes, the story is entertaining, and some of the sets, though low budget, work well in establishing the atmosphere.

Wontner's Holmes is less willful and forceful, while more witty and upbeat, than the more familiar portrayals by Basil Rathbone and Jeremy Brett. And while the fine Brett version of "The Sign of Four" is probably now the definitive screen version of the story, in its time this one would probably have been highly satisfactory to its audiences.

The script adapts the original story somewhat, yet it works pretty well. The order of the narrative is simplified, and some extra settings and events are included. One of them, a sequence at a fair, is interesting, and though it changes the tone of the story somewhat, it works in its own right. The character of Jonathan Small is also fleshed out, with less about his past and more of an emphasis on what he is like at the present. As Athelney Jones, Gilbert Davis gets a few good moments of give-and-take with Holmes.

Like Wontner's other Holmes features, this one has an obvious low-budget, early 1930s feel to it. But the series is worth seeing for anyone who enjoys the Holmes stories and who doesn't mind seeing the characters portrayed in a somewhat different light.

The DVD I got of two Arthur Wontner Sherlock Holmes movies listed this one as Sign of the Four. The print was pretty bad and the dialogue was not very easy to understand (though the British accents may have also have been a factor). Still, I found myself mesmerised by many of the set-ups especially the London-Years Later scene as the man who killed his partner for the treasure confesses to his two sons about what he did with his fear of the one-legged man he betrayed coming to get him having just broken out of prison. Great use of sound effects here to convey possible sounds of a wooden leg off screen. The rest of the film hardly comes close to that in effectiveness but by that time Wontner and Ian Hunter as Watson are on screen with their entertaining banter of Holmes' powers of deduction. There's also a pretty entertaining chase scene at the end. Worth a look for Holmes fans but I hope anyone reading this can find a better print than I saw here...

Graham Cutts' 'The Sign of Four' is one of five Sherlock Holmes films starring Arthur Wontner in the main role. Of Wontner's portrayal, Vincent Starrett (author of 'The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes') declared, "No better Sherlock Holmes than Arthur Wontner is likely to be seen and heard in pictures, in our time... The keen worn, kindly face and quiet prescient smile are out of the very pages of the book". Indeed, Wontner beautifully captures the essence of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's famed character, enjoyably depicting his quirky brilliance and almost omniscient deciphering of crime scene puzzles, frequently waving off Dr. Watson's (Ian Hunter) stunned admiration with a dismissive, "Elementary, my dear Watson, elementary."

After an amputee prisoner serving a life sentence, Jonathon Small (Graham Soutten), reveals the whereabouts of his stolen treasure to two prison warders in exchange for his freedom, he is furious when they betray him. Driven mad by the sight of so many riches, one man, Major John Sholto (Herbert Lomas), murders his acquaintance, and flees with the wealth. Many years later, Small escapes from prison, seeking his revenge and his treasure. Shortly before his death, Sholto bequeaths the valuable pearl necklace from the treasure hoard to Mary Morstan (Isla Bevla), the daughter of the man he murdered. However, when Small comes after Morstan as well, she quite intelligently seeks the aid of the great Sherlock Holmes.

'The Sign of Four' is a surprisingly engrossing mystery. Whilst there isn't really much of a classic whodunit, I was most certainly interested in how the story played out. Throughout the film's prologue, the clunking of Small's wooden leg against the floor was used quite effectively to develop suspense, and the ambitious high-speed boat race and dock brawl at the end of the film was suitably climactic. The professional police detective, Det. Insp. Atherly Jones (Gilbert Davis), was characteristically smug and incompetent, often referring to Holmes as an "amateur," whilst himself reaching completely the wrong conclusion about a mystery.

Though the production values are undoubtedly low-budget, 'The Sign of Four' is a solid Sherlock Holmes film with some good performances and an engaging mystery. Worth a look.

This Sherlock entry is more a colorful character crime drama than a Holmes whodunit. Wortner's okay as the cerebral detective, less forceful and more recessive than Rathbone's iconic role. Still, he makes you believe. On the other hand, Ian Hunter's Watson carries much of the action load. He's both sleeker and less bumbling than Nigel Bruce's comedic version. Here Holmes is trying to retrieve a stolen necklace and protect its rightful owner, Bevan, from the fearsome one-legged Soutten. In fact, Bevan's disability is real and not faked. At the same time, he shows a new and non-medical use for a wooden stump. It's a bang-up finale, made more so by director Cutts's imaginative camera angles. I suppose the generally poor sound and picture quality of my DVD is due to the age of the original. However that may be, the programmer amounts to a generally entertaining and sometimes interesting 75-minutes from a rather unknown production company.