Sherlock Holmes

Don't be mistaken : this is a Barrymore movie, and Sherlock Holmes just the anecdote. Based on a theatrical play, this adventure has the interest of introducing Holmes and Watson in their youth, when they are both students and collaborate in solving a college incident which will have consequences in their future. One of the best scenes is when Holmes examines his own knowledge about life, yet it does not have continuity. Holmes deductive methods and abilities are only anecdotically mentioned although they are what made the character famous, so readers will be disappointed. This is my main criticism.

Being John Barrymore the leading actor you can expect romance and adventure and a glamorous hero. Well, I would have preferred more adventure and less romance being about Sherlock Holmes. The action follows the trend of the times, approaching earlier silent serials in an uncomplicated way. Moriarty, who is played by Gustav von Seiffertitz, looks as a really mean villain but one wonders why as quite more evil would be expected from him, resembling more a Dickens headmaster than the dangerous and intelligent head of a secret criminal system. If you have this in account, the film is just a nice picture if not specially true to the Conan Doyle spirit. As always poor Watson is undervalued and does not receive much attention, yet Roland Young fits quite well and could have offered much more. We meet a young William Powell in a secondary part. Carol Dempster is all right if not impressive as the lady in distress.

The image quality is quite good (thanks to a restored copy) and one can see it was made with generous means as the production design shows (see Moriarty's underground quarters or Baker Street apartments).

Yet as this movie was belived to be lost for many years it is a real pleasure to watch it and a luck to have it with us.

Answer: Largely disinterested acting from its star, an almost actionless script, a plodding pace, verbose inter-titles, and mostly flat, uninvolving direction.

Despite negative contemporary reviews (including an excellent summation of everything that's wrong with the movie in The New York Times), this vanished version of Holmes with its fantastic cast line-up (including the movie debuts of Powell and Young) has long intrigued both film and Sherlock buffs worldwide. So imagine the joy when about 600 rolls of work print offcuts (amounting in all to about 4,000 feet) were found! These were handed to Kevin Brownlow who, with the aid of Albert Parker himself, painstakingly re-assembled the movie over a period of six months. George Eastman House then came to the rescue when the inter-titles were found in their vaults.

The composite reconstructed movie now runs about 109 minutes. There is still footage missing, but that doesn't matter a great deal as, alas, the photoplay is boring enough as it is.

Admittedly, it has its moments: Von Seyffertitz is a marvelous presence. I also enjoyed Roland Young's Watson and Powell's chat with Barrymore in the taxi. And unlike other viewers, I thought Miss Dempster looked quite charming in this non-Griffith outing. And even below-par Barrymore did provide a great moment at the climax for those hardy viewers like myself who persisted right to the end.

But the movie is full of talk. Talk, talk, talk! That's mostly all the characters do in this tediously paced, almost actionless movie. After 80 minutes or so, I just got so bored reading the inter-titles, I gave up. Some of them were too hard to decipher anyway.

Which brings me to the next problem. Labs take no care in printing up positives which are solely to be employed for negative cutting, so 90% of the movie is far too dark. Sometimes you can hardly see what's going on. True, some if it looks attractive and you say to yourself, "Wow! Film noir lighting in 1922!" But this is not the way it was presented to original movie audiences.

The film starts out in Sherlock Holmes' (John Barrymore's) college days at Cambridge. Watson (Roland Young) is rooming with Prince Alexis (Reginald Denny) who has been falsely accused of stealing the university athletic fund. Holmes, even as a student, quickly gets to the bottom of things - an apprentice to Moriarty, Forman Wells (William Powell), stole the money to escape Moriarty. Holmes is fascinated by Moriarty and decides his life work will be to bring him to justice.

Meanwhile, the prince's uncle decides, to stop any scandal, he will pay back the athletic fund to the college. At the same time the prince learns that his two older brothers have died in an accident and now he is heir to the throne. He returns to his home country after penning a letter to his fiancee that he must break their engagement because of his new position. The woman kills herself. Coincidentally, this woman is the sister of a woman that Holmes falls in love with at first sight. She disappears from Holmes' life after her sister's suicide.

The years pass, and Watson is a doctor and Holmes is persistent in his battle against Moriarty. Prince Alexis has announced his marriage to a woman of royal blood. But his dead fiancee's sister is threatening to expose the prince with his love letters to her sister, with Moriarty also wanting those letters so he can blackmail the prince. Moriarty has his subordinates keeping her at a rented castle trying to get those letters away from her. At this point Holmes gets involved mainly to save the girl - from enacting bitter revenge and from Moriarty - more than to help the prince.

This film is far from perfect - it has great big plot holes in it. For example, why does the prince's fiancee kill herself? Was she pregnant? Just heartbroken? It is never said. Yet everybody blames the prince for what seems to be an outsized reaction on the girl's part. It's also hard to follow at points. Apparently Holmes' house has burned, but exactly how and when this happened is not said. What is especially good is Barrymore's performance as this particular rendition of Holmes, even though Sherlock Holmes in literature was never particularly interested in women and this Holmes is a hopeless romantic. On the technical end, the picture is so dark at points that it is impossible to see what is going on, and there are not that many intertitles, but the ones that exist are very verbose.

What's really interesting is just how many future stars and just plain famous people are in this production. I've already mentioned William Powell in his first film appearance, Roland Young, and Reginald Denny, but there is also Hedda Hopper as a henchwoman of Moriarty's, Louis Wolheim as Moriarty's muscle, and David Torrance as a count. All of these people had careers that reached well into the sound era.

First off I'm not a Sherlock Holmes expert so I'll leave it at that and just comment on the film for what it is, not what it isn't. I have however watched episodes of the Jeremy Brett series on A&E and they're wonderful. For those who always say John Barrymore is a ham, this film counters that argument somewhat as he displays a terrific gamut of underplaying. Not boring but decidedly underplaying. Director Al Parker had to talk Barrymore into doing the picture so the film is more of Parker's labor-of-love than Barrymore's. No 1922 print of the movie survived through the decades as a release print would give evidence of a working continuity and of how this film unraveled to 1922 audiences. Only the actual camera negative survived of this film in a dismantled state. Kudos to Kevin Brownlow for doing a masterful job of re-assembling the negative to where it could be printed for viewing. What Brownlow has edited is 'probably' not too far off from the original release prints. The source for this film is similar, in procurring, the source for Barrymore's 1920 Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde in that the story comes from a great author, adapted to a stage play, then the play is used as a source for the film. Having seen three of Al Parker's films 'Eyes of Youth'(1919), 'Sherlock Holmes'(1922) & 'The Black Pirate'(1926), I can say that his directing style stays the same in all three pictures. Parker is only going to give the audience: closeup, medium shot & long shot. Sometimes faint moving camera ie the mock street fight, car leaving down the street. Parker is not going to do as King Vidor or Alan Crosland would do that is experiment in panning camera or tracking shot or zoom. That would've livened up this movie some what. This movie however follows the Griffith school of directing that is lots of stationery camera action in frame and title cards, much like other movies of 1922. J. Roy Hunt's photography is quite low like that of Milton Moore's in 'He Who Gets Slapped'(1924). Perhaps this was to signify the gloomy nature of the story. Original prints were probably tinted like many Goldwyn features of this period. This story should've been left in the 1890s and the movie a period piece rather than update the story to 1922. Both Carol Dempster & Hedda Hopper's characters wear contemporary clothing, Dempster the traditional patterned dresses that are in one quick sequence quite diaphanous. Hopper gets to dress fashionably, hats & all, 1922 style as one of her dresses is loose fitting & comfortable and looks like it was designed by Coco Chanel(parts of this film WERE made in Europe ie: Switzerland & England). William Powell & Roland Young(as Dr Watson) make their film debuts here. Powell later recalled that in 1936 when Barrymore was having trouble auditioning for MGM's 'Romeo & Juliet' and couldn't remember his lines, MGM tapped Powell to replace him. Powell countered that he did not have the heart to replace Barrymore as it was Barrymore who had given him his start in movies in 'Sherlock Holmes'. Louis Wolheim, Reginald Denny and David Torrence round out supporting roles.

I get that this is not one of the all time best silent movies however this is a very good representation of the burgeoning art of filmmaking. The director is trying to make a large film using pieces of the entire Holmes catalog. Does he make an Oscar winner? Well, since the Oscars weren't created when this movie was made I guess we will never know.

Still, this is an amazing piece of history that you should watch for what it is, a restoration. To even discuss the technical aspects of lighting etc, is just pure silliness, it's 1922 for goodness sake! I love Holmes, I love Barrymore, I love this movie. It's history. It's where we came from, watch it in that light and you will enjoy it so much more.