Sherlock Holmes

As a theater major in college, I had heard of William Gillette (1853-1937) and his stage performances of Sherlock Holmes. Between 1899 when the play, adapted from a few of the stories by Gillette himself, first opened and the making of this film in 1916, Gillette had portrayed Holmes over 1300 times! Arthur Conan Doyle had given him his blessing seeing him as physically right for the part. At the time Doyle thought he was done with the character (Doyle didn't reintroduce Holmes until 1903) and cared little for whatever changes Gillette might make. Gillette was remarkably faithful to the stories and to the Holmes persona except for the business of having him fall in love at the end. In fact it was Gillette who popularized the Meerschaum pipe and the Deerstalker hat now forever associated with the character.

The film was shot in Chicago for the Essanay company, famous for silent film stars Broncho Billy Anderson and Charlie Chaplin, and was one of their few feature length films. Shortly after 1916 the company folded and the movie was sold in 1919 to a French studio who turned it into a 4 part serial without having to cut any footage. Crime serials like Louis Feuillade's FANTOMAS and LES VAMPIRES were popular in France and the fact that this was a play divided into acts and scenes, made it easy to adapt. It's a good thing too for without the French, we wouldn't have SHERLOCK HOLMES today. Its rediscovery and current restoration techniques have given us back not only a classic of early cinema but a rare opportunity to see a 19th century actor at work.

The bulk of the play comes from A SCANDAL IN BOHEMIA with excerpts of THE FINAL PROBLEM and a little of A STUDY IN SCARLET thrown in at the end. In fact after watching about 10 minutes of this, I realized that the plot was the same as the 1922 John Barrymore version which uses Gillette's play. Surprisingly, this version is nearly as accomplished as the later one in its staging and camerawork although the Barrymore version boasts some location shooting and a stronger all around cast. Enough cannot be said about the restoration job done by The San Francisco Silent Film Festival and La Cinematheque Francais. The movie looks astonishingly good with crisp images and subtle color tints. The music score is also noteworthy (no pun intended). I did find the Moriarty in this version to be a little buffoonish but a lot of that is the play and few people can look and be as villainous as Gustav von Seyfertitz in the Barrymore version.

This Flicker Alley package is truly an embarrassment of riches. Not only are there 2 complete versions of the film (English & French) but there is an extra disc which talks about the restoration (very informative) and there are interviews with Conan Doyle and William Gillette. There are also two very surreal shorts involving Holmes plus one with a canine sleuth as well. If you are a silent film enthusiast than this release is an absolute necessity. Sherlock Homes aficionados will also enjoy it for its historical value while students of theater history should see it and study it as the chance to view genuine 19th century performance technique first hand (rather than from a recreation of the period) is invaluable. The DVDs are stunning but they even also throw in a Blu-Ray for those of you who insist on having the latest technology.

There are two things to recommend this film. First of all, it is in marvelous condition for something made in 1916. Secondly, we get to see the famous William Gilette, who played the great detective over 1000 times on the stage. This version is the stage version, sans most of the dialogue. The story is a bit confusing at first, but it involves a young woman whose sister had an affair with royalty. She has letters that would prove embarrassing to a prince. Holmes has been hired to get those letters (like in "A Scandal in Bohemia"). There are a man and his wife, the Larabees, who also want to get their hands on those letters in order to turn a profit. Enter Moriarity, Holmes' arch rival. There are a series of ridiculous plots that don't work because people are stupid. The young woman is clueless. She also becomes a love interest for Holmes. This is out of bounds in the canon. One thing lacking is that Holmes is uninteresting and dull. He is coy and sad. His overconfidence is his greatest trait and he has none of that here. Still, as a period piece, it is fun.

In 2014 it was announced that a negative of this film had been discovered in France and would be restored for the world to see. After being considered lost for nearly 100 years it is miraculous for this to have happened. Once the restoration was complete there were only two planned theatrical screenings; one at the Cinémathèque Française film festival in France in January 2015 and another at the Silent Film Festival in San Francisco in the United States in May of 2015.

I had the good fortune to be able to attend the San Francisco screening at the beautiful and historic Castro Theater. Live music accompanied the screening, performed wonderfully by the Donald Sosin Ensemble. The theater itself was filled to capacity for the single screening and a line trailed down the sidewalk outside the building.

The film itself, post restoration, looked great. The image quality throughout was very strong and consistent with rich detail. One of the most striking features of the film itself is it's camera work and cinematography. Unusual for the time period there is a lot of camera movement and stylized editing. The visual style employed by the film is both very effective and engaging and may well have been a significant influence on other filmmakers of the time. (This viewer has seen nothing similar to it for that era.) As per the original theatrical release the film is color-tinted an orange-sepia for the interior/daylight sequences and a dark blue for the night/exterior sequences. This also is a very effective device that adds impact to the film, and successfully heightens the experience. (Especially compared to if the entire film were in standard black and white.) There is a significant amount of exposition present in the inter-title cards (which had to be translated from French back into English). This may be because much of Gillette's play had to be scaled back for the film adaptation.

What of Gillette? His was the first performance that anyone ever saw of Sherlock Holmes. In general appearance he does seem to be cut almost directly out Sidney Pagent's original drawings for Holmes. At the time of filming he had been playing Holmes for decades and he does portray a rich and nuanced Holmes on screen. His characterization is both powerful and playful at times, displaying a wry sense of humor. While comparisons will be made to every other actor who has been Holmes on screen (particularly Basil Rathbone, his closest contemporary) his physical movement did remind this viewer a great deal of Jeremy Brett. His was a strong and sturdy Holmes and not a thin rail of a man.

Other classic characters are, of course, present. Watson is used minimally, and not surprisingly, often for comic effect. However, it is done with care and he is an intelligent and believable character in the story. In general, the other performances (done by several of Gillette's stage company) are above par for films of the period, but do occasionally dip into Victorian clichés (as does the story now and then).

The script was a pastiche of several Holmes stories and Gillette had Doyle's full permission to take liberties with the cannon, and he does. Audiences should keep this in mind, and note that during filming Sherlock Holmes was not the century-old icon that he is today. Overall, the film is still enjoyable and engaging even for contemporary audiences. Gillette's Sherlock Holmes has aged well, and happily can be enjoyed again by new generations of fans.

There have been over 50 movies and TV series of the famous British detective Sherlock Holmes since novelist Arthur Conan Doyle introduced him to print in 1887. Of all the Holmes films produced, the one that was maddeningly lost and most prized was Essanay Studio's 1916 production with actor William Gillette, who made the detective famous on the stage. He was the Sherlock Holmes everyone is familiar with, molding the detective with the appearance and personality during the 1,300 performances he gave on the American and English stages before mesmerizing audiences. All film depictions of Holmes are based on the Gillette persona he lent to his detective, a portrayal heartedly approved by Doyle.

So when the movie was discovered in Paris' Cinematheque Francaise archives in 2014 after a film canister had been mislabeled for decades, the cinematic community went bananas. At the May 2015 San Francisco Silent Film Festival, after the 1916 print was meticulously restored, lines formed outside the theater patiently waiting to see the United States premier of the newly-discovered movie. Movie aficionados knew this was Gillette's only appearance on film; this was his only acting of the detective preserved which greatly influenced future acting generations on the mien and presence of Sherlock its originator Doyle endorsed.

"Sherlock Holmes," originally released in May 1916, is a combination of four Doyle stories, which the 1899 stage play was based. Seen on the screen for the first time was Sherlock wearing his famous deerstalker hat, introduced by Gillette when he played him on the stage. Also seen was the curved-stem calabash pipe clinched between the detective's lips, a choice Gillette made when he noticed the straight-stem pipe impeded his voice projection and pronunciations. Gillette is also credited in giving Holmes the line directed at Dr. Watson, "Oh, this is elementary, my dear fellow."

Before the movie production, Doyle gave Gillette permission to do anything he wanted with the Sherlock Holmes' franchise, so trusting was the author to the actor's knowledge and temperment of the detective. Gillette went ahead and introduced to the screen the role of the Dr. Watson character, played by Edward Fielding. In addition, Holmes' arch-villain, Professor Moriarty, is given more stage presence in the film than Doyle wrote about him in his novels.

Gillette continued to have a lucrative acting career after the film release of "Sherlock Holmes,' but alas, not in cinema. He was one of those rare actors in his day who made a fortune in his profession, affording him the luxury of building his dream home, the Gillette Castle in East Haddam, Connecticut. He was especially passionate about his three-mile miniature railroad surrounding his estate. The state of Connecticut bought his property six years after his death and created the Gillette Castle State Park. A four-year $11 million renovation of the castle, museum and performance stage, completed in 2002, is one the top three state tourist attractions.

Gillette, who died at age 83, is buried with his family in Farmington, CT's Riverside Cemetery.

The great news was told to us recently on TCM, accompanied by a premiere showing; a copy of "Sherlock Holmes" was found and restored earlier this year year in France. It was originally released as a 4-part feature in 1916 but was released in France as a 7-part serial in 1920. It has been restored to its original 4 parts and that is what we saw here on TV. It is great news since it is the only existing film of Sherlock Holmes' most famous impersonator, William Gillette.

As impressive as the restoration was, with its alternate scenes tinted blue and orange (the orange seemed gold, but no matter), the story itself was simplistic in nature and lacked the resourceful cleverness of Doyle's stories. Maybe it was the only way to tell a story on film without the benefit of dialogue, but this one was straightforward and without guile. A young woman is held against her will so her kidnappers could make her tell the location of some letters of hers, which could be used for ransom. Holmes wants to help her, and so he does. The bad guys get their comeuppance and all is right again.

Gillette was 60 at the time and was probably heavily made up. Otherwise it would have been a stretch to have him win the heart of the damsel in distress. In no other Holmes story did he 'get the girl'. Nevertheless, it was rewarding to finally view this lost treasure and to realize another lost film could be preserved for posterity.