Sherlock Holmes contre Moriarty

Although Arthur Wontner is little remembered today, in his time he was considered by many to have been the best of those who had portrayed Sherlock Holmes on screen. "Silver Blaze", the last of the Holmes series that starred Wontner, is a solid feature that takes the Doyle story of the same name and adds to it some of the characters and elements from the other Holmes stories.

The strength of Wontner's performance is that he looks very convincing as the Holmes of literature, and he also looks very much at home in the Victorian era settings. While his portrayal of Holmes lacks the sharpness and forcefulness of Basil Rathbone or Jeremy Brett, Wontner is certainly adequate in the challenging role of the great detective. He does well here despite the low-budget look to everything else.

"Silver Blaze" is also of interest in adding Moriarty, Lestrade, and the Baskervilles to the original story. As Moriarty, Lyn Harding has some screen presence, but he doesn't really make Moriarty seem like the brilliant strategist that you expect him to be - here he is more like a tough guy whom you wouldn't want to cross. His role is mainly used to create some extra suspense sequences. The central mystery itself is an interesting one, with some of the unusual details that you hope for in a Holmes story. Overall, this is a solid if unspectacular feature.

Twenty years after solving the famous 'Hound of the Baskervilles' case, Sherlock Holmes is invited to return to Baskerville Hall to take a holiday. At Watson's urging he accepts and the pair head to the West Country. They haven't been long when a stable boy working for a local race horse owner is found murdered and the prize horse, Silver Blaze, is missing. Following tracks onto the moor the horse's trainer is found dead... presumed murdered. Holmes soon begins to suspect that his arch nemesis Professor Moriarty is behind the events.

While this is far from the best Sherlock Holmes mystery it is still rather fun. Certain aspects of the story are fairly easy to figure out, such as who actually stole the horse, but others are less obvious. Arthur Wonter does a solid job as Holmes and Ian Fleming is a decent Watson. Lyn Harding isn't bad Professor Moriarty although the case does seem a little trivial for such a master criminal. Given the fact that it is over eighty years old it isn't surprising that it shows its age somewhat; but that shouldn't put anybody off. It might not be a must see but if you are a fan of inter-war cinema it passes seventy minutes nicely enough.

Dedicated Sherlockians on both sides of the Atlantic used to regard Arthur Wontner as the definitive Holmes. Partly this was reaction against the Basil Rathbone films, with their serial-style WWII plots and the portrait of Watson as a lovably bumbling idiot; Rathbone was admired but the films were blasphemy. By comparison, Wontner's Holmes was visually the absolute picture of the Sidney Paget illustrations that accompanied the original stories in The Strand, and at least some of the six films (not all of which survive) were faithful adaptations of notable Holmes stories not otherwise filmed.

Then... along came Jeremy Brett (also the picture of the Paget illustrations), and it had to be admitted that the Wontner films were so cheaply made that they really had nothing going for them besides Wontner, and lacked the polish and entertainment value of even the Universal Bs in the Rathbone series. Next to Brett, also, Wontner's Holmes is if anything too genial; he lacks the suffer-no-fools snappishness that is an essential part of Holmes' character. (That's especially odd considering that that's exactly the sort of character Wontner plays in his best-known role outside this series, as an acerbic ambassador in The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp.) Silver Blaze (a short story padded out much like the Brett series episodes would be) is probably the best of the bunch, and remains watchable but, now, a minor chapter in the saga of Holmes on film next to better movies starring Holmeses such as Basil Rathbone, Robert Stephens, Christopher Plummer, Ian Richardson and, best of all, Jeremy Brett.

Murder at the Baskervilles (1937)

** (out of 4)

Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Wontner) and Dr. Watson (Ian Fleming) investigate a kidnapped horse and the murder of its trainer. Wontner appeared as Holmes in six films, although two are now lost and this one here was the last in the series. I can't say I was really impressed with that much here, although there's one very good sequence when a car is following Holmes and tries to kill him. There's some nice tension in this scene but tension is missing throughout the rest of the film, which moves at a snail's pace. It takes twenty-six minutes for the actual mystery to start and all of the introductions leading up to it are rather bland and boring. The supporting cast doesn't help matters as they add very little to the movie. Wontner on the other hand is quite good as Holmes and he certainly makes me interested in the other films in the series.

Arthur Wortner appeared as Conan Doyle's great detective in six films, four of which survive today. Silver Blaze was the last one, by which time Wortner was over sixty, although still looking the picture of Holmes as he appeared in the Paget illustrations of Strand Magazine.

This version of Silver Blaze takes some liberties with the story; it involves Sir Henry Baskerville, plus Professor Moriarty (an engaging and entertaining performance from Lyn Harding), and Colonel Moran from The Empty House. However it retains the same twists and turns which were present in the original story and, as a film, it works very well.

Filmed on the cheap with obviously faked sets (notably when Holmes and Watson transfer their investigations to 'the moors') it is good to see Wortner's excellent Holmes, sardonic and sharp. Dr Watson is played by Ian Fleming, who is fairly good as well.

John Turnbull as Lestrade is a good foil for Holmes, and one can sense the level of tolerance and grudging admiration that exists between the two crime-solvers.

For Sherlockians, this version of Silver Blaze compares well with the one created during the 1980s as part of Granada's TV adaptations, and stands up well in its own right as a B-picture mystery.