For decades, Albert Parker's film of Sherlock Holmes was lost until the 1970's when canisters holding negatives of several scenes surfaced. Researcher Kevin Brownlow contacted Parker, who was at the end of his life, and received enough assistance from Parker to assemble the film. It took a few more decades to completely restore the footage. What resulted is a disappointment in terms of the story itself. With John Barrymore, what could go wrong? Several scenes were filmed on location in London, which was probably rare at the time. The sets were terrific for the time, and the actor playing Moriarty makes for a formidable foe. However, there are three main reasons why the film goes awry.
First, the film took nearly the first half of its remaining length to develop to the point of the Holmes character becoming the detective viewers are familiar with. Included in this stretch is exposition drawn collectively from the Conan Doyle stories, but the film is mostly based on a play by William Gillette. Holmes supposedly pines away for Alice Faulkner, played by D.W. Griffith protégé Carol Dempster, because of a chance incident in the film. Viewers will cringe with this unnecessary introduction of romance into the plot. It's also not in sync with the Conan Doyle character as most people will remember him.
Second, there's not enough action in the film and instances for Holmes to show his stuff. Early on there's a brief mention of what Holmes' strengths and weaknesses are in the form of a written memo, which the viewers can see. However, what good is it to reveal those talents and weakness when none are displayed in the film? It becomes empty filler. Much of the film occurs in different scenes with actors simply standing around and talking. The film transitions to another scene or location and then we have more actors standing around and talking, leading to third reason which does the film in.
Third, the volume of title cards is frequent throughout the film, requiring the viewer to read voluminous dialog, which does not necessarily always add much to the scene(s). As a result, the film plods on in the first half with the viewer doing a lot of reading and little happening in the film. The film does pick up the pace a bit in the second half, and a lot of this may have to do with the fact that some prints are still missing some footage, so depending on how complete a print is, the film may seem to have better pacing or not in the second half. Film debuts of Roland Young as Doctor John Watson and William Powell as Foreman Wells. Louis Wolheim plays Craigin and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper plays Madge Larrabee. ** of 4 stars.
First, the film took nearly the first half of its remaining length to develop to the point of the Holmes character becoming the detective viewers are familiar with. Included in this stretch is exposition drawn collectively from the Conan Doyle stories, but the film is mostly based on a play by William Gillette. Holmes supposedly pines away for Alice Faulkner, played by D.W. Griffith protégé Carol Dempster, because of a chance incident in the film. Viewers will cringe with this unnecessary introduction of romance into the plot. It's also not in sync with the Conan Doyle character as most people will remember him.
Second, there's not enough action in the film and instances for Holmes to show his stuff. Early on there's a brief mention of what Holmes' strengths and weaknesses are in the form of a written memo, which the viewers can see. However, what good is it to reveal those talents and weakness when none are displayed in the film? It becomes empty filler. Much of the film occurs in different scenes with actors simply standing around and talking. The film transitions to another scene or location and then we have more actors standing around and talking, leading to third reason which does the film in.
Third, the volume of title cards is frequent throughout the film, requiring the viewer to read voluminous dialog, which does not necessarily always add much to the scene(s). As a result, the film plods on in the first half with the viewer doing a lot of reading and little happening in the film. The film does pick up the pace a bit in the second half, and a lot of this may have to do with the fact that some prints are still missing some footage, so depending on how complete a print is, the film may seem to have better pacing or not in the second half. Film debuts of Roland Young as Doctor John Watson and William Powell as Foreman Wells. Louis Wolheim plays Craigin and gossip columnist Hedda Hopper plays Madge Larrabee. ** of 4 stars.