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The Adventures of
Sherlock Holmes

(1912-1921)

 

Contents: The Copper Beeches (1912), The Dying Detective (1921), The Devil’s Foot (1921) and The Man with the Twisted Lip (1921).

This collection of short British Sherlock Holmes productions begins with the French-British coproduction The Copper Beeches (1912), featuring the comically-overplayed performance by the actor portraying Rucastle, the vindictive father. Not much of a mystery and not much of a film, with its outright bad direction and overwrought acting. At least Georges Tréville makes a reasonable Holmes.

The other films in this collection come from the first 1921 series of Holmes films produced by the Stoll company. Eille Norwood portrays a believeable and satisfying Holmes.

In The Dying Detective (1921), Holmes is near death, afflicted by a rare Asiatic disease, and still manages to solve a murder case.

A family is found sitting upright and dead at their dinner table in The Devil’s Foot (1921) and Holmes must deduce both the mysterious method and motive.

For The Man with the Twisted Lip (1921), Holmes dons one of his disguises to investigate a curious beggar amid London’s seedier denizens, who is in turn accused of the murder of a well-to-do family man. Holmes solves the mystery with surprising results.

Carl Bennett

coverGrapevine Video
2002 DVD edition

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1912-1921), color-toned black & white and color-tinted black & white, 105 minutes total, not rated,
including The Copper Beeches (1912), color-toned black & white and color-tinted black & white, 24 minutes, not rated, The Dying Detective (1921), color-toned black & white, 28 minutes, not rated, The Devil’s Foot (1921), color-toned black & white, 27 minutes, not rated, and The Man with the Twisted Lip (1921), color-toned black & white, 26 minutes, not rated.

Grapevine Video, no catalog number, unknown UPC number.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc, 1.33:1 aspect ratio image in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan MPEG-2 format, SDR (standard dynamic range), 4.5 Mbps average video bit rate, 224 Kbps audio bit rate, PCM 48 kHz 2.0 mono sound, English language intertitles, no foreign language subtitles, 4 chapter stops; standard DVD keepcase; $16.95.
Release date: 2002.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 3 / audio: 3 / additional content: 0 / overall: 3.

This DVD-R collection has been mastered from 16mm reduction prints of varying quality. The Cooper Beeches (1912) appears to have been transferred from a very-good fine-grain 16mm print, which holds a reasonable greyscale range and image detail. Some of the intertitles have been windowboxed to ensure readability on all monitors. Easily the best-looking film on the disc, we would rate this film’s visual quality at a 6.

For our evaluations of other films in this collection, see our The Dying Detective on home video page, The Devil’s Foot on home video page and The Man with the Twisted Lip on home video page.

The films are accompanied by a soundtrack of preexisting recordings.

The print quality of the Stoll films brings down the overall visual quality of this disc, but it is still the recommended home video editions of these films.

 
USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.
 
This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is available directly from . . .
Other SHERLOCK HOLMES FILMS of the silent era available on home video.

Other BRITISH FILMS of the silent era available on home video.

Other CRIME FILMS of the silent era available on home video.

Other SHORT DRAMA FILMS of the silent era available on home video.
 
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