Sherlock Holmes Series


Figure 1.--This 1975 Sherlock Holmes film is a production of the 'Hound of the Baskervilles'. At the beginning of the film there is a street scene depicting Baker Street. The young boy and his sister are on an outing with their nanny. The had a lovely smile when he saw the organ grinders monkey. This is a depiction of a late-Victorian London street scene and seems resonably accurate, altough we think that the boy probably should have had an Eton collar and a cap of some sort.

Few if any literary figures have spawned more films and TV productions than Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's master logical thinking detective Sherlock Holmes. we think that thee were British Holmes silents, but have no details at this time. Abritish reader tells us that there were British Holmes films made in Britain (1930s). Holmes was played by Arthur Wantner. I don't think that they had much of an American run. at leasrt we have never seen them. Some of the best known Holmes films were a series of 14 movies made in America (Fox and Universal), most during World War II (1939-46). They had British releases. They added a some evil NAZI characters not in the original books which were set in Victorian times. Some like 'The Hound od Baskervilles', ere based on the orginal doyel books. British actors Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce played Holmes and Dr. John Watson, but they were American prouctions. Rathbone in particular helped create the Holmes image in the public mind. Four of the Universal-produced films fell into the public domain when their copyright was not renewed (1970s). These four films were restored and colorised. Some of the films in the series had become degraded over time, with some of the original negatives lost and others suffering from nitrate deterioration because of the unstable cellulose nitrate film. The UCLA Film and Television Archive restored the series, putting the films onto modern polyester film, in a process that was jointly paid for by UCLA, Warner Bros., and Hugh Hefner. As far as we know all other Holmes films are set in the Victorian era as Doyle wrote them. Most Holme's films and TV productions are efforts to produce Doyle's actual books. An exception is the 'Sherlock' TV series produced in England that makes no attempt to follow Doyle's books, but rather to update them. This doesn't appeal to us,not sure if it has proven popular with british TV audiences. There have been several color productions since the 1939 series. There have been many more TV dramas, even series. The best have been done by the British and broadcast by PBS in America. Some of the productions are very well costumed. The 1975 production seen here is aood example (figure 1). The 1939 series was not, in part because it was set in comtemporary times. We are only familiar with the American and British productions, but there must have been some foreign productions as well.








HBC







Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Site:
[Return to the Main alphabetical Sh-Sl movie page]
[Return to the Main alphabetical movie page]
[Return to the Main movie page]
[Introduction] [Activities] [Biographies] [Chronology] [Clothing styles] [Countries] [Theatricals]
[Bibliographies] [Contributions] [FAQs] [Glossaries] [Images] [Links] [Registration] [Tools]
[Boys' Clothing Home]





Created: 12:11 PM 1/23/2016
Last updated: 2:47 AM 1/24/2016