The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1935)

Director:

Leslie S. Hiscott

Writers:

Arthur Conan Doyle (novel)
H. Fowler Mear (writer)

Release Date:

February 1935 (UK)

Genre:

Mystery | Thriller

Plot:

Holmes, retired to Sussex, is drawn into a last case when.arch enemy Moriarty arranges with an American gang to kill one John Douglas...

Plot Keywords:

Professor Moriarty | Detective | Doctor Watson | Revenge | Moriarty

Cast

Arthur Wontner	...	Sherlock Holmes
Lyn Harding	...	Prof. Moriarty
Leslie Perrins	...	John Douglas
Jane Carr	...	Ettie Douglas
Ian Fleming	...	Dr. John H. Watson
Charles Mortimer	...	Insp. Lestrade
Minnie Rayner	...	Mrs. Hudson
Michael Shepley	...	Cecil Barker
Ben Welden	...	Ted Balding
Roy Emerton	...	Boss McGinty
Conway Dixon	...	Ames
Wilfrid Caithness	...	Col. Sebastian Moran
Edmund D'Alby	...	Capt. Marvin
Ernest Lynds	...	Jacob Shafter

Runtime:

84 min | Canada:78 min (Ontario) | USA:75 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Colour:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.37 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (Visatone Sound System)

Certification:

USA:Unrated

Company:

Real Art Productions

Trivia:

Some of the video boxes for the US video release incorrectly claim that the Ian Fleming playing Dr. Watson was the Ian Fleming who was the creator/writer of the James Bond novels. Although both men have the same name--a not particularly uncommon one in England--the actor playing Dr. Watson was not the same man as the James Bond author, and was in fact not even related to him. This Ian Fleming had a 40-year career as an actor and played in over 100 British films.

Quotes:

Lestrade: On the way I'll tell you all I know.
Holmes: We're not going very far then, are we?

Movie Connections:

Referenced in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)

Some history behind the story

The movie opened in 1935 and appears to be set in the 1930s. The original Arthur Conan Doyle serial, from which the screenplay was written, was published in 1914-15, and was set in the 1880s.

The movie's flashback to the U.S.A. introduces the Scowlers, a secret society of thugs. The fictional Scowlers appears to be based on the Molly Maguires, an actual secret society of immigrant Irish coal miners in eastern Pennsylvania, USA, in the 1860s and 1870s. They were set up as a secret network of local committees, and they did not brand their members, since they wished to remain anonymous.

Conditions in the mines were abominable, as this was long before child labor laws, a minimum wage, suitable standards on working conditions, or any organized form of labor union. The Mollies fought back with threats, beatings, riots, and murder against abusive mine owners, supervisors, police, and anyone who spoke out against them.

The powerful owner of many coal mines hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to infiltrate the society, and one of their detectives managed to join the Mollies and stay under cover for nearly five years. When his investigation was finished, trials in were held, twenty convicted society members were hanged, and the Mollie Maguires were history.

So the film's use of a local committee of thugs, and the triumph of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, are quite realistic, based on Pennsylvania history.