Adaptations of Sherlock Holmes

It has been estimated that Sherlock Holmes is the most prolific screen character in the history of cinema. The first known film featuring Holmes is Sherlock Holmes Baffled, a one-reel film running less than a minute, made by the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company in 1900. This was followed by a 1905 Vitagraph film Adventures of Sherlock Holmes; or, Held for Ransom, featuring Maurice Costello as Holmes. Sherlock Holmes has also been a prolific screen character in foreign language films, such as the Russian 2013 mini-series version broadcast in November 2013.

Many similar films were made in the early years of the twentieth century, most notably the 13 one- and two-reel silent films produced by the Danish Nordisk Film Company between 1908 and 1911. The only non-lost film is Sherlock Holmes i Bondefangerkløer, produced in 1910. Holmes was originally played by Viggo Larsen. Other actors who played Holmes in those films were Otto Lagoni, Einar Zangenberg, Lauritz Olsen and Alwin Neuss. In 1911 the American Biograph company produced a series of 11 short comedies based on the Holmes character with Mack Sennett (later of Keystone Kops fame) in the title role.

By 1916, Harry Arthur Saintsbury, who had played Holmes on stage hundreds of times in Gillette’s play, reprised the role in the 1916 film The Valley of Fear

The next significant cycle of Holmes films were produced by the Stoll Pictures company in Britain. Between 1921 and 1923 they produced a total of 47 two-reelers, all featuring noted West End actor Eille Norwood in the lead with Hubert Willis as Watson.

John Barrymore played the role in a 1922 movie entitled Sherlock Holmes, with Roland Young as Watson and William Powell in his first screen appearance. This Goldwyn film is the first Holmes movie made with high production values and a major star.

Clive Brook played Sherlock Holmes three times: The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1929), as part of an anthology film, Paramount on Parade (1930), and Sherlock Holmes (1932).

In 1931 Raymond Massey played Sherlock Holmes in his screen debut, The Speckled Band, while Arthur Wontner played Holmes in five British films from 1931 to 1937.

Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce played Holmes and Watson in The Hound of the Baskervilles which launched a 14 film series. Rathbone is regarded as the Holmes of his generation.

Many other films have been comedies and parodies which poke fun at Holmes, Watson, their relationship and other characters. These have included Billy Wilder's The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes with Robert Stephens and Colin Blakely as Holmes and Watson.

More serious, non-canonical films were A Study in Terror (with John Neville and Donald Houston) and Murder by Decree (with Christopher Plummer and James Mason) both of which involved Holmes and Watson investigating the murders by the Whitechapel serial killer Jack the Ripper. And Young Sherlock Holmes with Nicholas Rowe as Holmes andAlan Cox as Watson playing the duo as schoolboys.

The 1974 novel The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, a "lost manuscript" of a Holmes adventure, was also made into a film in 1976 starring Nicol Williamson as Holmes and Robert Duvall as Watson.

The 1988 film Without a Clue was a comedic twist on the familiar Holmes legend. Dr. John Watson (Ben Kingsley) is a genius crime fighter and successful author. Fans of his novels clamor to see the real Sherlock Holmes and Watson realizes that his audience simply would not accept the fact that Holmes was a fabrication and to reveal himself as the creator and brains behind him would be tantamount to literary suicide. To solve his dilemmas, Watson hires Reginald Kincaid (Michael Caine), an alcoholic, womanizing, ne'er-do-well actor to impersonate Holmes.

The twenty-eighth film in the VeggieTales series is entitled Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler, and features Larry the Cucumber as Holmes and Bob the Tomato as Watson.

Robert Downey, Jr. appears as the detective in the Guy Ritchie–directed Sherlock Holmes (2009) and its sequel Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011), with Jude Law as Dr. Watson, Rachel McAdams as Irene Adler, and Jared Harris as Moriarty.

In 2010, low-budget film company The Asylum produced Sherlock Holmes, which is intended to capitalize on Guy Ritchie's film. It stars new actor Ben Syder as Holmes and Torchwood actor Gareth David Lloyd as Watson. It was shot in Wales and directed by Rachel Lee Goldenberg.

In the 2015 film Mr. Holmes, Ian McKellen portrays the detective as a 93-year-old retiree, living in a countryside farmhouse with his housekeeper (Laura Linney) and her son. As his memory deteriorates, he struggles to recall the last case of his career, which sent him into retirement.

It was announced that Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly will star in a comdey titled "Holmes and Watson" with Ferrell as Holmes and Reilly as Watson.

See also the 1971 film They Might Be Giants, starring George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward, which portrays a man who believes himself to be Sherlock Holmes.

            There have been many television incarnations of Sherlock Holmes, varying in faithfulness to the source material from direct adaptations of Holmes stories, most notably The Hound of the Baskervilles, to new stories set in the present day and even the future.

Television series

            One of the earliest television appearances was the 1951 BBC mini series Sherlock Holmes starring Alan Wheatley as Holmes and Raymond Francis as Watson.

            Three years later, the first American adaptation of Holmes and Watson, Sherlock Holmes was produced by Sheldon Reynolds in 1954, and starred Ronald Howard as Holmes and Howard Marion-Crawford as Doctor Watson produced in Paris, France.

            In the 1960s, there was a BBC TV series entitled Sherlock Holmes with Douglas Wilmer and Nigel Stock. Peter Cushing, who had earlier played the detective in the Hammerversion of The Hound of the Baskervilles, later took over from Wilmer in the lead role.

            The 24 part 1980 series Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson starred Geoffrey Whitehead as Holmes and Donald Pickering as Watson.

            In 1982, Granada Television aired an eight-part series entitled Young Sherlock: The Mystery of the Manor House which told the story of Holmes' youth. The show starred Guy Henry as Sherlock Holmes.

            Also in 1982, the BBC produced an adaptation of The Hound of the Baskervilles, starring Tom Baker as the detective.

            Jeremy Brett starred as Holmes in a Granada Television adaptation screened from 1984 to 1994, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, with David Burke and subsequently Edward Hardwicke as Watson. All but 18 of the Conan Doyle stories were filmed before the death of Jeremy Brett from a heart attack in 1995. Between 1984 and 1994, 36 episodes and five films were produced over six series. Brett and Hardwicke reprised their roles as Holmes and Watson in 1988-89 in a West End stage play, The Secret of Sherlock Holmes, written by Jeremy Paul.

            In 1988, the animated series Alvin and the Chipmunks aired an episode entitled "Elementary, My Dear Simon", which stars Simon as Holmes, Theodore as Watson, Alvin as Professor Moriarty, and Dave as Inspector Seville.

            An animated series, Sherlock Holmes in the 22nd Century, brings Holmes into the future through the marvels of science. There is also a Japanese animated series called Sherlock Hound featuring anthropomorphic canine characters. Several of its episodes were directed by Hayao Miyazaki. Another Japanese anime series called Case Closed, based on the manga of the same name, features a main character by the name of Conan who is heavily influenced by Sherlock Holmes.

            The children's television series The Adventures of Shirley Holmes, which ran from 1996 to 1999, features a main young, modern-day female character who claims to be a distant descendant of Sherlock Holmes himself and has inherited his intellect in solving crimes.

            In 2007, the BBC released Sherlock Holmes and the Baker Street Irregulars, a children's series focusing on the Baker Street Irregulars and starring Jonathan Pryce as Holmes.

            In 2009, the BBC began making Sherlock, created by Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss. Three seasons of three 90-minute episodes each were broadcast in 2010, 2012, and 2014, starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Sherlock and Martin Freeman as John. Moriarty appears as a recurring villain. A special episode, "The Abominable Bride", was broadcast in January 2016, with a limited cinematic release worldwide. The fourth series began filming in April 2016.

            CBS in Fall 2012 premiered the series Elementary, a contemporary remake of the Doyle character set in the United States, starring Jonny Lee Miller as Holmes and Lucy Liu as Watson.

            Sherlok Kholms premiered in November 2013 on Russia-1. The eight episodes were filmed in St. Petersburg, Russia and starred Igor Petrenko as Holmes and Andrey Panin as Watson.

            In 2014, NHK produced a puppetry Sherlock Holmes written by Kōki Mitani. It is set in Beeton School, a fictional boarding school and Holmes is a fifteen-year-old pupil who lives in the room 221B of Baker House and resolves the troubles in the school but there's no murder. In the show, John H. Watson is his roommate, Mrs Hudson is a housemother of Baker House and James Moriarty is deputy headmaster of the school.

            While not direct adaptations, the series House, MD and Psych contain elements of the Sherlock Holmes stories. Gregory House derives his name, deductive prowess, and addictive nature from Sherlock, but solves medical mysteries as opposed to criminal investigations. Shawn Spencer has the same observational skills as Holmes, as well as solving criminal mysteries with a medically trained partner (Burton "Gus" Guster).

TV movies

            John Cleese starred as Holmes' grandson - Arthur Sherlock Holmes - in the comic TV special The Strange Case of the End of Civilization as We Know It (1977). Arthur Loweplayed Dr. William Watson, the original doctor's grandson.

            Between 1979 and 1986, Soviet television produced a series of five television films at the Lenfilm movie studio, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. The series were split into eleven episodes and starred Vasily Livanov as Holmes and Vitaly Solomin as Watson. Livanov earned honorary membership Order of the British Empire for a performance ambassador Anthony Brenton described as "one of the best I've ever seen".

            In 1983, Ian Richardson portrayed Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of Four with David Healy as Dr. John H. Watson. Later that same year, Richardson again played Holmes in a version of The Hound of the Baskervilles with Donald Churchill as his Watson.

            In 1986, a TV movie called My Tenderly Loved Detective was made in Soviet Union about the adventures of the female Sherlock Holmes, called Shirley Holmes here, and female Dr.Watson, called Jane Watson here.

            The contemporarily-set 1987 television movie The Return of Sherlock Holmes starred Michael Pennington as the detective and Margaret Colin as Dr. Watson's granddaughter, Jane. Jane, after following directions written by her grandfather years ago, finds out that she has thawed Holmes who had been cryogenically frozen by Dr. Watson for 88 years due to Bubonic plague. They become a team—the essential Victorian gentleman and a post-feminist young woman—to solve a case that combines elements of "The Sign of the Four" with elements from the celebrated news story of a plane hijacked for ransom by D. B. Cooper.

            The 1991-92 series Sherlock Holmes the Golden Years consisted of two TV films, in which Sherlock Holmes (played by Christopher Lee) and Dr. Watson (played by Patrick Macnee) are older adults who continue investigating cases. The two films were Incident at Victoria Falls and Sherlock Holmes and the Leading Lady.

            In 1991, Charlton Heston played Holmes in the Turner Network Television production of Paul Giovanni's play The Crucifer of Blood.

            In 2000 the telemovie Murder Rooms featured Ian Richardson as Dr. Joseph Bell, who solved (fictional) crimes with the aid of his young pupil Arthur Conan Doyle. Four more telemovies followed in 2001. The series was subtitled "The Dark Origins of Sherlock Holmes" for US syndication.

            From 2000 to 2002, Muse Entertainment Enterprises produced four television films for the Hallmark Channel, starring Matt Frewer as Holmes and Kenneth Welsh as Dr Watson, in The Hound of the Baskervilles (2000), The Royal Scandal (2001), The Sign of Four (2001) and The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire (2002).

            2002 saw a new version of The Hound of the Baskervilles featuring Richard Roxburgh. Ian Hart played Dr. Watson then and also in the 2004 BBC airing of Sherlock Holmes and the Case of the Silk Stocking, alternatively billed as The Return of Sherlock Holmes. An original screenplay "based on the character created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle", this film takes place in 1902, with Dr. Watson "saving a dear friend from narcotics and boredom", this friend being an opium-addicted and increasingly weak Sherlock Holmes. Rupert Everett plays the Great Detective.

            2002 also saw the made for television cable movie, Case of Evil, about a 20-something Sherlock Holmes (James D'Arcy) and a Doctor Watson who worked as an early practitioner of autopsies, on the trail of Holmes' archenemy, Professor Moriarty (Vincent D'Onofrio).

            Information from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptations_of_Sherlock_Holmes