“The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes” (1935)

The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes

Brief Description:

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson come out of retirement to investigate a mysterious murder. They find that an American criminal organisation called The Scowrers has asked evil mastermind Professor Moriarty to wreak vengeance on John Douglas, the informant who sent them to prison.

(from Wikipedia)

Date: 1935

Genre: British mystery crime drama 

Running time: 1 hour 18 minutes

Cast: 

Arthur Wontner (Holmes)

Lyn Harding (Moriarty)

Leslie Perrins (Douglas)

Jane Carr (Ettie)

Ian Fleming (Watson)

Charles Mortimer (Lestrade)

Minnie Rayner (Mrs. Hudson)

Michael Shepley (Barker)

Ben Welden (Balding)

Roy Emerton (McGinty)

Conway Dixon (Ames)

Wilfrid Caithness (Moran)

Edmund D’Alby (Marvin)

Ernest Lynds (Shafter)

Director: Leslie S. Hiscott

Production company: Julius Hagen

Based on: The Valley of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

Wikipedia page

Watch on Archive

(watched on Tubi)

Setting/Aesthetic/Feel: 3/5

So dark you could hardly see anything. But it was a cool castle. 

Characters: 4/5

Wontner made a pretty great Sherlock, honestly. Cool, incisive, dry, very intellectual. Very similar to Sherlock in the novels, in my opinion, and definitely to be ranked along with Ronald Howard and Basil Rathbone. Fleming was also a very accurate Watson—very similar to the books, quite more so than Marian Crawford or Nigel Bruce. Perrins was not super accurate as Douglas, but he captured the dashing part of Douglas for sure, while Carr made a very interesting Ettie (in the movie, presented as a mixture of the German Ettie and Douglas’s new American wife) and I really liked how stereotypically American she was in a very British cast! A very interesting touch. The other characters were all different from the book but good interpretations, and overall it was a good cast of characters. 

Plot: 4/5

This story mixes the retirement of Sherlock Holmes with the plot of The Valley of Fear, slightly changed—but not too much! I really enjoyed this pretty accurate take on the story. I also really liked how they added bits from The Final Problem and The Boscombe Valley to add to Moriarty, Holmes, and Watson. Of course, it is very silly to propose that it took until Holmes’ retirement for Watson to need to hear more about Moriarty, etc, but in the end it’s not so very far-fetched and it finished up quite well. 

Romance: 3/5 

Douglas + Ettie were kinda cute. Balding made for an interesting rival, to say the least.

Content: 4/5 (low)

Couple uses of de**l; drinking. 

Violence: 4/5 (low)

The book itself is very violent, and some of that violence is presented in the film; but it’s rather off-screen and nongraphical, in typical 1930s fashion. 

Overall: 4/5

A very good adaptation of The Valley of Fear. And I want to see more of Arthur Wontner as Sherlock Holmes.