Literary adaptation
Works of literature have been adapted for film from the dawn of the industry. Some of the earliest examples come from the work of Georges Méliès, who pioneered many film techniques. In 1899, he released two adaptations — "Cinderella" based on the Brothers Grimm story of the same name and "King John", the first known film to be based on the works of Shakespeare. The 1900 film "Sherlock Holmes Baffled", directed by Arthur Marvin featured Arthur Conan Doyle's detective character Sherlock Holmes intruding upon a pseudo-supernatural burglary. The film, considered the first detective movie, ran for only 30 seconds and was originally intended to be shown in hand-cranked Mutoscope machines.
Adaptations of Sherlock Holmes
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".