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.
Sherlock Holmes (play)
In 1916, a silent film of the play also entitled "Sherlock Holmes" featured William Gillette in the role of Holmes and has been called "the most elaborate of the early movies". It is one of the earliest American film adaptations of the Holmes character. Long thought to be a lost film, a print of the film was found in the Cinémathèque Française's collection in October 2014. It was restored and screened in 2015.