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", with H. Kyrle Bellew and J. Barney Sherry in unlisted roles. It was long believed that the film starred Maurice Costello as Sherlock Holmes, but Leslie S. Klinger has written that the identification of Costello in the role is flawed. Klinger states that the first identification of Costello with the role was in Michael Pointer's "Public Life of Sherlock Holmes" published in 1975 but Pointer later realized his error and wrote to Klinger stating
The Return of Sherlock Holmes (1929 film)
The Return of Sherlock Holmes is a 1929 American Pre-Code mystery film directed by Basil Dean and written by Arthur Conan Doyle, Basil Dean and Garrett Fort. The film shares its title with the third volume of the Sherlock Holmes stories, "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" by Arthur Conan Doyle. The film stars Clive Brook, H. Reeves-Smith, Betty Lawford, Charles Hay and Phillips Holmes. The film was released October 29, 1929, by Paramount Pictures. A copy is held at the Library of Congress."The Return of Sherlock Holmes" was the first sound film to feature Sherlock Holmes. A silent version of the film was also produced to accommodate theaters which did not feature sound.