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 Hound of the Baskervilles (1983 film)
In 1982, American producer Sy Weintraub partnered with English producer Otto Plaschkes to make six television films of Sherlock Holmes stories. Charles Edward Pogue was enlisted to pen the screenplays but only "The Sign of the Four" and "The Hound of the Baskervilles" were ultimately filmed before Granada Television's "Sherlock Holmes" series premiered in 1984. A proposed third film, "Hands of a Murderer" (originally entitled "The Prince of Crime") was eventually made with Edward Woodward as Sherlock Holmes and John Hillerman as Dr. John H. Watson.