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.
The Adventure of the Devil's Foot
"The Devil's Foot" served as the basis for a 1921 short film starring Eille Norwood as Sherlock Holmes, an episode of the 1965 television series "Sherlock Holmes" starring Douglas Wilmer (with Nigel Stock as Dr Watson and Patrick Troughton as Mortimer Tregennis), and a 1988 episode of "The Return of Sherlock Holmes" starring Jeremy Brett.