Look sharp! My year in silents, 2024.

As Millicent Martin – Daphne’s mum in Frasier – almost sang, That Was the Year, That Was and I realise that’s a cultural reference to a satirical TV show popular in the UK 60 years ago but the films I’m about to list are from half a century earlier so… keep up! We’re increasingly in a world in which everything is happening at the same time, an all-at-once cultural smorgasbord from which every generation picks what they want and new controversies rise from old in cinemas, Talking Pictures TV, $treaming sites and our beloved retailers. This is the best I can do in the post festive drop down especially as I don’t really do New Year. It’s always best to look beyond and push straight on through to the other side, even if that’s 2025 and all that goes with it but we can take it, we’ve not only been there and seen it all before, we’ve experienced it ever-present in films, books and what used to be called “social” media. So, I remember the passing year and rage into the next, thinking of the very best in my opinion and in no particular order!

 

1.       Get Your Man (1927) with Meg Morley, BFI

She will make a fine wife, son. Imagine an innocent young girl… in an age when there aren’t any!

The BFI kicked off the year with a couple of fine seasons, one focused on the iconoclastic programming of the old Scala cinema and another on the almost unique filmography of director Dorothy Arzner who was able to smash the Hollywood glass ceiling with a mixture of brilliance and independence. She worked with Bow on her first talkie, The Wild Party (1929), also screened, and this rarely-screened gem which was shown on a precious 35mm recovery/restoration and even though it’s still missing a couple of reels, still impressed as Clara’s supernatural energies were allowed full expression

It was indeed, as the BFI blurb put it, “a triumphant celebration of female sexuality…” a modern day fairy-tale set in France and where Bow’s character wins over the heart of rich boy Charles “Buddy” Rogers in a lovely sequence set in a wax museum choreographed by Arzner’s partner Marion Morgan. Clara’s pluck blows away every obstacle and dusty preconception as l’ancien régime has to surrender to classless, young love.

 

2.       The Rugged Island: A Shetland Lyric (1933), with Inge Thomson, Catriona Macdonald, HippFest at Home

This film sits amongst better-known works of the thirties showing island life on the extremes but actually predates Robert J. Flaherty’s docudrama Man of Aran (1934) – the Irish island, not Arran. Director Jenny Gilbertson (née Brown) had made a number of short documentaries and was encouraged to make this film by the great Scottish documentary filmmaker John Grierson, director of Drifters (1929) and the man who coined the term "documentary" in a review of Flaherty's Moana (1926).

The result is every inch as powerfully evocative as these other films with Jenny’s previous experience of the island, the documentary A Crofter’s Life in Shetland (1931), showing a year in the life of the rugged folk of Hjaltland… more Norse than Gallic and only 30 miles closer to Scotland than Norway. She was self-trained and this is even more remarkable when you consider that she not only wrote but filmed and edited her work. The Rugged Island is a drama and yet it still feels like a genuine intrusion on the lives being portrayed, the irony here being that Gilbertson’s was sometimes described as an “amateur” and yet clearly she was consummate in terms of technique and direction with only one professional actor - Enga Stout – with the rest being her friends and others she’d cast locally.

This is exactly why I shall be returning in person for the next Hippfest in March ’25!

3.       East Lynne (1913) Restoration Premiere with Colin Sell, Kennington Bioscope

Oh, Willie, my child dead, dead, dead! and he never knew me, never called me mother!

As Christopher Bird said in his introduction, East Lynne is not a lost film as such but when quality is, as Kevin Brownlow says, the main thing archive cinema has to sell itself to modern audiences, this film has certainly been missing in terms of the vibrancy, contrast and tasty tints we glimpsed today. Chris obtained an almost complete nitrate copy from a private collector which, compared with the black and white copy held by the BFI is missing the first reel but comes with an extra three minutes and those higher quality tints. Together with fellow Bioscoper Bob Geoghegan and the BFI the restoration work is ongoing and the hope is to present the finished item at Le Giornate del Cinema Muto in Pordenone.

Even Rachel Lowe admired this British film and it’s a visual feast as it is with good use of depth-of-field, form and texture by director Bert Haldane and his photographer Oscar Bovill. That said, there are some impressive performances from a very modern-looking cast led by Blanche Forsythe as Lady Isobel, handsome Fred Paul and the steadfast Archibald Carlyle and who-ever it was playing Barbara Hare, the sister of the man falsely accused of a murder committed by Isobel’s would be paramour, Captain Levison, as played with pantomime menace by Fred Morgan.

This screening was part of the Bioscope’s 7^th Silent Film Weekender and it’s hard to compete with the range and passion of this gathering of like minds in Charlie’s old workhouse.

 

4.       The Phantom Carriage (1921), with Stephen Horne, Kennington Bioscope

 

After a few years of this silent film business, you have seen most of the cannon and have your own list of The Greats but all such classifications are blown out of the window when you see a screening like tonight’s with the right venue, the right audience and a supernatural accompaniment from Mr Stephen Horne that not only sent chills but brought out the full flavour of Victor Sjöström’s film and, indeed his own performance.

Not only was Sjöström probably Sweden’s finest silent film maker, he ranks as one of the finest of any era. Here with his fourth adaptation of one of Selma Lagerlöf’s works, he shows again why he is such a good interpreter of her work. Selma’s work is passionate and poetic and deceptively complex in expression and narrative form but I think Sjöström got her depth of meaning more than his contemporaries Stiller and Molander. As his thoroughly-disturbing performance shows, he may well have had a personal connection with this story as Chris Bird suggested in his introduction, for the Swede’s father was abusive and alcoholic just as his character David Holm. A film that never ceases to smash through the door and grab you.

Gerda Lundquist

5.       Gösta Berling’s Saga (1924), with Matti Bye, Eduardo Raon and Silvia Mandolini, Il Cinema Ritrovato XXXVII

"Finally, the vicar was in the pulpit..."

It’s fair to say that my Christmas came early with this presentation of this latest version from the Swedish Film Institute which is not just a restoration of the Saga but a remix and extended cut being not only some 20 minutes longer than the 1975 restoration which most of us have only seen up till now via the Kino release. It’s also in a slightly different narrative order with the party sequences and their two dramatic exiles re-sequenced as well as variations elsewhere, with a more dynamic mix for the burning of Ekeby and Gösta’s rescue of Marianne, a longer intro and new intertitles that carry more of the original author’s poetic wonder.

Now, I’m not saying that Mauritz Stiller’s magnificent adaptation of Selma Lagerlöf’s epic novel is perfect in fact there’s a reason he was no higher than her second favourite film director of the Nobel Prize winning author*, but the ambition wins you over along with incredible lead performances. Lars Hanson oozes confusion guilt and self-loathing, Gerda Lundequist – Sweden’s Sarah Bernhardt, a legendary stage actor – brings her power and poise to the screen whilst Jenny Hasselqvist, who had a parallel career as prima ballerina with the Royal Swedish Ballet, is magnetic, micro-managing physicality with emotional expression. There’s also young Greta Gustafson who radiates an unknowing allure that would see her soon off to Hollywood with a name change, some dental work and flattering lighting.

The restoration is crisp and revelatory, never has the camera work of the great Julius Jaenzon here looked so fine from the gorgeous sweeps of the lakes and forests to the shots on set and the performer’s expressions. It’s an epic restored in an epic way and I can’t wait to see it again at the BFI on Sunday 19^th January where I promise to keep my introduction short and to the point!

Ticket details here!

 

6.       Judex (1915-16), accompanied by many hands, Il Cinema Ritrovato XXXVII

 

I can’t deny that there was a sense of triumph having watched the whole series and thoroughly enjoyed Louis Feuillade’s sense of drama, his eye for dynamic framing, his direction and team building and his ability to keep the narrative ball rolling even when you think he’s backed himself into a dramatic dead end. That’s 12 episodes and one big Prologue with not a second missed for lack of sleep, breakfast or headache… probably!

 

It's not quite up there with Les Vampires but it does have the essentiality of Musidora playing Diana Monti aka Marie Verdier, a scheming opportunist who becomes more and more dominant the longer the story unwinds. Judex himself as played by René Cresté, is a goodie version of Fantômas, part Sherlock Holmes, maybe part Eugène-François Vidocq – an actual French criminal turned criminalist. Feuillade had been criticised for glorifying his evil masterminds and so here was one of good intent even if he does kidnap and fake the death of the businessman responsible for his father’s death and many others, Favraux (Louis Leubas) before imprisoning him for life in a remote castle. And that’s just the start…

7.       Love ‘Em and Leave ‘Em (1926), BFI with Meg Morley

 

This blog has been driven by obsession and a subjective emotional “canon” from its earliest days (no, please don’t look!) and Louise Brooks has, of course been the main one, with a copy of Pandora’s Box on DVD bought from a second-hand shop in Park Street, Bristol in 2005 starting off the whole interest – yes, Bristol, it’s really your fault! This film is one of the few remaining unseen on-screen and viewing the BFI’s worn, warm and wonderful 16mm flickering on the NFT2 screen, with Meg Morley’s wonderful syncopations and sparkling improvisations following an introduction from Bryony Dixon has, to paraphrase the poet, helped make not only my day, my week, my month and even my year.

They may have been chalk and cheese but Evelyn Brent and Louise Brooks make for a good team in this light-hearted drama in which the former plays the sensible big sister who has to rescue her less sensible sibling from all kinds of trouble. It’s a gas and we do get to see Brooksie dance which is always a bonus!

 

Conchita Montenegro

8.       The Woman and the Puppet (1929), with Günter A. Buchwald, Bonn Silent Film Festival 2024 streaming

Every so often a silent film not only surprises you but pulls you to the edge of your armchair and has you blinking at the screen in delight. So, it is with the story and the actress in La femme et le pantin (1929) in which Conchita Montenegro’s dancer not only beguiles and bewilders her puppet, Don Mateo, she completely un-mans him in the most feminist of ways reaching right out from 1929 with dazzling power and beauty. If anyone has a thousand ships that need launching… here’s your woman!

 

Based on Pierre Louÿs’ 1898 novel of the same name, the story was adapted as an opera in 1911 by composer Riccardo Zandonai, and it was also filmed as That Obscure Object of Desire (1977) by Luis Buñuel. The first film version was an American film made in 1920 and directed by Reginald Barker, starring Geraldine Farrar, which is a little surprising given Louÿs’ background of erotic prose and poetry. Indeed, he was the man to whom Oscar Wilde dedicated the original French publication of Salome. Director de Baroncelli’s film is presumably far bolder than any Hollywood film could have been as, indeed, is his star performer and, it’s difficult to see anything like a literal adaptation being made anywhere else but France at this time. It is an eye-popping and an expectation-confounding work!

 

9.       The Blue Bird (1918) with Neil Brand and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto

Maurice Tourneur's film featured regular collaborators such as art director Ben Carré, cinematographer John van den Broke and editor Clarence Brown. This was silent psychedelia in full bloom at a time when the World needed to believe in eternal truths and the truth of eternity. When in the heart of their fantastic journey to find the Blue Bird, the two youngsters meet not only their dead grandparents but their dead brothers and sisters, there are at least ten of them... this was a time when infant mortality was high and life came with the flimsiest of "guarantees".

The film is a sumptuous collection of such moments and visual set pieces, a hyper-creative comfort blanket that smuggles through the simple message that there's not only no place like home but that kindness must spread out from there into the heart-broken World beyond. Tourneur draws pure and naturalistic performances from his cast of children, 12-year old Tula Belle as Mytyl and Robin Macdougall as Tyltyl who react and act with genuine thrill to every new wonder. It's a child's film with many adult concerns.

The accompaniment from Neil Brand on piano and Elizabeth-Jane Baldry on harp brought the magic out across the auditorium and melted our stubborn hearts.

 

10.   Saxaphon-Susi (1928) with Neil Brand, Frank Bockius and Francesco Bearzatti, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto

 

Miss Saxophone was the most legal of highs, a mood-altering event with fabulous cast and sincerely joyous accompaniment from a powerhouse ensemble that left the Teatro Verdi at severe risk of an outbreak of dancing! Up on screen we had Anny Ondra showing us how fine she could look and how well she could dance and also make comedy – not for nothing should she have been called the Czech Republic’s Queen of Happiness or maybe most of Europe’s. She plays Anni von Aspen, a poor little rich girl daughter of the lecherous Baron von Aspen (the marvellous Gaston Jacquet) who wants to trade places with her working gal pal Susi Hille (Mary Parker), a cabaret dancer who gets the chance to become a Tiller Girl in London. They swap assignments with Susi heading off to posh school and Anni having to learn her dancing ropes fast.

On the boat over they meet some fine English gentlemen including Lord Herbert Southcliffe (Malcolm Tod) who takes a bet that he can get in to meet the Tiller Girls backstage and then another bet that he will marry this special one called Susi (Anni)… It’s not much of a plot but it’s enough to make this amongst the most enjoyable and warmest of comedies with this fabulously charming cast.

Any programmers reading… I think I’d like to see this one again please! 

 

Ra Messerer

11.   The Second Wife (1927) with Gunter Buchwald and Frank Bockius, Le Giornate del Cinema Muto

 

To Uzbekistan and this extraordinary film from Mikhail Devonov based on a story by Lolakhon Saifullina, a polish woman who married an Uzbek man and converted to Islam. It’s a reflection of the enormity of the old USSR and the challenges Moscow faced in co-ordinating so many diverse cultures into one modernising state. Saifullina worked for the Sharq Yulduzi studio writing scripts sensitive to the issues of Uzbeki women her along with former legal consultant Valentina Sobberey. The result is a tale in which women and children are exploited by old male custom and dominance even as the modern day watcher is aware of the wider context of Stalin’s impending first Five Year Plan and the eventual costs of converting an agrarian economy into an industrialised one.

Director Devonov does not lapse into bucolic orientalism and focuses on the story and the depiction of prevalent practices of early marriage and polygamy. Here a merchant’s first wife Khadycha cannot have children and so he has a second wife, Adoliat (Ra Messerer) who can.  A child duly arrives and Khadycha tries to destroy her competitor. She is far from alone in malevolence as his brother Sadiqbai (Mikhail Doronin), steals money whilst his older brother is away and also preys on young boys, as things escalate elsewhere. It’s propagandist but still shows the harshness of unresolved “tradition” and male power.

 

Eille looks down at Alexandra Palace, photo credit Yves Salmon 

12.   Silent Sherlock, London Film Festival, Alexandra Palace Theatre with Neil Brand, Joseph Havlat and Joanna MacGregor with Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble

 

This was the grandest of archival screenings at the London Film Festival for some time and featured the first fruits of the BFI’s restoration of Stoll Films Sherlock Holmes films. The Stoll corporation made three series of 15 episodes and two feature films, all featuring Eille Norwood as the great detective a performer that Conan Doyle approved of in the role, both on stage and on screen. The three films featured new scores from Neil Brand, Joseph Havlat and Joanna MacGregor who conducted the Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble, leading from the piano.

 

The programme is ongoing and I can’t wait for the further adventures of both the BFI Restoration Team as well as The Great Detective in 2025.

 

My 1924 Danish promotional booklet... Book Now for 19th!!

 

*Lagerlöf berated Mauritz Stiller for his adaptation of The Gösta Berling Saga calling it “cheap and sensational”.

Elementary… Silent Sherlock, London Film Festival, Alexandra Palace

If it’s Wednesday it must be London and the magnificent, arrested decay of the Alexandra Palace Theatre which as the BFI’s Jean Mitri awardee Bryony Dixon said in her introduction was not only contemporary with Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series as published in The Strand magazine but also the films based on his work made by the Stoll Picture Company. The Theatre was originally opened in 1875 and was screening films as early as 1906 with the tin projector room installed in the early twenties still remaining. After 80 years of closure, the venue is being restored in much the same way as these three films we saw screened, with just 44 more to go…

 

This was the grandest of archival screenings at the London Film Festival for some time and featured new scores from Neil Brand, Joseph Havlat and Joanna MacGregor who conducted the Royal Academy of Music Soloists Ensemble, leading from the piano. My mother was a huge appreciator of Ms MacGregor’s classical work and she would have loved this evening of exemplary musicality and performance.

 

The Stoll corporation made three series of 15 episodes and two feature films, all featuring Eille Norwood as the great detective a performer that Conan Doyle approved of in the role, both on stage and on screen. A vastly experienced stage actor, Norwood so impressed the author with his obsessive attempts to bring every detail of Holmes to light that he gushed about his “brooding eye” and his “rare quality, which can only be described as glamour, which compels you to watch an actor eagerly even when he is doing nothing.”

 

Screen presence - Eille Norwood  (Photo Yves Salmon BFI) 

That original materials survive for these films is remarkable but as Bryony pointed out, duplicate positives were made in the fifties and sixties and so the BFI was thinking ahead – not for nothing is it one of the leading archives in the world. For two of these films those duplicated formed the basis of photochemical and digital restoration whilst the third, the shattering The Final Problem (1923), was based on a tinted nitrate original and looked stunning.

 

That film left us literally on a cliff-hanger but the future of this series is ensured and I look forward to watching everyone… the French may have had Louis Feuillade but we had Maurice Elvey and then George Ridgwell, who directed the second and third series. The project is in collaboration with Iron Mountain Entertainment and will make this unique collection available on home media as well as on the big screen. Tonight, we had episodes from across the series all of which showed the flavour of the Eile Sherlock and the ways these wonderful stories were adapted for the big screen.

 

Sherlock and the King of Bohemia (Alfred Drayton)

A Scandal in Bohemia (1921), score Joseph Havlat

 

This was the seventh in the series and Norwood crams a lot of character into his screen time ably enabled by Elvey’s economy and focus. So many stock Sherlock moments are concentrated into this film that it underlines Doyle's desciption of “glamour”: one early example is the detective noticing that his companion Dr Watson (the ever-present Hubert Willis) has employed a new housemaid who has been over-rigorous in cleaning his shoes. I noticed that modern Sherlock writer, Stephen Moffat was on hand and probably making notes furiously!

 

Doyle was impressed with Norwood’s “quite unrivalled power of disguise…” and in Scandal we’re treated to a taxicab driver so convincing that The Strand reported he was nearly ejected from the studios as a trespasser! He also plays a non-conformist minister in his attempts to trick Irene Adler (Joan Beverley) into revealing the whereabouts of her incriminating pictures of her affair with the King of Bohemia (Alfred Drayton). Of course, Watson is fooled every time but Miss Adler proves to be altogether as smart as Sherlock… 

 

Miles Mander makes an appearance as Godfrey Norton, Irene’s true love interest and – surprisingly perhaps for those who have seen his later silent work, he’s not a bounder but a thoroughly decent chap!

 

Watson, Prof Coram (Cecil Morton York) and Sherlock

The Golden Prince-Nez (1922), score Neil Brand

The quirkiest of the three, this puzzler was the 14^th of the second series – directed by George Ridgwell who covered series two and three after Elvey moved on – and  involved the death of one Professor Coram’s secretary, who died clutching his killer’s eyeglasses in his hand. Sherlock quickly deduces that the murderer was a short-sighted woman with a broad nose and so it proves just not the one the police grab. There’s always a twist and a logical explanation and this one was a doozy.

 

Norwood has such presence and also a twinkle in his eye – his Sherlock enjoys the challenges and, just like our puppy Mungo, likes showing off how clever he is! Here the mystery is “readable” by the viewers and we can join in matching wits with the detective and the guilty parties.

 

Percy Standing and Eille grappling...

The Final Problem (1923), score Joanna MacGregor

 

To Cheddar Gorge and the culmination of Sherlock’s final battle with his criminal nemesis, Professor Moriarty… This was the last of the series and was directed by George Ridgwell. Here Holmes faces his evil equal, Moriarty (Percy Standing) with both men nearing the end of their tether after a series of bruising score draws in the streets of London. Sherlock makes a number of early signifying references to being willing to stop the man even at the cost of his own life.

 

He thwarts the evil schemer one more time and, leaving instructions with the police of Moriarty’s gang’s secret lair, heads of for some relaxation with Watson at Cheddar Gorge… it’s not quite the Reichenbach Falls but you may guess what’s coming. This featured stunning tints - restored from an original nitrate print – which really brought out the flavours of the locations and the epic battle of wits.

 

The orchestrations were powerful and evocative with each composer taking a slightly different route but delivering compositionally and as scores illustrating these timeless tales. Norwood plus time equals more or less Cumberbatch and I have the spirit of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle on my side. MacGregor tackled her dual role with ease and the players brought out rich textures in each approach creating a seamless whole of pure invention, deduction and delightful problem-solving verve!

 

Neil Brand and Joseph Havlat take their bows (Photo Yves Salmon BFI) 

The Final Problem was written in 1893 and viewers of 1923 would have been fully aware that Sherlock would return as he did originally in 1903’s The Adventure of the Empty House… but, as then, the finale here seems final. But, gentle reader, do not worry about our favourite sleuth for he will return, along with Maurice Elvey, in the feature film The Sign of Four (1923).

 

And now we must await further developments and restorations for the rest of the series; this was a most exciting entrée to the programme and probably the biggest such undertaking since the Hitchcock Nine back in 2012. I can’t wait.

Joanna MacGregor (Photo Yves Salmon BFI) 

Alexandra Palace Theatre

Fourth row back, chap with the beard, looks quite concerned... that's me! (Photo Colby Todisco BFI)

The end for Elvey and Eille... The Sign of Four (1923), Barbican with John Sweeney

We were warned before the performance to expect some vintage British racism and a high-speed motorboat chase – and the film didn’t disappoint.

The Sign of Four was released some months after the third and final series of shorter Sherlocks from Stoll films and, as the audience clearly knew, their hero’s fall from Cheddar Gorge in The Final Problem (1923) was far from fatal.

It marked the return of Maurice Elvey as director and his deft touches ensure a thrilling end to the franchise as Eille Norwood exits in style being much more at the centre of things than in the first Stoll feature when the Baskerville hound tended to dominate as The Great Detective went deep, deep undercover. Here, as in the three shorts shown earlier this month at the Barbican, Norwood emphatically demonstrates what Conan Doyle described as: “…the brooding eye which excites expectation” along with  his “… quite unrivalled power of disguise."

"...unrivalled power of disguise..."

Norwood explained his Sherlock method in the Stoll newsletter in 1921: “My idea of Holmes is that he is absolutely quiet. Nothing ruffles him, but he is a man who intuitively seizes on points without revealing that he has done so, and nurses them with complete inaction until the moment when he is called upon to exercise his wonderful detective powers…”

Norwood is indeed a remarkably “still” presence and his darting eyes, hooded by decades of actorly observation, never reveal all they have clearly seen…

Now for the awkward part… The film is over 90 year’s old and the story even older…when the Orient was often associated with dangerous mystery. The film starts with the arrival of Prince Abdullah Khan (Fred Raynham… yes; Fred!) at 222 Baker Street who spooks the life out of Mrs Hudson (Madame d'Esterre) with strange and intense looks. He also bothers Sherlock and Watson (here played by Arthur M. Cullin following the untimely death of Mr Willis after the end of the last series) by pretending to be Russian before Sherlock exposes him as an Indian… The nuances are lost on modern viewers but in the early Twenties the former could be heroic White Russians and the latter rebellious nationalist-terrorists.

The Prince has come to enlist the detective in finding a missing woman but is sent away with a flea in his ear for his deception, coincidentally passing the woman in question on her way in as he skulks off into the pearly-grey bustle of Baker Street.

Isobel Elsom

The woman is one Mary Morstan (Isobel Elsom soon to be the third Mrs Elvey) who wants Holmes to investigate the murder of her father – killed by a most un-British poisoned dart - and the pearls she receives every year from an address in Twickenham. She also has a mysterious set of four signs found on her father’s body: what do they mean for his death?

Holmes looks to camera and the title card reads “This should be exciting!” The boys are back in their well-honed routine and Eille and audience couldn’t be happier.

Sherlock soon deduces that the signs indicate a conspiracy between four men and that, whilst Miss Morstan’s father was almost certainly one of the four, another must have broken away and, through guilt, started sending the gifts to his daughter. Clearly the Prince is also connected…

Mary receives a message asking her to rendezvous at the American embassy at 7.45 pm, where she will learn more of her father’s demise. She keeps the appointment with Holmes and Watson in tow. There’s a function on at the embassy and Elvey creates a fascinating scene with ordinary London faces gawping with envious curiosity at the bright young things arriving in their rich attire – it feels like a pointedly political moment.

Man of mysteries

A man approaches Mary and takes her, Holmes and Watson to a large run-down house on the river bank at Twickenham. The boys soon disarm the man and discover he is Doctor Sholto (Humberston Wright) part of the conspiracy of four and in fear of his life from the two others.

The scene shifts to what looks convincingly like location shooting in India where the plot was hatched by prisoners who knew the location of stolen treasure. Mary’s father was the governor and he was included in the scheme… but Sholto made off with all of the loot himself leaving the other two, the Prince and Jonathan Small (Norman Page) to suspect and kill the Governor as their prime suspect.

Sholto goes to another room to fetch the treasure but is killed before he or his assailant can locate the treasure… and the game is truly on…

Sherlock gets to try a few disguises as the plot turns slightly procedural and the police arrive to jump to the wrong conclusions. This is, of course, normally Watson’s role but when he’s not paying close attention to Mary he’s being tortured by the baddies about that lost loot.

In spite of the police contribution, Sherlock gradually establishes the actuality and everything culminates in a genuinely thrilling race between motorboats and cars during which Elvey ticks off London locations from bridges Kew, Hammersmith and Tower to Fleet Street and the Strand: like one of those contrived “races” on Top Gear only better and without that Yorkshire bloke.

"Help" from the Police

Elvey cuts quickly throughout and this last passage has smoothly multi-tracked perils like DW Griffith on fast forward – and yet this is a very British application of the technique being used to move the story along with maximum efficiency. A fitting end to the series and one that felt thoroughly modern.

John Sweeney was seen warming up his hands before kick-off and he needed considerable dexterity to keep pace. His improvisations expertly supported the story and, along with Messrs Brand and Horne he shows what a difference individual style makes to the silent experience. Every live performance is unique and this adds musical tales of the unexpected to every “fixed” silent text… Excellent entertainment for a windy Sunday afternoon!

The Sign of Four is only available from the BFI archives but hopefully these Barbican screenings will help it and the other Elvey/Norwood films get greater recognition.

Meanwhile, there’s more! Stephen Horne will be playing along to three Stoll shorts at the Phoenix Cinema on Sunday 5^th April - details on their website.

Detective deceptive... A Scandal in Bohemia (1921) and other shorts, Barbican with Stephen Horne

And this is the real me...on the right.

You know how TV series adaptations rarely work as well once transferred to the big screen? I think that the same may have been true of the Stoll Sherlock Holmes serials and their feature length off-shoots.

Between 1921 and 1923 three series of 15 roughly half hour episodes were made by the company all of which featured Eille Norwood as Holmes and Hubert Willis as Dr Watson. Two feature films were made of which the first was The Hound of the Baskervilles from 1922. Directed by Maurice Elvey – who directed the first series – the film doesn’t quite have the intensity of the short form blasts that had Sir Arthur Conan Doyle so impressed with Norwood’s performance.

Eille Norwood's disguise fools Joan Beverley... or does it?!

In these shorts we see far more of the Great Detective and his special abilities, intuitive leaps based on uncanny close observation all disguised by a moody detachment as well as his mastery of disguise… We may laugh a little now – not me but some of the audience – but Norwood was so adept at these physical transformations that he often tricked Elvey – who failed to recognise the bearded, shorter man before him as his Holmes rather than another hopeful come to audition for Watson.

Such japes are set out in the July 1921 copy of The Strand magazine which can be found on the Internet Archive. There’s an interview with Norwood in the very magazine in which Doyle first serialised Holmes and it reads like a very modern behind-the-scenes tale of the actor explaining his craft. Clearly Sherlock was as big a deal in 1921 as it was in 2010 when the Cumberbatch version took off, although Benedict will never know just how close the original author thought he was to his creation.

Is it a non-conformist minister or... a detective?

A Scandal in Bohemia (1921)

This was the seventh in the series and Norwood crams a lot of character into his screen time able enabled by Elvey’s economy and focus. So many stock Sherlock moments are concentrated into this film that it presents a much better impression of the actor Doyle described as having that rare quality of “glamour”.

Doyle was also impressed with his “quite unrivalled power of disguise…” and in Scandal we’re treated to a taxi cab driver so convincing that The Strand reported he was nearly ejected from the studios as a trespasser! He also plays a non-conformist minister in his attempts to trick Irene Adler (Joan Beverley) into revealing the whereabouts of her incriminating pictures of her affair with the King of Bohemia (Alfred Drayton).

A cab driver or a violin player?!

Of course Watson (the ever-present Hubert Willis) is fooled every time but Miss Adler proves to be altogether as smart as Sherlock…  

Miles Mander makes an appearance as Godfrey Norton, Irene’s true love interest and – surprisingly perhaps for those who have seen his later silent work, he’s not a bounder but a thoroughly decent chap!

The Man with the Twisted Lip (1921)

Made just after Scandal, this twisted tale was not one of Sir Doyle’s finest narratives… but the film does again show a playful, energetically-committed performance from Mr Norwood who was clearly having the time of his life.

Fooled you again Watson!

The story revolves around the disappearance of suburbanite Neville St. Clair (Robert Vallis) who is "something in the City" and its mysterious connection to the titular beggar man. Mrs. Nellie St. Clair (Paulette del Baze) witnesses the abduction and Sherlock is called in when the police can find no trace of her husband.

It’s a mystery and – as far as the plot is concerned – the Sherlock quote “… when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?” was never more apt…

Elvey does, however, create a wonderfully dark London and the beggar’s pitch near Piccadilly is well chosen. You can find the film on YouTube but the 35mm prints we saw tonight were far cleaner and very well preserved. It’s always good to watch projected film!

The Final Problem (1923)

This was the last of the series and was directed by George Ridgwell who covered series two and three after Elvey moved on.

Here Holmes faces his greatest adversary Professor Moriarty (Percy Standing) both me n nearing the end of their tether after a series of bruising score draws in the streets of London. Sherlock makes a number of early signifying references to being willing to stop his nemesis even at the cost of his own life.

Will the make up come off for the last time?

He thwarts the evil schemer one more time and heads of for some relaxation with Watson at Cheddar Gorge… it’s not quite the Reichenbach Falls but you may guess what’s coming.

Two years on from the first two films and with a less able director, the film isn’t quite as enjoyable but that’s probably also because we know what’s coming…

The Final Problem was written in 1893 and viewers would have been fully aware that Sherlock would return in 1903’s The Adventure of the Empty House… at least Doyle told his audience how the Great Detective pulled it off.

Actor and author

Musical support was provided by Mr Stephen Horne who provided sympathetic syncopation on his usual array of instruments. Stephen’s music is improvised but he wove common themes across the three films and we may have a theme tune in progress for any future box set!

I took my mother, no mean pianist herself and a season ticket holder at the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic (for which her brother played for three decades) and she loved Stephen’s playing both in technical terms as well compositional: playing without music and on the spot he always manages to merge his sound with the vision.

Stephen is also playing along to another triple bill of Sherlock at the Pheonix Cinema on Sunday 5^th April – details are on their website. Don’t miss it if you want to see the closest thing to the real Sherlock Holmes… and that’s according to Sir Conan Doyle himself.