It sure ain't Holmes, and yet I liked it!

I enjoyed this silent Sherlock Holmes story

Basil Rathbone, Ida Lupino, and Alan Marshal in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)

Basil Rathbone, Evelyn Ankers, and Nigel Bruce in Sherlock Holmes and the Voice of Terror (1942)

Basil Rathbone and Nigel Bruce in Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Weapon (1942)

Basil Rathbone, Hillary Brooke, Nigel Bruce, and Milburn Stone in Sherlock Holmes Faces Death (1943)

Louise Brooks in The Canary Murder Case (1929)

Clive Brook, Miriam Jordan, and Ernest Torrence in Sherlock Holmes (1932)

William Gillette in Sherlock Holmes (1916)

John Barrymore and Nita Naldi in Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1920)

Spencer Tracy, Jean Harlow, Myrna Loy, and William Powell in Libeled Lady (1936)

The Sign of Four: Sherlock Holmes' Greatest Case

Ann Todd, Clive Brook, George Formby, Victoria Hopper, Ian Hunter, and Arthur Wontner in The Sign of Four: Sherlock Holmes' Greatest Case (1932)

Sherlock Holmes und das Halsband des Todes

Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962)

There's a queer duck outside asking for you.

John Barrymore and Roland Young in Sherlock Holmes (1922)

John Barrymore and Gustav von Seyffertitz in Sherlock Holmes (1922)

Gustav von Seyffertitz in Sherlock Holmes (1922)

John Barrymore and Carol Dempster in Sherlock Holmes (1922)

John Barrymore

Roland Young

Carol Dempster

Earle Browne

Arthur Conan Doyle

Marion Fairfax

A young Sherlock Holmes seeks to bring down the criminal mastermind Moriarty as he solves a crime involving a blackmailed prince.

Albert Parker

Sherlock Holmes

It sure ain&apos;t Holmes, and yet I liked it!

The film starts out in Sherlock Holmes&apos; (John Barrymore&apos;s) college days at Cambridge. Watson (Roland Young) is rooming with Prince Alexis (Reginald Denny) who has been falsely accused of stealing the university athletic fund. Holmes, even as a student, quickly gets to the bottom of things - an apprentice to Moriarty, Forman Wells (William Powell), stole the money to escape Moriarty. Holmes is fascinated by Moriarty and decides his life work will be to bring him to justice.

Meanwhile, the prince&apos;s uncle decides, to stop any scandal, he will pay back the athletic fund to the college. At the same time the prince learns that his two older brothers have died in an accident and now he is heir to the throne. He returns to his home country after penning a letter to his fiancee that he must break their engagement because of his new position. The woman kills herself. Coincidentally, this woman is the sister of a woman that Holmes falls in love with at first sight. She disappears from Holmes&apos; life after her sister&apos;s suicide.

The years pass, and Watson is a doctor and Holmes is persistent in his battle against Moriarty. Prince Alexis has announced his marriage to a woman of royal blood. But his dead fiancee&apos;s sister is threatening to expose the prince with his love letters to her sister, with Moriarty also wanting those letters so he can blackmail the prince. Moriarty has his subordinates keeping her at a rented castle trying to get those letters away from her. At this point Holmes gets involved mainly to save the girl - from enacting bitter revenge and from Moriarty - more than to help the prince.

This film is far from perfect - it has great big plot holes in it. For example, why does the prince&apos;s fiancee kill herself? Was she pregnant? Just heartbroken? It is never said. Yet everybody blames the prince for what seems to be an outsized reaction on the girl&apos;s part. It&apos;s also hard to follow at points. Apparently Holmes&apos; house has burned, but exactly how and when this happened is not said. What is especially good is Barrymore&apos;s performance as this particular rendition of Holmes, even though Sherlock Holmes in literature was never particularly interested in women and this Holmes is a hopeless romantic. On the technical end, the picture is so dark at points that it is impossible to see what is going on, and there are not that many intertitles, but the ones that exist are very verbose.

What&apos;s really interesting is just how many future stars and just plain famous people are in this production. I&apos;ve already mentioned William Powell in his first film appearance, Roland Young, and Reginald Denny, but there is also Hedda Hopper as a henchwoman of Moriarty&apos;s, Louis Wolheim as Moriarty&apos;s muscle, and David Torrance as a count. All of these people had careers that reached well into the sound era.

The film starts out in Sherlock Holmes' (John Barrymore's) college days at Cambridge. Watson (Roland Young) is rooming with Prince Alexis (Reginald Denny) who has been falsely accused of stealing the university athletic fund. Holmes, even as a student, quickly gets to the bottom of things - an apprentice to Moriarty, Forman Wells (William Powell), stole the money to escape Moriarty. Holmes is fascinated by Moriarty and decides his life work will be to bring him to justice.

Meanwhile, the prince's uncle decides, to stop any scandal, he will pay back the athletic fund to the college. At the same time the prince learns that his two older brothers have died in an accident and now he is heir to the throne. He returns to his home country after penning a letter to his fiancee that he must break their engagement because of his new position. The woman kills herself. Coincidentally, this woman is the sister of a woman that Holmes falls in love with at first sight. She disappears from Holmes' life after her sister's suicide.

The years pass, and Watson is a doctor and Holmes is persistent in his battle against Moriarty. Prince Alexis has announced his marriage to a woman of royal blood. But his dead fiancee's sister is threatening to expose the prince with his love letters to her sister, with Moriarty also wanting those letters so he can blackmail the prince. Moriarty has his subordinates keeping her at a rented castle trying to get those letters away from her. At this point Holmes gets involved mainly to save the girl - from enacting bitter revenge and from Moriarty - more than to help the prince.

This film is far from perfect - it has great big plot holes in it. For example, why does the prince's fiancee kill herself? Was she pregnant? Just heartbroken? It is never said. Yet everybody blames the prince for what seems to be an outsized reaction on the girl's part. It's also hard to follow at points. Apparently Holmes' house has burned, but exactly how and when this happened is not said. What is especially good is Barrymore's performance as this particular rendition of Holmes, even though Sherlock Holmes in literature was never particularly interested in women and this Holmes is a hopeless romantic. On the technical end, the picture is so dark at points that it is impossible to see what is going on, and there are not that many intertitles, but the ones that exist are very verbose.

What's really interesting is just how many future stars and just plain famous people are in this production. I've already mentioned William Powell in his first film appearance, Roland Young, and Reginald Denny, but there is also Hedda Hopper as a henchwoman of Moriarty's, Louis Wolheim as Moriarty's muscle, and David Torrance as a count. All of these people had careers that reached well into the sound era.

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