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Andrew's copy of Sherlock Holmes (1916), starring William Gillette, arrived today. I'll probably need to watch it at least once more before commenting in detail, but I'm sure Andrew will watch it many times again so that shouldn't be too difficult. Things that come to mind:
First off, the digital restoration and the blu-ray transfer has made the sets and costumes look sort of hyper-detailed. I can't guess if this is how the film looked in 1916 (or rather in 1920, as this is the French serial cut), but it gives the piece the feel of an engraved illustration.
I had never seen Gillette except in stills, but his face felt immediately familiar. I suggested he looked a little like an older James Marstairs; Andrew thought he looked more like George C. Scott.
The movie is adapted from Gillette's stage play, and has the faults of its script. It's *very* loosely based on "A Scandal in Bohemia," but with a virginal heroine guarding her deceased sister's love letters, both from political envoys and from the blackmail ring trying to torture the papers out of her for their own devious ends. It's not really played as a mystery or an action movie, but a psychological drama -- Holmes locates the girl so easily the screen doesn't even bother to show the search, but he's got to persuade her to work with him. This so far as I can reason, are the heroine's motives; they weren't that clearly evident from watching, but that may have been my lack of attention and not the actress' fault.
The supporting actors were generally excellent. The villainous Mrs. Laramie was evidently having great fun; she was like an evil Margaret Dumont. The Watson was good, but mostly sidelined.
The DVD extras included an oddity -- Gillette, in his retirement, had a half-scale train and track built on his property, and some time in the early 1930s a film crew set out to do a documentary on the old actor's hobby; the footage on the blu-ray, though, was unedited: between chatting about his train Gillette relaxes and chats with someone behind the camera. It was a curious slice of a day eighty-five years ago.
First off, the digital restoration and the blu-ray transfer has made the sets and costumes look sort of hyper-detailed. I can't guess if this is how the film looked in 1916 (or rather in 1920, as this is the French serial cut), but it gives the piece the feel of an engraved illustration.
I had never seen Gillette except in stills, but his face felt immediately familiar. I suggested he looked a little like an older James Marstairs; Andrew thought he looked more like George C. Scott.
The movie is adapted from Gillette's stage play, and has the faults of its script. It's *very* loosely based on "A Scandal in Bohemia," but with a virginal heroine guarding her deceased sister's love letters, both from political envoys and from the blackmail ring trying to torture the papers out of her for their own devious ends. It's not really played as a mystery or an action movie, but a psychological drama -- Holmes locates the girl so easily the screen doesn't even bother to show the search, but he's got to persuade her to work with him. This so far as I can reason, are the heroine's motives; they weren't that clearly evident from watching, but that may have been my lack of attention and not the actress' fault.
The supporting actors were generally excellent. The villainous Mrs. Laramie was evidently having great fun; she was like an evil Margaret Dumont. The Watson was good, but mostly sidelined.
The DVD extras included an oddity -- Gillette, in his retirement, had a half-scale train and track built on his property, and some time in the early 1930s a film crew set out to do a documentary on the old actor's hobby; the footage on the blu-ray, though, was unedited: between chatting about his train Gillette relaxes and chats with someone behind the camera. It was a curious slice of a day eighty-five years ago.
