Classic movie site with rare images, original ads, and behind-the-scenes photos, with informative and insightful commentary. We like to have fun with movies!
Archive and Links
grbrpix@aol.com
Search Index Here




Monday, July 15, 2013

The Game Afoot Again


Arthur Wontner Is 1931's Sherlock Holmes

Something of a fuddy-duddy that takes getting used to, Arthur Wontner would embody Sherlock Holmes for Britishers over a quintet of Doyle adaptations, and chances are we'd like him better given access to more of Wontner's SH output (one appears lost, others elusive in good prints). He's unfailingly polite (unlike aggressor Rathbone) and tactful to a fault with associates less bright. Crime's emissary is dreaded Prof. Moriarty, a master of disguise with headquarters in a cobbler's flat, humble digs a consequence of Twickenham budget constraint and locked- indoors shooting. Sherlock Holmes' Fatal Hour is best approached as an antique curio of primary interest to Doyle devotees and those striking off actor interprets of the famed sleuth, in this case my first, but hopefully not last, exposure to Wontner's SH. TCM played Fatal Hour, it appearing to derive from a single print found in the US after years of  the film gone missing. Being Public Domain, there are multiple disc versions in circulation.

8 Comments:

Blogger Michael said...

The later ones are a little bit better just because it's 1935, not 1931. But Wontner's Holmes, though the spitting image of the Paget illustrations (which Jeremy Brett also followed), is too avuncular-- there's none of the snappishness that is the other necessary half of Holmes' personality and makes him a difficult friend. I was quite the Sherlockian as a kid, and always heard Wontner talked up over Basil Rathbone (because he didn't fight Nazis and because his Watson wasn't a lovable moron), even bringing Holmes expert John Bennett Shaw to the film society I ran for a talk and screening of The Sign of Four, but as soon as Brett came along I think the love for Wontner among the diehards dried up.

It's ironic that he played Holmes so softly, because Wontner's few familiar later roles do have some of the bite his Holmes lacked, notably the sarcastic diplomat he plays in Colonel Blimp. He had a great one-scene moment at the end of Genevieve, as a man who had owned one of the old cars seen in the film long before and reminds the protagonist why he loved the car in the first place.

8:12 PM  
Blogger Kevin K. said...

I saw one of the Wontner Holmes movies on TMC a few months back -- it could have been this one, I really can't be sure. It had all the hallmarks of the early UK talkies -- more static than their US counterparts, mediocre sound, stolid acting. Yet I got the feeling that Holmes, Watson and even Lestrade were closer to their literary creations than the Rathbone pictures, even though I've never read any of them.

10:04 PM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

Michael, I had clear forgot about Wontner's part in "Genevieve," one of my favorite British pics from the 50's.

Too bad he didn't get the opportunity to play Holmes later in the 30's, or even the 40's.

7:53 AM  
Blogger Michael said...

Unlike the 20s and 30s when lots of people played the parts, Rathbone seems to have scared everyone else out of the Holmes business-- there's no English-language Holmes feature film after the last Rathbone-Bruce one in '46 until Hammer's Hound of the Baskervilles in 1959.

Incidentally, the one Shaw showed (and thought was the best) wasn't The Sign of Four, it was The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes, based on The Valley of Fear. The other one that seemed most fluid as filmmaking is Silver Blaze/Murder at the Baskervilles.

12:37 PM  
Blogger Eddie Selover said...

As a Holmes buff, I spent years reading tributes to Wontner, but time hasn't been kind to him. In one film (maybe Sign of Four, I'd have to check), his hair actually looks like it was *painted* on his head, like Groucho's mustache. Aside from being a shade too passive and whimsical, he's also too old for the part -- his voice is a problem. Personally I think Rathbone is still way in front in the Holmes sweepstakes, though Brett was fascinating before illness derailed him.

2:14 PM  
Blogger Michael said...

Okay, one last bit of Wontner trivia. He and Rathbone actually appeared in a play together once. Not only that... they were both arrested for being in the play! Here's the story (complete with picture of the two famous Holmeses together):

http://www.basilrathbone.net/theater/captive/captive.htm

3:11 PM  
Blogger John McElwee said...

A play which also featured the first Mrs. Bogart, Helen Menken.

3:16 PM  
Blogger Jim Lane said...

I've only seen one of the Wontner Holmses, 1935's The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes, the VHS of which is squirrelled away somewhere out in the garage. I remember little of it beyond a hazy sense that it's not bad, and Wontner a decent enough Holmes.

But I distinctly remember that it has one of my favorite lines in any Sherlock Holmes story -- original, dramatized, or pastiche. Inspector Lestrade stops by Baker Street and asks Holmes to consult on a particularly knotty problem, saying: "If you'll come along with me, Mr. Holmes, I'll tell you everything I know on the way." To which Holmes responds: "Ah, so we won't be going far then?"

4:09 AM  

Post a Comment

<< Home

grbrpix@aol.com
  • December 2005
  • January 2006
  • February 2006
  • March 2006
  • April 2006
  • May 2006
  • June 2006
  • July 2006
  • August 2006
  • September 2006
  • October 2006
  • November 2006
  • December 2006
  • January 2007
  • February 2007
  • March 2007
  • April 2007
  • May 2007
  • June 2007
  • July 2007
  • August 2007
  • September 2007
  • October 2007
  • November 2007
  • December 2007
  • January 2008
  • February 2008
  • March 2008
  • April 2008
  • May 2008
  • June 2008
  • July 2008
  • August 2008
  • September 2008
  • October 2008
  • November 2008
  • December 2008
  • January 2009
  • February 2009
  • March 2009
  • April 2009
  • May 2009
  • June 2009
  • July 2009
  • August 2009
  • September 2009
  • October 2009
  • November 2009
  • December 2009
  • January 2010
  • February 2010
  • March 2010
  • April 2010
  • May 2010
  • June 2010
  • July 2010
  • August 2010
  • September 2010
  • October 2010
  • November 2010
  • December 2010
  • January 2011
  • February 2011
  • March 2011
  • April 2011
  • May 2011
  • June 2011
  • July 2011
  • August 2011
  • September 2011
  • October 2011
  • November 2011
  • December 2011
  • January 2012
  • February 2012
  • March 2012
  • April 2012
  • May 2012
  • June 2012
  • July 2012
  • August 2012
  • September 2012
  • October 2012
  • November 2012
  • December 2012
  • January 2013
  • February 2013
  • March 2013
  • April 2013
  • May 2013
  • June 2013
  • July 2013
  • August 2013
  • September 2013
  • October 2013
  • November 2013
  • December 2013
  • January 2014
  • February 2014
  • March 2014
  • April 2014
  • May 2014
  • June 2014
  • July 2014
  • August 2014
  • September 2014
  • October 2014
  • November 2014
  • December 2014
  • January 2015
  • February 2015
  • March 2015
  • April 2015
  • May 2015
  • June 2015
  • July 2015
  • August 2015
  • September 2015
  • October 2015
  • November 2015
  • December 2015
  • January 2016
  • February 2016
  • March 2016
  • April 2016
  • May 2016
  • June 2016
  • July 2016
  • August 2016
  • September 2016
  • October 2016
  • November 2016
  • December 2016
  • January 2017
  • February 2017
  • March 2017
  • April 2017
  • May 2017
  • June 2017
  • July 2017
  • August 2017
  • September 2017
  • October 2017
  • November 2017
  • December 2017
  • January 2018
  • February 2018
  • March 2018
  • April 2018
  • May 2018
  • June 2018
  • July 2018
  • August 2018
  • September 2018
  • October 2018
  • November 2018
  • December 2018
  • January 2019
  • February 2019
  • March 2019
  • April 2019
  • May 2019
  • June 2019
  • July 2019
  • August 2019
  • September 2019
  • October 2019
  • November 2019
  • December 2019
  • January 2020
  • February 2020
  • March 2020
  • April 2020
  • May 2020
  • June 2020
  • July 2020
  • August 2020
  • September 2020
  • October 2020
  • November 2020
  • December 2020
  • January 2021
  • February 2021
  • March 2021
  • April 2021
  • May 2021
  • June 2021
  • July 2021
  • August 2021
  • September 2021
  • October 2021
  • November 2021
  • December 2021
  • January 2022
  • February 2022
  • March 2022
  • April 2022
  • May 2022
  • June 2022
  • July 2022
  • August 2022
  • September 2022
  • October 2022
  • November 2022
  • December 2022
  • January 2023
  • February 2023
  • March 2023
  • April 2023
  • May 2023
  • June 2023
  • July 2023
  • August 2023
  • September 2023
  • October 2023
  • November 2023
  • December 2023
  • January 2024
  • February 2024
  • March 2024