The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (1935)

I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.

Watch something else. There are very few redeeming qualities to this film.

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

I don't have a problem with Arthur Wontner as Sherlock Holmes, Ian Fleming as Dr. Watson or Lyn Harding as Prof. Moriarty - they are quite good. It's the way this story is written that I was not crazy about - it is mainly in flashback form told by Ettie Douglas, the wife of the slain man John Douglas. The film is interesting in it's way but it's not the greatest Wontner/Holmes film I've seen either.I also agree that it's not like Sherlock Holmes to retire - completely out of character for him - and Holmes is suppose be in retirement in Sussex when this story begins and brings him back out of retirement. Very strange to add this if you ask me.At any rate, it's not a terrible Holmes film but it's not a grand film - still worth watching if you like Sherlock Holmes.6/10

An excellent Holmes story that benefits greatly by going directly to the source (mainly Arthur Conan Doyle's "The Valley Of Fear") and not only sticking pretty much to the original plot but also using a lot of the great dialog that Doyle wrote for Holmes. The problem with translating Sherlock Holmes to the screen (or writing new Holmes stories in full-length novel form) is that Doyle's original creation was such a brilliant detective he solved most mysteries almost instantly. Therefore, the short story was the best medium in which to present his adventures. If a story has to be stretched out to novel or feature film length, some other means had to be found to fill out the time and pages. Thus, beginning with Basil Rathbone (or maybe even earlier with William Gillette's original play), Sherlock Holmes became an action hero rather than a thinker. Arthur Wotner's Holmes and the script of "Triumph" retains the original essence of "the best and wisest man I have ever known" and shows us that he can delight and thrill us even more by seeing him as he was intended to be seen.

***SPOILERS*** Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Wontner, looking more like Gen. Douglas MacArthur minus his corn cob pipe, Sherlock puffs on his famous Calabash Bassoon in the movie like in all the other films that he's in, is hot on the trail of his archenemy the brilliant but diabolical Prof. Moriarty, Lyn Harding. In a tale of murder and deception in the movie "The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes". Sherlock retired from police work and living in the country tending his beloved bees and beehives is brought out of retirement when he gets a coded message from one of Prof. Moriarty's hoods.Pllock,about a murder thats about to be committed at the Birlstone Castle. Before Holmes can do anything to prevent the murder from happening he finds out from police inspector Lestrade, Charles Mortimer, that the owner of the Birlstone Castle John Douglas,Leslie Perrins, was murdered. Douglas had his head blown off with a shotgun the night before. Going with the police to the Birlstone Castle Sherlock Holmes checks out the murder scene to see if he can come up with any clues. Sherlock finds Douglas' wife Ettie, Jane Carr, a bit deceptive about her husband and feels that she's hiding something that can crack the case wide open for reasons only known to herself. Pressed by Sherlock Holmes Ettie tell him and the police the true story about her husband John and how she first met him. John Douglas is really an American hoodlum from Chicago named John Murdoc who she first met in the coal mining district of Pennsylvania called "The Valley of Fear". Murdoc was a member of a group of criminals called "The Scowlers" who terrorized the people in that area.Murdoc participated and committed a number of vicious crimes with "The Scowlers" in "The Valley of Fear" and in no time at all became one of the leading henchmen of the outfit run by Boss McGinty, Roy Emerson. One day Murdoc tells McGinty that there's a spy among them and that he'll lead them to him where they can shut him up for good.Going to this deserted house in the valley Murdoc tell McGinty & Co. that the spy's name is Bernie Edwards and in a moment he'll be coming over and that they can give Bernie a hot reception as soon as he shows up. Murdoc walking out of the house for a minute and then coming in tell the startled "Scowlers" that he's Bernie Edwards and that he's also a agent of the Pinkerton Detective Agency and that their all under arrest. With that the house is raided by the police and McGinty and his top henchmen including Ted Balding, Ben Welden, are arrested and the whole "Scowlers" gang is put out of business for good.Balding later escapes from prison and goes to England where he gets in touch with Prof. Moriarty to help him find Murdoc/Edwards and offers him $50,000.00 to do it. Balding learning from Prof. Moriarty that Murdoc/Edwards is now known as John Douglas and lives at the Birlstone Castle then sneaks into the castle to murder Douglas. It's then that Douglas turns the tables on him and blows Balding's head off with the shotgun that he had with him. Douglas then puts his wedding ring on Balding's finger and makes it look like it was him, John Douglas, that was murdered. In the end Prof. Moriarty goes to the castle at night to meet Balding, who he thinks is alive, to get his $50,000.00 reward that he offered him for finding out who the former Murdoc/Edwards is and where he could find him. With Sherlock Holmes and the police having set a trap for him Moriarty is chased up to the castle tower and then falls down into the moat and drowns. As the movie ends we see Sherlock Holmes back home at his country estate tending to his bees."The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes" has it's usual brain-twisting clues that only the great Sherlock Holmes' magnificent brain can figure out like half burnt candles missing dumb bells and coded messages. But the most obvious and important clue in the film went right over the great Sherlock Holmes' head; his being unable to see that the body minus it's head wasn't that of John Douglas. Douglas to Balding, who was made to look by Douglas as himself, was as opposite and different as Mutt is to Jeff.Also the movie had a very annoying soundtrack that sounded like the sounds you would hear if you were in a German U-Boat some 200 feet under the North Atlantic Ocean.

The movie opened in 1935 and appears to be set in the 1930s. The original Arthur Conan Doyle serial, from which the screenplay was written, was published in 1914-15, and was set in the 1880s.The movie's flashback to the U.S.A. introduces the Scowlers, a secret society of thugs. The fictional Scowlers appears to be based on the Molly Maguires, an actual secret society of immigrant Irish coal miners in eastern Pennsylvania, USA, in the 1860s and 1870s. They were set up as a secret network of local committees, and they did not brand their members, since they wished to remain anonymous.Conditions in the mines were abominable, as this was long before child labor laws, a minimum wage, suitable standards on working conditions, or any organized form of labor union. The Mollies fought back with threats, beatings, riots, and murder against abusive mine owners, supervisors, police, and anyone who spoke out against them.The powerful owner of many coal mines hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to infiltrate the society, and one of their detectives managed to join the Mollies and stay under cover for nearly five years. When his investigation was finished, trials in were held, twenty convicted society members were hanged, and the Mollie Maguires were history.So the film's use of a local committee of thugs, and the triumph of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, are quite realistic, based on Pennsylvania history.