Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at the Cinema

Review: In Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at the Cinema Scott Allen Nollen surveys the many movies derived from all Conan Doyle's work, as well as the occasions on which he himself has featured as a character, and the famous early sound film in which he explains his spiritualist beliefs and says a word or two about Sherlock Holmes.

Mr Nollen's opinions are forthright and well expressed. It would have been nice to have a bit more even about such a stinker as the 1960 version of The Lost World, but he is to be thanked for pioneering coverage of the non-Holmes movies.

The reader should be aware of some irritating errors, however. The hero of the play Waterloo is Gregory Brewster, not Napoleon Bonaparte, who was a different corporal altogether. Tonga and Small, in the Eille Norwood film of the Sign of Four, did not differ from their literary originals in dumping the Agra treasure in the Thames. The 1931 Gainsborough version of The Hound of the Baskervilles actually survives complete, as we who have seen it are aware. The 'little chaps' in The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes are not dwarfs but midgets - there is a difference.

Despite such careless mistakes, which should not exist in a book retailing at £40.50, I do recommend Sir Arthur Conan Doyle at the Cinema. The British distributor is Shelwing Ltd, 4 Pleydell Gardens, Folkestone, Kent CT20 2DN.

Reviewed by: Roger Johnson, [District Messenger 171, 1997]