Several silent films with the famous London detective Sherlock Holmes have recently been restored, a century after their creation, and will be broadcast from mid-October, AFP informs.
Silent films with Sherlock Holmes, again on screens PHOTO Archive
Produced in the period 1921-1923 by the British film company Stoll Pictures, the 45 episodes of “The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes” and the two restored feature films have as protagonist Eille Norwood, a cinema celebrity of that period.
He was the favorite Sherlock of the character’s creator, writer Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930), who approved these adaptations.
Since then Sherlock Holmes has been adapted hundreds of times for the small and big screen. According to the Guinness Book of Records, he is the most represented literary character in the history of cinema and television, being played over time by actors such as Robert Downey Jr. and Benedict Cumberbatch.
“But there is a level of authenticity to the character (played by Eille Norwood) in relation to Conan Doyle’s creation that we don’t find in other later versions of Sherlock Holmes”is the opinion of Bryony Dixon, responsible for the conservation of silent films at the British Film Institute (BFI), the head of the restoration project.
The public will be able to see the restored productions for the first time during a screening on October 16 at the London Film Festival, accompanied by a concert by the Royal Academy of Music. The films will later be released on DVD and Blu-Ray.
The restoration involved years of work by the BFI team, with the project starting in 2019.
