Search - The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes on DVD

K. K. (GAMER)
Reviewed on 7/9/2023...

Good plotline but the video is poor quality and the audio is so bad. Run for cover!

Terrible DVD transfer

Sean Brady | Victoria Australia | 10/28/2003

(1 out of 5 stars)

"This is a film adapation of The Valley Of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It stars Arthur Wontner as Sherlock Holmes and Ian Fleming as Dr. Watson. Wontner is a very laid back Holmes, which makes sense as it's established at the beginning of the film that he is retiring. It's not a very faithful retelling of the story, but it's watchable enough...well, it would be if the quality of the DVD was better. Unfortunately the quality of the audio was so poor that it made watching the film almost impossible. This is the worst transfer I have ever seen on DVD. The sound is abysmal...there is a constant warbling noise that distorts the soundtrack all the way through the film. It sounds like the sound was recorded underwater! The picture isn't much better as the contrast is so high that certain scenes are completely washed out which makes following the story extremely difficult. I have seen this film recently on television and the sound was much better on the print I saw. The picture was an improvement as well. It's also worth noting that there some brief opening establishing shots that are not on the DVD version.It's a shame that more care wasn't taken with the presentation of this film. This film and others in the series are of great interest to many Sherlock Holmes fans and it would be wonderful if a company who cared what they were doing managed to present restored editions of the Arthur Wontner Sherlock Holmes films on DVD.If you want to see restored versions of early Sherlock Holmes films, you'd be better off purchasing the Universal Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce films on DVD from MPI that are available to order from Amazon. They are available in box sets as well as individually."

"Is Birdy Edwards here?"

Larry Bridges | Arlington, MA United States | 11/27/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"Well, maybe -- it would be difficult to tell, with this DVD transfer...



Any discussion of the artistic merits of "The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes" (a 70% faithful, 30% wildly unfaithful adaptation of Conan Doyle's "The Valley of Fear") is rendered irrelevant by the breathtakingly horrible picture and sound quality of this DVD. The picture in some scenes looks like it has been recorded by a camera phone off a computer screen where the film was playing on YouTube, while the soundtrack sounds like a video game machine was in continuous use in the room where it was recorded. Needless to say, there are no subtitles, nor any special features other than a catalog of other available DVDs.



If the DVD reflects the quality of the best print of "The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes" available to the manufacturers, then this important Sherlock Holmes film is in desperate need of a full restoration. Otherwise, the DVD manufacturers ought to be ashamed of themselves for charging money for this."

Quite well done

David L. Schoon | Norwich, Ct United States | 04/15/2005

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I"m sorry to hear that the transfer that the previous reviewer saw was of such poor quality. I just finished watching it from the 50 Mystery Classics pack and did not have similar trouble. I enjoyed the movie very much. For some reason the people making it felt the need to insert Holmes old nemesis, Professor Moriarty into the plot. With that exception, I found it to be a reasonably faithfull rendition of Conan Doyle's Valley of Fear, and had a lot of fun watching it. I had not seen Arthur Wontner playing Holmes before, and find that I enjoy him more than Basil Rathbone. I also much prefer the rendition of Dr Watson in this series. As anyone who has read and re-read the stories as I have knows, Watson was not a genius, but he was also not the bumbling fool that was played opposite Rathbone. Holmes depended on him and his gun to provide usefull service, even while complaining about that fact that Watson's "little stories" emphasized the dramatic rather than the deductive, as Holmes would have prefered. I recomend getting the 50 movie mystery pack for these movies alone, not to mention others that I have found quite enjoyable. A good time."