Stand outside Alexandra Palace on a clear evening with a full moon, as I did last night, and you can take in the whole city. London may be as silent as it gets from this vantage point, but the landscape is loud in its own way. The glittering towers that dominate the skyline were all built in the last 50, probably 20 years. The red lights dotted in among them are all cranes, standing by to change the shape of the city once again. Scan the horizon, and you’ll be reassured perhaps to see the dome of St Paul’s – a symbol of continuity, a connection between modern times and the age of Christopher Wren, going back to 1710.
Swivel on your heel, and pivot to 1873 or thereabouts, when Ally Pally itself, the “People’s Palace” first opened. I had a date to keep at the theatre, recently restored to what the owners call a state of “arrested decay” and reopened to the public. We were there to travel back to a fuzzy combination of the 1880s and the 1920s, to revel in the BFI London Film Festival’s latest archive presentation: Silent Sherlock.
Arthur Conan-Doyle’s charismatic detective first appeared in 1887, and his renown rapidly spread through magazines, short stories, novels and plays. Then radio plays, and inevitably films. The Holmes on our dance card was Eille Norwood, who starred as the devilish deducer in 45 two-reelers and two features for the Stoll corporation, not the first cinematic adaptations of Conan-Doyle’s stories, but the only ones to be endorsed by the author himself: “His wonderful impersonation of Holmes has amazed me.” Aside from Jonny Lee Miller (which you may quibble with), Norwood has more Holmes screen credits than anyone else.
On the bill for the gala: three of those two-reel episodes, taking us from Holmes’s first encounter with Irene in A Scandal in Bohemia (Maurice Elvey, 1921), via a case that requires plenty of his renowned ingenuity, The Golden Pince-Nez (George Ridgwell, 1922) and the climactic encounter with Moriarty, not at the Reichenbach Falls but at Cheddar Gorge in The Final Problem (Ridgwell, 1923).
Of course it was splendid to watch these late-Victorian tales, on screen in 1920s modern dress, in such suspended-in-time surroundings. Especially when Holmes and Watson visit the Ambassadors Theatre in A Scandal in Bohemia. The lapse of time between the stories’ publication and the films’ release is so short, and for an evening we were back there again in that extended turn-of-the-century moment. Sherlock survives updating, as we have seen repeatedly, but even his name conjures the era of gaslight and hansom cabs. Full disclosure: my brother and I grew up watching Basil Rathbone films on TV, and when we were a little older the lavish, but seedy Jeremy Brett versions. In recent years I may have had my head turned by Cumberbatch, and even Miller, but my preferences are decidedly vintage.
Eille Norwood, even without a deerstalker, but happily with pipe and cape, makes for a first-rate Holmes. It’s only a shame that the economical shooting style of these shorts doesn’t allow for some stonking big close-ups of that brain in action, but he is clearly relishing his character’s capacity for deductions and disguises. His brow furrows marvellously.
Holmes silents really do rely on the intertitles quite heavily, but there are some great visual moments: Watson (Hubert Willis) applauding wildly while Holmes studies the stage from their box at the Ambassadors, visual clues such as four lamb cutlets, and footprints in the ash in The Golden Pince-Nez, a dramatic police raid and of course the big climb in The Final Problem. I really enjoyed Holmes lurking in a train carriage in disguise, waiting not so patiently for Watson to recognise him, and of course the brief appearances of Miles Mander in A Scandal in Bohemia – paying a virtuous fiancé of all things!
You know the BFI’s methods by now, though Bryony Dixon’s introduction tonight was very informative. This is a very strong case for restoration, elementary you might say. The National Archive has all 45 two-reelers and both feature films, mostly in very good materials. The Final Problem was restored from the original nitrate, I think. I really enjoyed the tints in The Final Problem, and Irene’s snazzily decorated home in A Scandal in Bohemia. So the films look more or less impeccable, though there is a long way to go yet – this is the beginning of a years-long project.
The Silent Sherlock project is also a collaboration with the Royal Academy of Music, and this evening the Joanna MacGregor of the RAM conducted an ensemble of 10 young Academy soloists performing three newly commissioned scores composed by MacGregor, our own Neil Brand and Joseph Havlat. All three Baker Street irregulars did an exemplary job, accentuating the verve and narrative pace of these films – bringing the audience together in laughs and gasps of recognition at the same point. I will admit, when Havlat’s score for Bohemia began, I thought it had set off with far too much energy for the simple dramatisation of Holmes entering his rooms. But then again, look at the escalating twists and turns of that particular story and you could well argue one should err on the side of excess. Start as you mean to go on.
These are three solid dramas, blessed with a deathlessly heroic lead character and a world of glamorous associations. If you’re already a Sherlock fan, you’ll adore dipping your toes into these early 20th-century adaptations, especially when they are so beautifully presented. They are an open door into the world of Holmesian ecentricity and brilliance. As Holmes said to his friend and biographer: “You have a grand gift for silence, Watson; it makes you quite invaluable as a companion.” What a grand gift indeed.
