The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939) on Netflix
Approved19391h 25mCrimeMysteryThriller
Acquitted on a murder charge, Professor Moriarty promises Sherlock Holmes a crime of the century. Ann Brandon's brother receives a warning drawing, the same one sent before their father's murder.
- Netflix4.0/5
- IMDb7.2/108,315 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes89%
Plot summary
In 1894, Professor Moriarty leaves the Old Bailey a free man when a murder charge against him fails for lack of evidence. Sherlock Holmes arrives with new evidence too late, and Moriarty boasts that he will commit a crime of the century that discredits the detective. At Baker Street, Ann Brandon tells Holmes that her brother Lloyd has received a warning drawing: a man with an albatross hung around his neck, the same warning her father received before he was murdered ten years earlier. Sir Ronald Ramsgate, who is Constable of the Tower of London, asks Holmes to protect the Star of Delhi emerald on its way to the crown jewel collection, after a letter warns it will not arrive.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1939)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- The 1939 film made "Elementary, my dear Watson" popular, though the phrase never appears in a canonical Arthur Conan Doyle story; Holmes says only "Elementary" in the 1893 story "The Adventure of the Crooked Man".
- The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes was the last of the Rathbone-Bruce Holmes films released by 20th Century-Fox and the last set in the Victorian period of Doyle's stories; all later Holmes films came from Universal Pictures and were set in the 1940s.
- The scene of Holmes playing the violin while experimenting with flies in a glass was recreated in the 2009 film Sherlock Holmes, in which Holmes is played by Robert Downey Jr.
- The episode "The Reichenbach Fall" of the BBC/PBS series was heavily inspired by this film and other Rathbone-Bruce films; its creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss named them the show's primary inspiration.
