The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes

Rating:
Summary: Terrible DVD transfer
Review: 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.