The gifted brain-child of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, this “consulting detective” is famed for his intimidating intelligence, logical reasoning, penchant for disguise and understanding of forensic science. In literature, he first appeared in 1887 and went on to feature in 4 novels and 56 short stories. In film, he first appeared in a 30 second Mutoscope reel, named Sherlock Holmes Baffled in 1900. Since then, he has popped up in over 220 films, and has long been listed as “most portrayed movie character” by The Guinness Book Of Records.
While there have been many interpretations on television – including at least two that centre around Holmes being discovered in modern times, frozen in somebody’s cellar, and his current BBC incarnation with Benedict Cumberbatch – Holmes has been dramatised in cinema by actors such as Basil Rathbone, Peter Cushing, Roger Moore, Nicol Williamson, Christopher Plummer, Christopher Lee and Robert Downey Jr. Crossing the genre barrier into comedy, the 1988 film Without A Clue featured Sir Ben Kingsley as Dr. Watson – the real genius detective – with Michael Caine as an inebriated actor hired by Watson to play Holmes, as a convenient cover for him as he does the real work.
While Holmes was certainly not the first literary detective – that honour is widely held to belong to Edgar Allen Poe’s C. Auguste Dupin – it is certainly the case that his auspicious career in cinema has widely influenced the development of the crime and police procedural genre, and more specifically, the evolution of the ‘sidekick’ movie trope, where a less experienced character is paired with a more eccentric, more gifted, or more focused partner (as with Holmes and Watson). Modern examples of this can be found in Nick Angel and Danny Butterman in Hot Fuzz, Tony Stark and Pepper Potts in the Iron Man trilogy, and Wallace and Gromit in The Curse Of The Were-Rabbit.
For those eager for more of the famed detective, be sure to catch season 3 of BBC’s Sherlock, which arrives in North America this coming Sunday (it just finished its UK run last week). Check out the trailer below.