Sherlock Holmes: The Man Who Disappeared (1951)

Sorry, this movie sucks

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

This is one of the best movies I’ve seen in a very long time. You have to go and see this on the big screen.

Watching it is like watching the spectacle of a class clown at their best: you laugh at their jokes, instigate their defiance, and "ooooh" when they get in trouble.

Apparently, this short film was intended as a pilot episode for Sherlock Holmes TV series that was never bought. And, while the film seems competent enough in how it looks and sounds, the story is a mess--and fans of Conan Doyle will most likely pick up on this."The Man Who Disappeared" is based on the great Conan Doyle story, "The Man With the Twisted Lip". This original story, in my opinion, is one of the best stories among the many Conan Doyle stories. It is perfect or at least near-perfect. So, you wonder who was the idiot who thought to radically change the story?! Instead, the 'improvements' serve to make the story a lot LESS interesting. Plus, it seems to be very nervy to change the story--and to this great a degree. Surely Doyle would NOT have approved of this bastardization and it the new story didn't make a lot of sense.Overall, the film is competent but undistinguished as far as the acting and direction go, but the story is very weak. It's really mostly of interest to Holmesophiles (cool word, huh?).

This film of "The Man with the Twisted Lip" was originally intended as the pilot for a series of Sherlock Holmes adventures for British television, but that was not to be. This sample is done generally competently, but it is still not difficult to imagine why more were not made. The adaptation is fairly workmanlike and adequate, but deviates from the original story in ways that seem to contribute nothing and actually defuse some of the drama. In fact, despite the fact that the story has been made to fit a twenty-five minute running time, this production still seems to drag and move rather slowly. Most of the actors deliver their lines is a fairly uniformly stiff, uninterested manner that doesn't make things very interesting. John Longden plays Sherlock Holmes, in a time when he would have been directly in the shadow of the famous Basil Rathbone. Longden does a pretty good job with the role, contrasting to Rathbone with a kind of still force, but that stillness only seems to add to the general feel of stagnation in "The Man Who Disappeared."That said, the production is carried off with a certain style, with plenty of attractive location scenes. It just mainly seems to have no sense or urgency or drive.