One of my all time favorites.

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

I cannot think of one single thing that I would change about this film. The acting is incomparable, the directing deft, and the writing poignantly brilliant.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Am a huge fan of Sherlock Holmes and get a lot of enjoyment out of Arthur Conan Doyle's stories. Also love Basil Rathbone's and especially Jeremy Brett's interpretations to death. So would naturally see any Sherlock Holmes adaptation that comes my way, regardless of its reception.Furthermore, interest in seeing early films based on Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories and wanting to see as many adaptations of any Sherlock Holmes stories as possible sparked my interest in seeing 'The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes', part of the series of film with Arthur Wontner. Would also see anything that has Holmes encountering his arch-nemesis Professor Moriaty. 'The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes', based on one of Conan Doyle's longer and best stories, turned out to be very much worthwhile. Not one of the best Sherlock Holmes adaptations certainly, the best of the Jeremy Brett adaptations and films of Basil Rathone fit under this category. It's also not among the worst, being much better than any of the Matt Frewer films (particularly 'The Sign of Four') and the abominable Peter Cook 'The Hound of the Baskervilles'.It's not perfect. The sound quality is less than great, while some of the pace could have been tighter, the over-reliance on the flashback structure bogs it down a bit, and some of the dialogue unnecessarily rambles a bit. The Holmes retiring aspect is agreed out of character. However, the period detail is handsome and evocative. The writing generally is thought-provoking, Holmes' deductions and crime solving are a huge part of the fun as well as very true in detail and spirit to Conan Doyle's writing, the mystery and suspense is generally intact and the story is intriguing and not hard to follow.Arthur Wontner may technically have been too old for Holmes but he did not look too old and his portrayal is on the money, handling the personality and mannerisms of the character spot on without over-doing or under-playing. Ian Fleming is a charming, loyal, intelligent and amusing Watson, with nice chemistry between him and Wontner, really liked his inferior attempts at deduction. The support is solid, with the best coming from Lyn Harding's sinister Moriaty.In summary, not quite triumphant but very worthwhile. 7/10 Bethany Cox

The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes is a fairly watchable outing for the intrepid detective, predating Basil Rathbone by some 4 years. One of the most unfortunate things about this film is that it was shot on a low budget in the UK, which means that modern-day prints are pretty terrible looking: sound you can't hear half of, crackling all the while, fuzzy-looking picture. If you can put these flaws aside and view the film for what it was at the time it was made, I think you'll be impressed, as this is one of the most literate, engaging, well-scripted and loyal Holmes movies out there.It's also very static and stagy, which loses it points, but then this is to be expected in the mid-1930s; it wasn't until Rathbone's entrance as the famous detective that Holmes became an adventurer, a fighting hero. Here he's more inclined to sit back and examine a few clues, but then this is in the spirit of the book.The film does have some other flaws, mainly in the plotting. The inclusion of arch-villain Moriarty seems to be an instance of 'over egging the cake' because he really does feel extraneous to the story here. He adds an extra twenty minutes to the running time, which is why, I guess, they put him in. There's also a lengthy sub-plot set in America, which isn't very interesting – at least until the twist. In fact, the only thing that kept me watching during this mid section of the film was the presence of Roy Emerton, playing 'Boss' McGinty – this huge, scarred British character actor is absolutely fantastic, I couldn't take my eyes off him. What a scary, imposing presence he has – it's a shame he never made it bigger than he did.There's some more great casting in the central pairing of Arthur Wontner as Holmes and Ian Fleming (not the author) as Watson. These guys are exactly how you imagine them in the stories, and Wontner even closely resembles the original illustrations of Holmes in the Strand magazine. They're great actors to boot, with Fleming adding comedy (although not overdone) as Watson and Wontner ably catching Holmes' edgy, brainy appeal. I wish the mystery had given the duo a little more to do – a little more to get their teeth into, perhaps – but they really do make the film stand out. The same actors paired up for a half dozen or so Holmes outings and, on the strength of this, they're worth tracking down for fans of the big man.

***SPOILERS*** Sherlock Holmes, Arthur Wontner, looking more like Gen. Douglas MacArthur minus his corn cob pipe, Sherlock puffs on his famous Calabash Bassoon in the movie like in all the other films that he's in, is hot on the trail of his archenemy the brilliant but diabolical Prof. Moriarty, Lyn Harding. In a tale of murder and deception in the movie "The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes". Sherlock retired from police work and living in the country tending his beloved bees and beehives is brought out of retirement when he gets a coded message from one of Prof. Moriarty's hoods.Pllock,about a murder thats about to be committed at the Birlstone Castle. Before Holmes can do anything to prevent the murder from happening he finds out from police inspector Lestrade, Charles Mortimer, that the owner of the Birlstone Castle John Douglas,Leslie Perrins, was murdered. Douglas had his head blown off with a shotgun the night before. Going with the police to the Birlstone Castle Sherlock Holmes checks out the murder scene to see if he can come up with any clues. Sherlock finds Douglas' wife Ettie, Jane Carr, a bit deceptive about her husband and feels that she's hiding something that can crack the case wide open for reasons only known to herself. Pressed by Sherlock Holmes Ettie tell him and the police the true story about her husband John and how she first met him. John Douglas is really an American hoodlum from Chicago named John Murdoc who she first met in the coal mining district of Pennsylvania called "The Valley of Fear". Murdoc was a member of a group of criminals called "The Scowlers" who terrorized the people in that area.Murdoc participated and committed a number of vicious crimes with "The Scowlers" in "The Valley of Fear" and in no time at all became one of the leading henchmen of the outfit run by Boss McGinty, Roy Emerson. One day Murdoc tells McGinty that there's a spy among them and that he'll lead them to him where they can shut him up for good.Going to this deserted house in the valley Murdoc tell McGinty & Co. that the spy's name is Bernie Edwards and in a moment he'll be coming over and that they can give Bernie a hot reception as soon as he shows up. Murdoc walking out of the house for a minute and then coming in tell the startled "Scowlers" that he's Bernie Edwards and that he's also a agent of the Pinkerton Detective Agency and that their all under arrest. With that the house is raided by the police and McGinty and his top henchmen including Ted Balding, Ben Welden, are arrested and the whole "Scowlers" gang is put out of business for good.Balding later escapes from prison and goes to England where he gets in touch with Prof. Moriarty to help him find Murdoc/Edwards and offers him $50,000.00 to do it. Balding learning from Prof. Moriarty that Murdoc/Edwards is now known as John Douglas and lives at the Birlstone Castle then sneaks into the castle to murder Douglas. It's then that Douglas turns the tables on him and blows Balding's head off with the shotgun that he had with him. Douglas then puts his wedding ring on Balding's finger and makes it look like it was him, John Douglas, that was murdered. In the end Prof. Moriarty goes to the castle at night to meet Balding, who he thinks is alive, to get his $50,000.00 reward that he offered him for finding out who the former Murdoc/Edwards is and where he could find him. With Sherlock Holmes and the police having set a trap for him Moriarty is chased up to the castle tower and then falls down into the moat and drowns. As the movie ends we see Sherlock Holmes back home at his country estate tending to his bees."The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes" has it's usual brain-twisting clues that only the great Sherlock Holmes' magnificent brain can figure out like half burnt candles missing dumb bells and coded messages. But the most obvious and important clue in the film went right over the great Sherlock Holmes' head; his being unable to see that the body minus it's head wasn't that of John Douglas. Douglas to Balding, who was made to look by Douglas as himself, was as opposite and different as Mutt is to Jeff.Also the movie had a very annoying soundtrack that sounded like the sounds you would hear if you were in a German U-Boat some 200 feet under the North Atlantic Ocean.

The movie opened in 1935 and appears to be set in the 1930s. The original Arthur Conan Doyle serial, from which the screenplay was written, was published in 1914-15, and was set in the 1880s.The movie's flashback to the U.S.A. introduces the Scowlers, a secret society of thugs. The fictional Scowlers appears to be based on the Molly Maguires, an actual secret society of immigrant Irish coal miners in eastern Pennsylvania, USA, in the 1860s and 1870s. They were set up as a secret network of local committees, and they did not brand their members, since they wished to remain anonymous.Conditions in the mines were abominable, as this was long before child labor laws, a minimum wage, suitable standards on working conditions, or any organized form of labor union. The Mollies fought back with threats, beatings, riots, and murder against abusive mine owners, supervisors, police, and anyone who spoke out against them.The powerful owner of many coal mines hired the Pinkerton Detective Agency to infiltrate the society, and one of their detectives managed to join the Mollies and stay under cover for nearly five years. When his investigation was finished, trials in were held, twenty convicted society members were hanged, and the Mollie Maguires were history.So the film's use of a local committee of thugs, and the triumph of the Pinkerton Detective Agency, are quite realistic, based on Pennsylvania history.