Dinehart's character Thaddeus Merrydew, is based on a single line of writing in the four novels and fifty six short stories that were written by Conan Doyle. Most (if not all) was jettisoned, into a story about murder for insurance, centering around Anna May Wong and Alan Dinehart. Holmes traces the story back to the old west, where in the second half (entitled 'The Country of the Saints') it is linked to the Mormons in Utah. The plot of the first portion of the novella is about the murder of two men, one by poison and one by a knife wound in the heart. Here he's played by Alan Mowbray - not badly but with little electricity. Lestrade would be the best known of the detectives in the saga who would consult Holmes (and would be most memorably played by Dennis Hoey in the Rathbone films). Watson (our narrator) introduces us to his friend and roommate Sherlock Holmes, and then to the adventure (set in April 1881) where he first became aware that Holmes was a consulting detective, and was consulted by Scotland Yard's Detectives Tobias Gregson and 'G.' (no further name ever given) Lestrade (not 'Lastrade' as the movie's cast of characters named him). The first half is 'The Lauriston Gardens Mystery', wherein Dr. If you are lucky enough to stumble onto the Beeton's of that month and year (and it is the original) than hold onto it - it's worth many thousands of dollars. 'A Study In Scarlet' appeared in December 1887 in 'Beeton's Christmas Annual', a long forgotten magazine in Great Britain, which is only now recalled because of Conan Doyle's novella. But he seemed too laid back to be a good Holmes.

He had played Watson already, so he was one of the few actors to essay both friends parts. Owen was a very good character actor (villainous in films like 'The Call Of The Wild', but funny as anything in 'The Good Fairy'). Holmes in this version was Reginald Owen, best remembered for his 'Ebenezer Scrooge' in the 1938 version of 'A Christmas Carol'.

But the three best Holmes' of the sound period were still to come along: Arthur Wontner in Great Britain, Basil Rathbone in Hollywood, and Jeremy Brett (on television). By the time this had come out Hollywood had done silent and sound films about Holmes with William Gillette, John Barrymore, and (more recently) Clive Brooks. It is interesting to note that it came out only three years after Sir Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930. This particular film was an early Hollywood take on Holmes in the sound period.

Sherlock Holmes became such a quick fixture in motion pictures that it is possible to write studies on the various movies and actors centered on that character.

Sherlock holmes a study in scarlet