Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

It's always interesting to see a ten-minute film of a man whose works you've perused avidly since high school. That he has nothing much new to add to what we've already heard about the love/hate relationship between Sherlock Holmes and his creator is less important than seeing the creator in the flesh, if celluloid can be called flesh, watching him smile comfortably before the camera, and tell us a bit about his two chief interests -- Holmes and spiritualism -- with a lingering hint of Scotland in his voice.

He claims that his interest in spiritualism began at about the same time as the fictional life of the famous detective but I've gotten the impression over the years that the death of his son, Kingsley, in World War I, at the same time a number of other kinsmen died, prompted his delving into the supernatural.

In any case, spiritualism and magic were all in the air in the early years of the 20th century. "The Origin of Species" was published in 1859 and brought science into direct conflict with established religious beliefs. It may be that ghosts, fairies, active spirits, and the like may have been an unconscious social attempt to find some viable middle ground between the real and the unreal.

That, of course, is all beside the point. Conan-Doyle seems a proper but jovial Victorian gentleman. The epitaph on his headstone reads: " "Steel true/Blade straight/Arthur Conan Doyle/Knight/Patriot, Physician, and man of letters".

What a genuine treat for Sherlock Holmes fans everywhere! Not only do we get to see moving pictures of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of perhaps the most famous literary character in history, but we also get to hear him speak. This basic ten-minute short film from the Fox Film Corporation was released in 1929, just one year before the popular author's death on July 7, 1930, age 71 years. For the first five minutes of the film, Doyle discusses his creation of Sherlock Holmes, and how the character was inspired by an old medical professor named Bell, who could make swift deductions about a patient based purely on his observations. Frustrated by typical detective stories of the day, in which the main character made lucky or unlikely conclusions without explaining his logic, Doyle decided to write his own tales, and his modest success soon attained a life of its own. "And so it is," he explains, "that this monstrous growth has come out of what was really a comparatively small seed." Interesting to learn is that many Sherlock Holmes readers were utterly convinced of the character's existence, sending letters asking for an autograph and even offering to be his housekeeper!

Notably, Doyle also has to his name five stories featuring Professor Challenger and his colleagues, the most famous being "The Lost World (1912)," one of my favourite stories from any source. The third Challenger novel, "The Land of Mist (1925)" really characterises Doyle's long-standing interest in Spiritualism and the supernatural, with which the second half of this film is concerned. Just like the 1925 novel, which was an interesting read but also distractingly-preachy, here Doyle's speech becomes a bit less fascinating. He talks about his lifelong interest in Spiritualism, his steadfast belief (no, knowledge) of its validity, and the room-full of fan letters that can attest to the truth of his writings. I can't quite get my head around this – Doyle was obviously a very intelligent individual, and yet he does genuinely appear to possess a complete conviction towards this cause. Harry Houdini, with whom Doyle was friends for a time, attempted fervently to expose these supernatural mediums as frauds and tricksters (with considerable success), but Doyle wouldn't hear of it, leading to the pair's falling out. In any case, 'Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1929)' is a wonderful history document, a snapshot of one of literature's most revered identities.

PLEASE NOTE: I'm not 100% sure that I'm reviewing the correct film here. I could potentially have been watching another short film from the Fox Film Corporation, 'Arthur Conan Doyle (1927),' which runs for 11-minutes. The YouTube clip was a little scant on the details.

I thought this was a very interesting short. Good quality picture and sound for the age of it, it is obviously well preserved. It's nice to see and hear the voice of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. I had no idea he was so interested in supernatural arts.

I liked the other review here but you saw a ten minute version? The one I saw was just over two minutes.