First Versions: Sherlock Holmes (film)

Title: "Sherlock Holmes Baffled"

Category: Movies

Subcategory: Detective film

Cinematography: Arthur Marvin

Starring: Sherlock Holmes and the intruder
(History did not record the name of the actors)

Based on: Arthur Conan Doyle's detective character Sherlock Holmes (the plot is unrelated to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's canonical Sherlock Holmes stories; it is likely that the character's name was used purely for its familiarity with the public)

Arthur Marvin
May, 1859 - Jan. 18, 1911,
the American
cinematographer
who created
Sherlock Holmes Baffled

Producer / Distributor: American Mutoscope and Biograph Company

Produced: April 26, 1900 - USA

Official release: February 24, 1903

Running time: 30 seconds

Color: Black and White

Language: Silent

Summary plot: A thief who can appear and disappear at will steals a sack of items from Sherlock Holmes. At each point, Holmes's attempts to thwart the intruder end in failure.

Interesting facts: Guinness World Records has listed Sherlock Holmes as the "most portrayed movie character", with more than 70 actors playing the part in over 200 films. His first screen appearance was in the 1900 Mutoscope film, Sherlock Holmes Baffled. The Mutoscope worked on the same principle as a flip book, with individual image frames printed onto flexible cards attached to a circular core which revolved with the turn of a user-operated hand crank. The cards were lit by electric light bulbs inside the machine. Cheaper and simpler than the Kinetoscope, the system, marketed by the American Mutoscope Company (later the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company), quickly dominated the coin-in-the-slot peep-show business. Sherlock Holmes Baffled ran to 86.56 metres in length, giving the film a running time of 30 seconds. Assumed to be lost for many years, the film was rediscovered in 1968 as a paper print in the Library of Congress.

Property: American Mutoscope and Biograph Company