William Gillette
Sherlock Holmes
No subtitle track in this language
YouTube may apply your personal preferences. If needed, select your language under CC / Settings. YouTube controls playback availability, which may vary by region.
Audience rating
Loading ratings…
Synopsis
Letters from a prince's former romance become valuable material for blackmail after passing to the dead woman's sister. Criminals hold her captive to obtain them and bring Professor Moriarty into the scheme. Sherlock Holmes must protect the woman while matching the professor's attempts to control both the evidence and the people connected to it.
Cast
DirectorsArthur Berthelet
Behind the scenes
William Gillette brought his long-established stage portrayal to this Essanay feature. The film preserves a major early interpretation of Holmes that helped shape the detective's familiar visual identity. A surviving print was identified in France in 2014 after the work had long been considered lost.
Sources and availability
The synopsis and editorial text were written for this collection. The references below were cross-checked to identify the film and its copy; each editorial section identifies its reference.
Work catalogued as public domain in the United States.
The reference concerns the original work. Restorations, colorization, translations and other territories may have different conditions. This site uses the player enabled by the channel.
Availability checked on September 10, 2026.
Photograph credit
Photographs cropped, resized and optimized as WebP, displayed in monochrome.
- William Gillette — Unknown author · Public domain
- Edward Fielding — unknown (Billy Rose Theatre Collection) · Public domain
