Despite playing a henchman in Arthur Wontner's previous Sherlock Holmes outing The Sign of Four, Roy Emerton turns up again as the principal villain in The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes, a fair adaptation of The Valley of Fear. Like most of the novels, it relies heavily on a prolonged backstory that takes up most of the drama - in this case a thinly disguised retelling of the Molly Maguires with the social politics removed and the melodrama upped - with Holmes absent from much of the drama, but it ticks over pleasantly enough and doesn't outstay its welcome. Leslie Hiscott's direction is more efficient than inspired, though Ian Fleming (no, a different one) makes a better fist of Watson than Hunter, but is still enough of a wolf to spruce himself up before going to console the widow. Sadly the public domain DVD takes a bit of effort: although decent prints do exist on UK TV, every expense has been spared for this DVD release, so don't be surprised if you have to rewind to catch the odd line of dialogue thanks to a noisy soundtrack.