Product Details

• Format: Black & White, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Studio: Genius Entertainment
• DVD Release Date: January 1, 2004
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B0006FFS24
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #516,790 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Terrible DVD transfer, October 28, 2003

By 

Sean Brady (Victoria Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (DVD)

This is a film adapation of The Valley Of Fear by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. It stars Arthur Wontner as Sherlock Holmes and Ian Fleming as Dr. Watson. Wontner is a very laid back Holmes, which makes sense as it's established at the beginning of the film that he is retiring. It's not a very faithful retelling of the story, but it's watchable enough...well, it would be if the quality of the DVD was better.

Unfortunately the quality of the audio was so poor that it made watching the film almost impossible. This is the worst transfer I have ever seen on DVD. The sound is abysmal...there is a constant warbling noise that distorts the soundtrack all the way through the film. It sounds like the sound was recorded underwater! The picture isn't much better as the contrast is so high that certain scenes are completely washed out which makes following the story extremely difficult.

I have seen this film recently on television and the sound was much better on the print I saw. The picture was an improvement as well. It's also worth noting that there some brief opening establishing shots that are not on the DVD version.

It's a shame that more care wasn't taken with the presentation of this film. This film and others in the series are of great interest to many Sherlock Holmes fans and it would be wonderful if a company who cared what they were doing managed to present restored editions of the Arthur Wontner Sherlock Holmes films on DVD.

If you want to see restored versions of early Sherlock Holmes films, you'd be better off purchasing the Universal Basil Rathbone-Nigel Bruce films on DVD from MPI that are available to order from Amazon. They are available in box sets as well as individually.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars "Is Birdy Edwards here?", November 27, 2007

By 

Larry Bridges "thebachelor" (Arlington, MA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (DVD)

Well, maybe -- it would be difficult to tell, with this DVD transfer...

Any discussion of the artistic merits of "The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes" (a 70% faithful, 30% wildly unfaithful adaptation of Conan Doyle's "The Valley of Fear") is rendered irrelevant by the breathtakingly horrible picture and sound quality of this DVD. The picture in some scenes looks like it has been recorded by a camera phone off a computer screen where the film was playing on YouTube, while the soundtrack sounds like a video game machine was in continuous use in the room where it was recorded. Needless to say, there are no subtitles, nor any special features other than a catalog of other available DVDs.

If the DVD reflects the quality of the best print of "The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes" available to the manufacturers, then this important Sherlock Holmes film is in desperate need of a full restoration. Otherwise, the DVD manufacturers ought to be ashamed of themselves for charging money for this.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars The Valley of Fear, December 29, 2007

By 

Trevor Willsmer (London, England) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes (DVD)

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.