Film Masters continues to release some older classic, arguably obscure films on Blu-ray. They have entered the Sherlock Holmes universe and have offered a pair of Sherlock Holmes movies, The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes and Silver Blaze which star Arther Wontner as the great detective and Ian Fleming as Dr. Watson!

The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes is the fourth in the Flamingo Films series. In this feature from 1935, Sherlock Holmes

(Arthur Wontner, The Sign of Four, Thunder in the City) has declared himself retired but his arch enemy Moriarty (Lyn Harding, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, The Man Who Changed His Mind) isn’t going to let that happen even though he despises Sherlock. Holmes and his partner Dr. Watson(Ian Fleming, The Life and Death of Colonial Blimp, Appointment with Crime) must stop Moriarty who is making plans to have an American gangster, John Douglas, a man who has been linked to being a weak link in Moriarty’s chain of thugs, from being murdered.

In Silver Blaze, also known as Murder at the Baskervilles,

Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Wontner in his final appearance as Holmes) goes on vacation and visits his old friend Sir Henry Baskerville. The vacation does not last long as suddenly finds himself in the middle of a mysterious double-murder that involves Professor Moriarty (Lyn Harding) and the horse Silver Blaze. Silver Blaze is a heavy favorite to win the Barchester Cup at the biggest horse race of the year, but Moriarty wants the horse to lose and not be present on the day of the race. As part of the scheme, the horse’s groomer is poisoned by his trainer, James Straker (Martin Walker, The Night Invader) who is also murdered, adding to the conflict!

The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes is a pleasant, enjoyable movie to watch and has a nice atmospheric feel to it. The lack of music gives it a nice touch. The production values and the film itself reminded me of an early Hitchcock film. Silver Blaze is also just as entertaining with the same atmosphere as The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Wontner is great as Holmes, and Ian Fleming as Dr. Watson gives a decent performance in the two films, but nothing memorable.  Both may not be anywhere near the production values of the later celebrated Sherlock Holmes films with Basil Rathbone, but these are entertaining in their own right!

Film Detective released a DVD of these two features years ago and Film Masters has picked up where they left off, as both films have been restored to a BDr Blu-ray disc. I think the image quality for both movies is as good as we will see it, but I don’t think many will be completely blown away as to how good they look. To me the restoration for the films is rather remarkable and boast a clean, polished image. There were a couple of age-old blips in The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes that lasted a second or two, and a couple of scenes in the two movies that were slightly hazy that last a few seconds but otherwise, these look excellent. Black levels are nice and dark with strong whites and an excellent grey scale. The characters and scenery show some detail and decent textures. Film grain is present throughout and no DNR has been applied to either movie. This will be the holy grail as for as the picture quality goes for these two films.

The English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 soundtrack for this release also sounds fine and did not detect any hisses or other age-old anomalies. The dialogue is clear, and action sounds and what there were of musical scores came in perfectly fine as well. Nothing came off as too aggressive or too timid on either film.

English subtitles are available for this Blu-ray release. 

There are no extras for this release.

I was really impressed with this release of The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes and Silver Blaze, not only for the films but the audio and video quality as well. The lack of extras and the release being on a BDr should not deter anyone from picking this up.

The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes / Silver Blaze

Director – Leslie S. Hiscott / Thomas Bentley

Cast- Arthur Wontner, Lyn Harding, Leslie Perrins, Jane Carr, Ian Fleming, Charles Mortimer

Country of Origin-USA

Distributor – Film Masters

Number of Discs –2

Reviewed by – David Steigman

Date –1/30/2025