William Gillette as Sherlock Holmes (audio + video)
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 6 ก.ย. 2024
- In 1936, William Gillette made a glass disk recording of two scenes from the play "Sherlock Holmes," in which he had famously played the title role. That audio is here combined with short clips from the recently rediscovered 1916 film version featuring the original cast. The intent is to recreate approximately the experience of seeing and hearing Gillette's performance. However, Gillette was 83 years old and near death when the sound disk was recorded, so his voice performance is no doubt lacking in some of the energy and charisma that mesmerized his audiences when he premiered the play at age 46.
William Gillette (1853-1937), an American actor and the author of the play, inaugurated many of the traditions still associated with Sherlock Homes, including the deerstalker hat, the curved pipe, the expressions "My dear Watson" and "Elementary, my dear fellow," and the upscale dressing gown. The film version of the play was thought to be lost forever until a nitrate dupe negative was found in the archives of the Cinémathèque Française in 2014.
This video is intended for educational and historical purposes only. The film and audio are believed to be in the public domain. Please purchase the DVD and Blu-Ray of the restored film available from Flicker Alley.
![[TH] 2024 PMSL SEA Finals D1 | Fall | ยิงต้องโหด ให้เหมือนโกรธกันมาก่อน](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/OnTdfGySmds/mqdefault.jpg)
Here are my comments about that crackling recording of Wiiliam Gillette's voice (from my monograph, William Gillette's Little Buddies, at: www.nplh.co.uk/uploads/7/3/3/6/7336521/william_gillettes_little_buddies__1.pdf
Frederick C. Packard (1899 - 1985) was a professor of speech and dramatics at Harvard University. He originated, edited and produced a service called the Harvard Vocarium, which recorded voices that previously had been unavailable. William Gillette’s voice as Sherlock Holmes, with Professor Packard’s voice as Dr. Watson was one of those recordings and still exists.
From Peter Blau's notes about the recording:
“According to an article in the Boston Sunday Post, Sept. 12, 1948 (John Kelso), one winter's night in 1933 Packard and his wife attended William Gillette's performance of "The Three Wise Fools" in Boston. After the performance, Packard persuaded Gillette to visit the Packard home in West Medford, where the recording was made with Packard as Watson and his wife as Alice Faulkner. Note: Gillette's revival of Austin Strong's comedy "Three Wise Fools" was in 1936, not 1933. Gillette was born July 24, 1853, and he was 82 years old when he toured in "Three Wise Fools"; this was his only stage production after his tour in "Sherlock Holmes" ended on Mar. 19, 1932.”
“It was in February 1936 that William Gillette, then 82 years old, came to the Shubert Theatre in Boston during his tour in a revival of Austin Strong's comedy "Three Wise Fools". Professor Packard and his wife attended one of the performances, and after the performance Packard persuaded Gillette to visit the Packard home in West Medford, where the recording was made, with Watson's lines read by Packard, and Alice Faulkner's lines read by his wife, whose name, by neat coincidence, was Alice.”
This is fantastic. I’ve just been hired as costume designer for a production of “”the Game’s Afoot” and this has been very helpful in regards to the play within a play.
As have I, at a time when the discovery of the film was announced, but not released. Fun play!
Wonderful! Just finished a run of the fictional play about Gillette titled, "The Game's Afoot or Holmes For the Holidays" by Ken Ludwig, so enjoyed this very much.
What a treat this is for all of us Baker Street Irregulars. Thank you for sharing this!
thank you so much...I appreciate this so very much!....I live near gilletes Castle in CT...and I'm a huge Sherlock Holmes fan...out of all the actors that played Holmes, Gillette is the only performer I haven't seen...(that I know of)...very interesting. I read Conan Boyle liked Gillette portrayal.
Went there today. The castle wasn't open but I fell in love with the grounds!
Always kind of wondered what this guy was like been to the castle a million times
Thankyou amazing Conan Doyle liked his portrayal of Holmes
I saw the long lost film at San Francisco Silent Film Festival when it premiered (and just before a stage production of my own adaptation of the canon) and there was some hilarity with the action sequence, but, when people made a bit of fun with Gillette's 'overacting'. I had to point out that this was him recreating his stage performance, done several hundred times in houses ranging from 1500 to 2500 seats. His first investigative scene where hes very obviously observing all the Holmesian details wouldve come off as very subtle and believably imperceptible to folks sitting miles away in the balcony.
Thanks for sharing this voice recording and lining it up with the right scenes.
Interesting to note that William Gillette speaks the lines in his own New England accent rather than that of a Londoner. Here's a recording of him mimicking the voice and delivery of his long-time neighbor, Mark Twain, complete with a dry Missouri drawl. It's probably the closest we'll ever get to a sense of how Twain spoke, since he's not known to have left any audio recordings of his voice.
th-cam.com/video/mqHPN4lW6tI/w-d-xo.html
@m norton buswell Thurston Howell, III - one of the last to indulge it. Or maybe he was just from Connecticut.
I miss u so much sherlock holmes
really neat ....Im from Mass and that castle he lived in ...the creepiest one Ive seen
I like it!
Didn't know anything about this guy. Went to Gillette castle today in CT.
Very important footage. Most don't know that Gillette invented the image of Sherlock's look of the hat and pipe which we known ever since.
"Oh, this is elementary, my dear fellow" is another of Gillette's additions to Holmes lore. Gillette read every existing Holmes story and inserted virtually every trait and prop we now associate with Holmes in his play. 🐧
Awesome.
Scintillating and enigmatic actor.
He voiced himself
Cool❤✌
William gillete was looking shorter than sir arthur conan doubt who was 6'1".
Having seen many versions of Holmes, I would list these as my preferences for Holmes: 1) Basil Rathbone (had a terrific voice, the right looks, and was a fine Shakespearean actor who was also a terrific swordsmen. Unfortunately, the productions he was in were Grade B and he was paired with Nigel Bruce, who wrongly played Watson as a buffoon. 2) Jeremy Brett. The very best modern day Holmes. Sometimes melodramatic, perhaps a tad too old and not very athletic but his interpretation is fascinating even if he may have over accented Holmes's eccentricities; he had the advantage of superb productions (period sets, directing, lighting and the like, terrific supporting actors) and two excellent Watsons. 3) Peter Cushing. Good actor. NOT RECOMMENDED: Robert Downey, Jr. I have not seen J. Cumberbatch but I do not like tampering with the period so I refuse to watch the series he is in. Holmes was not meant to be a modern super hero.
ванаеамкч не р н в не от спдщг
It seems he is disagreeing with the comment.
Cumberbatch is not bad as a depiction of Holmes in the modern age. The main weakness of the series is the plotting after season two. I would definitely recommend the first two seasons, though. He's not a superhero.
Ronnie Moore I def agree with you on Jeremy Brett.
The Gillette films were silent, of course; one can see why he would not be as successful with the advent of sound. To my taste, his voice is simply not very good, especially if you contrast it with the wonderful one that Basil Rathbone had. Nor did he have the classic Holmes look, which Rathbone also had. The message here might be that the more modern screen is much better than that of the origins of film history. These are interesting historical items, though. Thanks for posting them.
+Ronnie Moore Keep in mind that Gillette was 83 years old and near death when someone approached him to record those discs. He was 46 when the play premiered. We will never know what his voice or delivery sounded like in his prime, but supposedly he mesmerized his audiences as Holmes.
+Ronnie Moore
Everyone likes the Holmes they grew up with best. I can't imagine showing Jeremy Brett to people growing up on Robert Downey Jr XD
Gillette was a stage actor. He was 73 when the first sound films were released, so death would have made any talkie film versions difficult, if not impossible. Probably, impossible.
The Paget drawings of Holmes stylize two different noses, and G looks so much like the Holmes (illus the man with the twisted lip) it's a shock to see him here in motion. That 'classic' Holmes look was likewise another extrapolation of Paget (illus Silver Blaze), for the Rathbone film productions. the Calabash pipe was the only one Rathbone could keep falling out of his mouth.
Conan Doyle spent most of his life sick to death of Holmes, but on meeting G, recorded his astonishment to find Holmes before him, and went to see G's performances many times. Doyle recorded his enthusiasm as well, and let Gillette do whatever he wanted with Holmes, excluding marrying him off.
I think you can judge his performances from this video as accurately as you can judge a film from a still image. Excerpts from a film, with an audio recording added, is not a live play.
Actually, Conan Doyle is supposed to have been okay with Gillette marrying off Holmes. Gillette wired Doyle and asked, "May I marry Holmes?" to which Doyle replied, "You may marry him, murder him, or do anything you like to him."
Doyle was probably quite tired of Holmes at that point :P
The recording wasn't made until the year before he died, when he was in his 80's. And the film wasn't made until 17 years after he first appeared as Holmes. He was 63. Gillette's appearance (he was, after all, a foremost matinee idol) was much admired (he was compared to a Charles Dana Gibson male come alive) and his voice was thought perfect for Holmes. It's funny that you say he "didn't have the classic Holmes look," because he helped create it. He was the first to use a briar pipe, which doesn't come from the Holmes canon. The truth is that we have no exact idea what it would be like to see the Gillette of 1899 in a sound film of the 1930's or 40's. Gillette, when he was in his prime, created in audiences their first indelible impressions of the detective, and so popular was he in the role onstage that for years, right up until 1932, he was still being forced to play it.
The voice over could have been done quite nicely without the excessive scratchy sound.
Quick! Hop in my time machine with me. We'll go back and record it a again!