Film Masters’ Restored Archive Collection collects the final two Sherlock Holmes movies starring Arthur Wontner in this double-feature single-disc Blu-ray. Based on The Valley of Fear, The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes gives us Wontner as a retiring Holmes who, with Dr. Watson (Ian Fleming), investigates the apparent murder of Mr. John Douglas (Leslie Perrins) of Birlestone Manor who turns out to be quite alive despite the machinations of a secret society and Professor Moriarty (Lyn Harding). The film incorporates an extended flashback to events in America (explaining the motives for wanting Douglas dead) as well as aspects of “The Final Problem” involving Moriarty’s visit to Holmes at 221B Baker Street and an apparent fall to death which ends the film.
The final movie in the series, released in the UK two years before Basil Rathbone would take over the role in The Hound of the Baskervilles, is an adaptation of “The Adventure of Silver Blaze” making changes to characters to tie it to The Hound of the Baskervilles in an attempt to chaptalize on the better-known story. In fact, when released in America in 1941 it hit theaters under the title Murder at the Baskervilles hoping to play on the success of Rathbone’s hit film.
The plot of Silver Blaze involves the prominent horse and murder (as in the original story) but it takes place on the Baskerville estates, where Holmes and Watson take a holiday, and offers a return for a final appearance of Harding as Moriarty who is also incorporated into the story as the brains behind the scheme involving the missing prized racehorse that leads to double-murder. In both cases the beefed up sections (the extended flashback sequences in Triumph and the extended Moriarty sequences, including the ending, in Silver Blaze) is where each of the films falter a bit. However, when sticking closer to the original stories both work quite well as does Wontner as the famous detective.