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The Dying
Detective
(1921)

This collection of short British Sherlock Holmes productions includes films from the first 1921 series of Holmes films produced by the Stoll company. Eille Norwood portrays a believeable and satisfying Holmes.

In The Dying Detective (1921), Holmes is near death, afflicted by a rare Asiatic disease, and still manages to solve a murder case.

— Carl Bennett

Alpha Video
2019 DVD edition

Sherlock Holmes Silent Film Collection (1921), black & white, 80 minutes total, not rated, including The Dying Detective (1921), black & white, 31 minutes, not rated.

Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 8220D, UPC 0-89218-82209-3.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 3.8 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 30 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at 384 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; no chapter stops (within the film); standard DVD keepcase; $7.98 (raised to $8.98).
Release date: 16 April 2019.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 3 / audio: 3 / additional content: 2 / overall: 3.

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a fair to good 16mm reduction print, which has a persistent case of the frame jitters. Picture details are soft and the print is more contrasty than others in the collection with plugged-up shadows and burnt-out highlight details.

The film is accompanied by a soundtrack of preexisting orchestral music recordings.

Not a great viewing experience but still watchable. A slight visual quality edge is given to this edition over the Grapevine disc below. This is our recommended home video edition of the film.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .

Grapevine Video
2002 DVD edition

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1912-1921), color-toned black & white and color-tinted black & white, 105 minutes total, not rated, including The Dying Detective (1921), color-toned black & white, 28 minutes, not rated.

Grapevine Video, no catalog number, unknown UPC number.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc, 1.33:1 aspect ratio image in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan MPEG-2 format, SDR (standard dynamic range), 4.5 Mbps average video bit rate, 224 Kbps audio bit rate, PCM 48 kHz 2.0 mono sound, English language intertitles, no subtitles; no chapter stops (within the film); standard DVD keepcase; $16.95.
Release date: 2002.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 2 / audio: 3 / additional content: 0 / overall: 3.

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a fair 16mm reduction print that has blasted-out highlights with closed-up shadow details and little greyscale range in between, however intertitles and insert shots of handwriting are still legible. The source print has more than its share of frame jitters.

The film is accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting music recordings performed on synthsizers (sounds like Eric Beheim).

The print quality of the Stoll films brings down the overall visual quality of this disc.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .