Restoration experts piece together silent Sherlock Holmes mystery

Sherlock Holmes fans are being promised a most authentic depiction of the fictional detective, with the restoration of a century-old silent film series chronicling the London sleuth's adventures.

Audiences will be treated to a first glimpse of the restored works from the early 1920s next week at a London Film Festival screening, accompanied by a newly commissioned live score from Royal Academy of Music performers.

The Oct. 16 premiere of just three of the short films, in what is being called "Silent Sherlock: Three Classic Cases," will take place in the Victorian-era grandeur of the Alexandra Palace Theater in north London.

A wider release on DVD and Blu-Ray, and encompassing an international tour, will then follow, with the British Film Institute (BFI) restoration team excited to unveil its years-long efforts.

"They're the last silent Sherlock-related works to be restored," explained Bryony Dixon, the BFI curator who led the project.

"The other surviving ones have already been done, so these are the things that audiences have been waiting for patiently," she told AFP at the film charity's national archive in Berkhamsted, northwest of the U.K. capital.

"Sherlock Holmes is always popular, and popular all over the world. As they say: you could just write Sherlock Holmes on a cardboard box and sell it.

"So it's of interest to people and it's time that it was seen."

Produced in 1921-23 by British film company Stoll Pictures, the 45 episodes of "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" and two feature films that are being restored all feature screen star of the era Eille Norwood.

He was author Arthur Conan Doyle's favorite on-screen Sherlock.

Conan Doyle's creation has been adapted for the big and small...