A Black Sherlock Holmes
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March 2003 Volume 7 Number 1 Sherlock Holmes "Your merits should be publicly recognized (STUD) Contents A Black Sherlock Holmes A Black he silent images flicker across the screen, showing all too well the damage Sherlock Holmes from the chemical decomposition of the original nitrate film stock. Despite the damage, "The Black Sherlock Holmes" is a welcome new addition to the 1 TSherlock Holmes Collections. I Items make their way to the Sherlock 100 Years Ago Holmes Collections by many routes. "A Black Sherlock Holmes" arrived via a reference in Issue 47 of Sherlock magazine where it was noted that the 2002 Crime Scene at London's 50 Years Ago National Film Theatre would focus on 3 Sherlock Holmes. Among the silent movies to be shown was "the very rare A Black Sherlock Holmes." Why would Acquisitions this film be considered very rare? The majority of silent films are gone, 4 either through decomposition or pur- poseful destruction as it was believed Musings no one would be interested in silents with the advent of "talkies." Thinking 5 B that the film was no longer extant, I Sam Robinson as Knick Caner contacted Catherine Cooke, B.S.I., to see if she had any thoughts as to how From the President to determine the availability of the film. She referred me to the British Film Institute, 7 who in turn referred me to the Library of Congress; over the Atlantic Ocean and back again. The Library of Congress advised that they could make a copy of the original film, and after Curator Tim Johnson approved the purchase, the film was finally An Updatefrom received at the Andersqn Library. the Collections To put this film in the proper context, we should consider that the era of the silent 8 films was a time of segregated movie audiences. "In the age of Jim Crow...blacks, or whites in blackface, began to appear in movies as they did in minstrel shows, in Remembrances vaudeville and in potboilers.. .black images on the screen increasingly mirrored the.. .racist images in society at large." (Woll, 39) The first film with an all African- 8 American cast was noted as early as 1905, but white movie makers utilized black racial stereotypes for simple vaudevillian entertainment for white audiences, often Continued on page 6 Friends of the Sherlock Holmes Collections P 1 Q? Sachem of the Tammany Society and In deducing where a young man Chairman of the Elections would go to seek entertainment, Committee of Tammany Hall, who Jones stated "... it occurred to me has held the offices of State Senator, that if there was one place in New Assemblyman, Police Magistrate, York to which a feeble-minded per- County Supervisor and ~lderman, son would go on a blood-chilling and who boasts of his record in fill- night like this it was to an open-air YEARS AGO ing four public offices in one year meeting." and drawing salaries from three of His other parody, "The Stolen Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee, them at thesame time." ( Riordan, Diamonds" begins with "Padlock cousins who wrote together uncler xxiii) Plunkitt referred to a boot- Jones picked up the shoes which our the pseudonym Ellery Queen, wrote black's stand in the old New York early morning visitor had inadver- in the introductory notes to The County Courthouse as his office and tently left behind him." Stressing Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes, it was there that he gave talks on that he never guesses, he deduces that "the name Sherlock Holmes is politics. Riordan published the text that the owner of the shoes was peculiarly susceptible to the twistings of these discussions in the New York absent-minded among other things, and misshapenings of burlesque- Sun, the New York Evening Post, the and that Jotson sees, but does not minded authors." Boston Transcript, and the New York World, and saw them reprinted in observe. "Why, my deductions are simplicity itself!" When the owner One early writer who was able to papers throughout the United States. returns to gather his shoes he tells twist and misshape the name He collected them into book form in the duo he has been robbed of $3000 Sherlock Holmes was William L. 1905 and described the volume as worth of diamonds from his jewelry Riordan who published two parodies "the mental operations of perhaps store. The thief, Jones deduces, is a in the October 1903 Sunday maga- the most thoroughly practical politi- young woman employee led astray by zine supplements of The New York cian of the day" (Riordan, xxiii) a scamp and has taken the diamonds Times. John Bennett Shaw had Among the numerous chapters were to finance her wedding to him. The copies of these two short articles in those titled "Honest Graft and " young woman was to be found at a his massive collection. (Editor's Note: Dishonest Graft, "Tammany clothing sale at Beagle's; "Is not the Please see Musingsfor more infoma- Leaders not Bookworms" and "Reciprocity in Patronage." deduction plain? Would your young tion about how these articles found woman or any other young woman their way to M1: Shaw.) The first to be with money miss that sale even if she published was "The Adventure of Utilizing his knowledge of New York risked state prison by going to the Padlock Jones: The Stolen politics, Riordan wrote "The store?" The thief confesses and is let Diamonds" which ran on October 11 Adventure of Padlock Jones: A go for the sake of her family. and the second, "The Adventure of Bedlamite." This short parody fea- Padlock Jones: A Bedlamite" on tured Padlock Jones and Dr. Jotson Riordan might be best remembered October 25. They were reprinted in in their quarters on Candlestickmaker for his documentation of George the June, 1976 and September, 1976 Street jn New York. A Brooklynite Washington Plunkitt but issues of the Baker Street Miscellanea. seeks Jones's help after his son, "fee- ble-minded from boyhood," escapes Sherlockians still enjoy his clever parodies. He is, after all, as Arthur Riordan (1861-1909) was more from a sanitarium near Central Park. Mann noted in his introduction to familiar with Tammany Hall of New The cocaine-using Jones considers the 1968 edition to Riordan's book, York than with Baker Street of the case, then proceeds to a political "Plunkitt's Boswell." v London. He was a newspaper jour- rally later that night. Accompanied nalist and "like so many newspaper- by Jotson and the unhappy father, Julie McKuras men of the day, was fascinated by Jones finds the boy amidst the crowd New York City's endless variety of gathered to hear about "beet sugar References: characters." (Mann, viii) One char- and reciprocity." The next morning, acter who particularly fascinated when questioned about how he guessed the boy would be at the Mann, Arthur. Introduction. Riordan was George Washington Plunkitt of Tammany Hall. Plunkitt. Riordan wrote in his own rally, Jones responds with "Guess! By William L. Riordan. New York: preface to Plunkitt of Tammany Hall, Guess! Why will everybody, even E. P. Dutton, 1963 edition. that Plunkitt was "Tammany leader you, Jotson, talk about my taking of the Fifteenth Assembly District, guesses?. .I never guess; I deduce." 2 f! Friedof the Sherlock HolmesCoWections society must be at first perceived as Brown. In Holmes "scientific curiosity good, innocent, in a state of grace. The is raised to the status of a heroic pas- murder discloses that someone in that sion." Holmes's reason for being a con- Edenic world has fallen out of grace, so sulting detective is "a love for neutral that his or her identification by the truth coupled with a need to escape detective is necessary to allow the his "feelings of melancholy" Inspector restoration of innocence to the Great French, whose adventures are not Good Place. By this definition, Auden much read these days "detects for the excludes much hard-boiled private eye sake of the innocent members of soci- fiction. The work of Raymond ety," works from a devotion to duty, and THE GUILTY VICARAGE Chandler, he maintains, offers a study of relies on other innocent people doing by W H. Auden the criminal milieu and the Philip their own duties as postmen, clerks, Marlowe novels - which Auden judges and milkmen to break down seemingly Throughout his career, the Anglo- powerful but "depressing" - ought to airtight time tables and alibis. Father American poet WH. Auden (1907- be judged not as escape fantasies but as Brown's prime motivation is compas- 1973) produced a steady stream of jour- works of art. This, probably, the sion, and he investigates murders in nalism, writing on subjects as various as weakest section of Auden's essay: I order to save the souls of the sinners. opera, Henry James, Kierkegaard, cold doubt that anyone regards The Big Sleep "He solves his cases, not by approach- weather, Mozart, the moon landing, bal- or Farewell, My Lovely as naturalistic ing them objectively like a scientist or a let and, not least, the detective story. studies. policeman, but by subjectively imagin- "The Guilty Vicarage" an analysis of the ing himself to be the murderer." classic English whodunit - first As Auden proceeds, he grows both appeared in 1948 in Harper's magazine increasingly theological and Freudian in In his last set of reflections Auden takes and was later reprinted in Auden's 1962 his statements, even viewing the mur- up the reader of mysteries, and the collection The Dyev's Hmd. [Editor's derer as a Satanic rebel. Here, though, appeal of this form of "daydream litera- note: John Bennett Shaw's collection Auden makes a brilliant point: An ture." He provocatively asserts, albeit included the 1953 Modem Essays,* edit- essential task for the writer of the mys- without a lot of evidence, that "The ed by Russel Nye.