ESSAI Volume 11 Article 12 Spring 2013 An Analysis of the Perennial Big-Screen Representations of the Famed Detective, Sherlock Holmes Brody Challinor College of DuPage Follow this and additional works at: http://dc.cod.edu/essai Recommended Citation Challinor, Brody (2013) "An Analysis of the Perennial Big-Screen Representations of the Famed Detective, Sherlock Holmes," ESSAI: Vol. 11, Article 12. Available at: http://dc.cod.edu/essai/vol11/iss1/12 This Selection is brought to you for free and open access by the College Publications at DigitalCommons@COD. It has been accepted for inclusion in ESSAI by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@COD. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. Challinor: An Analysis of the Perennial Big-Screen Representations of An Analysis of the Perennial Big-Screen Representations of the Famed Detective, Sherlock Holmes by Brody Challinor (English 1154) n the 1939 movie, The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle‘s famous detective [Basil Rathbone] finds himself up against his greatest nemesis, Professor Moriarty, [George Zucco] I whom he must fight on two different fronts; protecting a young lady and her brother from the deadly implications of a series of cryptic notes, while simultaneously protecting the Crown Jewels. This portrayal of the character was released to a backdrop of a world in tension, hitting theaters on the first official day of World War II, once Nazi Germany invaded Poland. In sharp contrast to its predecessor, however, the 1979 Murder by Decree pitted Holmes [Christopher Plummer] against what some might call the ‗phantom‘ menace of a fictionalized Jack the Ripper, following hot on the heels of both the Watergate scandal as well as the American feminist movement.