Arthur Wontner (January 21, 1875 - July 10, 1960) was a British actor best known for playing Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's master detective Sherlock Holmes in five films from 1931-1937. These films are:
Ironically, Wontner landed the role of Sherlock Holmes thanks to his performance of Holmes imitation Sexton Blake in a 1930 stage production.
Arthur Wontner (1875-1960), the critics' choice. "No better Sherlock Holmes than Arthur Wontner is likely to be seen and heard in pictures, in our time... The keen worn, kindly face and quiet prescient smile are out of the very pages of the book". Vincent Starrett's 'The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes' Arthur Wontner made his first stage appearance in 1897 and his first film 18 years later. Best known today for his characterization of Sherlock Holmes in five films produced between 1931 and 1938, some Holmes afficionados prefer Wontner's studious interpretation to the more aggressive, energetic portrayals of Basil Rathbone. Ironically, Wontner landed the role on the strength of his performance in the 1930 stage production Sexton Blake, based on a pulp-fiction character who'd been created as a Sherlock Holmes imitation. In later years, he played several small but memorable character roles, such as the elderly automobile fancier in Genevieve (1953). Wontner was fifty-six when he made his first Sherlock Holmes film, Sherlock Holmes' Fatal Hour (actually called The Sleeping Cardinal in England). The story was based on The Final Problem, but with some liberal rearranging. Norman McKinnell played Moriarty in this movie, but would be replaced by Lyn Harding (Dr. Grimesby Roylott in Doyle's play, The Speckled Band) for the others in the series. The Missing Rembra (based on Charles Augustus Milverton) and The Sign of the Fo would be the next two films with Wonter. For the final two, he would be pitted against Professor Moriarty. The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes was from The Valley of Fear and last up was Silver Blaze. Apparently the studio had difficulty in making the short story fill out a feature length film, as both Moriarty and Henry Baskerville are added to the movie. Strangely enough, though made in 1937, it wasn't released in the US until 1941, when Basil Rathbone had already made The Hound of the Baskervilles. To cash in on the success of that film, Wontner's movie was retitled Murder at the Baskervilles. Two actors played Watson, Ian Hunter in The Sign of Four, and Ian Fleming, an Australian actor, who played Watson as "nice but dim". Of the five Holmes movies Wontner made, three were for Twickenham Studios, a low-budget production company. (Silver Blaze and The Sign of Four were made by ARP) However, one of the films is 'lost', The Missing Rembrandt. The Sleeping Cardinal was unobtainable for decades, but it turned up on an American video dealer's list and was shown at the annual film evening in November 2000. It was very appropriate because it was first shown to the Society by Tony Howlett at the very first film evening in 1951 - when Arthur Wontner himself was present. The Society has the other three movies on film, The Triumph of Sherlock Holmes, Silver Blaze and The Sign of Four. (This biography is used with the kind permission of 'The Sherlock Holmes Society of London')
