A Study in Scarlet

Adaptations

Film

As the first Sherlock Holmes story published, A Study in Scarlet was among the first to be adapted to the screen. In 1914, Conan Doyle authorised a British silent film be produced by G. B. Samuelson. In the film, titled A Study in Scarlet, Holmes was played by James Bragington, an accountant who worked as an actor for the only time of his life. He was hired for his resemblance to Holmes, as presented in the sketches originally published with the story.[11] As early silent films were made with film that itself was made with poor materials, and film archiving was then rare, it is now a lost film. The film was successful enough for Samuelson to produce the 1916 film The Valley of Fear.[12]

A two-reel short film, also titled A Study in Scarlet, was released in the United States in 1914, a day after the British film with the same title was released. The American film starred Francis Ford as Holmes and was not authorised by Doyle. It is also a lost film.[12]

The 1933 film titled A Study in Scarlet, starring Reginald Owen as Holmes and Anna May Wong as Mrs Pyke, bears no plot relation to the novel.[13] Aside from Holmes, Watson, Mrs. Hudson, and Inspector Lestrade, the only connections to the Holmes canon are a few lifts of character names (Jabez Wilson, etc.).[13] The plot contains an element of striking resemblance to one used several years later in Agatha Christie's novel And Then There Were None.[14]

Radio

Edith Meiser adapted A Study in Scarlet into a four-part serial for the radio series The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The episodes aired in November and December 1931, with Richard Gordon as Holmes and Leigh Lovell as Watson.[15]

Parts of the story were combined with "The Adventure of Charles Augustus Milverton" for the script of "Dr Watson Meets Mr Sherlock Holmes", one of multiple radio adaptations featuring John Gielgud as Holmes and Ralph Richardson as Watson. The episode first aired on the BBC Light Programme on 5 October 1954 and also aired on NBC Radio on 2 January 1955.[16]

The story was adapted for the 1952–1969 BBC radio series in 1962 by Michael Hardwick, with Carleton Hobbs as Holmes and Norman Shelley as Watson. It aired on the BBC Home Service.[17]

Another British radio version of the story adapted by Hardwick aired on 25 December 1974, with Robert Powell as Holmes and Dinsdale Landon as Watson. The cast also included Frederick Treves as Gregson, John Hollis as Lestrade, and Don Fellows as Jefferson Hope.[18]

A radio dramatisation of the story aired on CBS Radio Mystery Theater during its 1977 season, with Kevin McCarthy as Holmes and Court Benson as Watson.[19]

A Study in Scarlet was adapted as the first two episodes of the BBC's complete Sherlock Holmes 1989–1998 radio series. The two-part adaptation aired on Radio 4 in 1989, dramatised by Bert Coules and starring Clive Merrison as Holmes, Michael Williams as Watson, Donald Gee as Inspector Lestrade, and John Moffatt as Inspector Gregson.[20]

It was adapted as a 2007 episode of the American radio series The Classic Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, with John Patrick Lowrie as Holmes, Lawrence Albert as Watson, Rick May as Lestrade, and John Murray as Gregson.[21]

Television

The 1954–1955 television series (with Ronald Howard as Holmes and H. Marion Crawford as Watson) used only the first section of the book as the basis for the episode "The Case of the Cunningham Heritage".[22]

The book was adapted into an episode broadcast on 23 September 1968 in the second season of the BBC television series Sherlock Holmes,[23] with Peter Cushing in the lead role and Nigel Stock as Dr Watson.

It was adapted as the second episode of the 1979 Soviet television film, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson (the first episode combines the story of their meeting with "The Adventure of the Speckled Band"; the second episode adapts the actual Jefferson Hope case).[24]

A 1983 animated television film adaptation was produced by Burbank Films Australia, with Peter O'Toole voicing Holmes. In both the 1968 television adaptation featuring Peter Cushing and the 1983 animated version featuring Peter O'Toole, the story is changed so that Holmes and Watson already know each other and have been living at 221B Baker Street for some time.

A Study in Scarlet is one of the stories missing from the adaptations made starring Jeremy Brett between 1984 and 1994.

Steven Moffat loosely adapted A Study in Scarlet into "A Study in Pink" as the first episode of the 2010 BBC television series Sherlock featuring Benedict Cumberbatch as a 21st-century Sherlock Holmes, and Martin Freeman as Dr Watson.[25] The adaptation retains many individual elements from the story, such as the scribbled "RACHE" and the two pills, and the killer's potentially fatal aneurysm (although it is located in his brain rather than his aorta). However, the entire backstory set in America is omitted, and the motivation of the killer is completely different. It also features Moriarty's presence. Also, the meeting of Holmes and Watson is adapted in the Victorian setting in the special "The Abominable Bride".

"The Deductionist", an episode of Elementary, contains many elements of Hope's case, including the motivation of revenge. The story was more closely adapted in the season 4 episode, "A Study in Charlotte."

"The First Adventure", the first episode of the 2014 NHK puppetry series Sherlock Holmes, is loosely based on A Study in Scarlet and "The Adventure of the Six Napoleons". In it, Holmes, Watson and Lestrade are pupils at a fictional boarding school called Beeton School. They find out that a pupil called Jefferson Hope has taken revenge on Enoch Drebber and Joseph Stangerson for stealing his watch. "Scarlet Story", the series' opening theme tune, is named after the novel.[26] The name of "Beeton School" is partially inspired by Beeton's Christmas Annual.[27]

Other media

A Study in Scarlet was illustrated by Seymour Moskowitz for Classics Illustrated comics in 1953. It was also adapted to graphic novel form by Innovation Publishing in 1969 (adapted by James Stenstrum and illustrated by Noly Panaligan) by Sterling Publishing in 2010 (adapted by Ian Edginton and illustrated by I. N. J. Culbard) and by Hakon Holm Publishing in 2013 (illustrated by Nis Jessen).[28]

In 2014, A Study in Scarlet was adapted again for the stage by Greg Freeman, Lila Whelan and Annabelle Brown for Tacit Theatre.[29] The production premiered at Southwark Playhouse in London in March 2014.[30]

In February 2019, a new adaptation of "A Study in Scarlet" was staged at DM Performance Works at the Factory in Nuremberg, PA. It was adapted by Bill Amos under the title "Sherlock Holmes and the Scarlet Avenger".[31]

In June 2022, Pitlochry Festival Theatre will produce a brand-new adaptation by playwright and actor Lesley Hart. "Sherlock Holmes; A Study in Lipstick, Ketchup and Blood" performed in an outdoor amphitheater by two performers.[32]


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