He took a six-month lease on the Adelphi Theater. Boxing was illegal in England at the time and he experienced difficulty getting The Strand to serialize it. In hindsight, he should have been concerned for the play. After a solid opening night on February 11, 1910, attendance was sparse, at best. A play that included actual boxing on stage was in for an uphill battle in a society still influenced by Victorian morals. As Yogi Berra said: “If people don’t want to come out, how you gonna stop ‘em?” One notable fact of the production was that Hubert Willis was in the cast. He would go on to play Dr. Watson in the Stoll movie series of 1921 – 1923, which featured the great Eille Norwood.

The attendance slump was followed by King Edward’s death and all the theaters were closed. Doyle was on the hook for payment of the remainder of the lease. As history has shown, financial desperation is a great motivator. He chose to turn his favorite story into a play in an attempt to salvage the lease. He wrote it in a week and had rehearsals under way only one week after “Temperely” closed. It’s interesting to note that in 1905, William Gillette’s play Clarice was struggling, and that great actor dusted off Sherlock Holmes and saved the day!

After William Gillette, it can be asserted that H.A. Saintsbury was the most popular Holmes of the time. It is believed he portrayed the great detective over 1,400 times, second only to H. Hamilton Stewart among all Holmes’. Saintsbury was tapped to play the lead for The Speckled Band. Claude King would play Watson. Popular Shakespearian actor Lyn Harding was cast as the evil Dr. Grimesby Rylott and produce as well.

Doyle saw Rylott as the classic, “heavy” villain. Harding wanted the role more over the top, and he added minor embellishments to his portrayal. Doyle was not pleased, and asked Harding to play the character more as it was written. Relations between the two became strained. Harding was an established actor, co-lead on stage, and the producer. Doyle wrote the play and had created Sherlock Holmes. An impasse had been reached.

But J.M. Barrie, author of Peter Pan, stepped in. He was friendly with both men, and he watched a rehearsal not long before the first public performance. After a dramatic scene, he turned to Doyle and said: “Let Harding have it his own way.” On opening night, Harding received over a dozen curtain calls and Doyle sent him a congratulatory letter. Harding would reprise the role in the 1931 Raymond Massey film, and would twice portray Professor Moriarty opposite Arhur Wontner’s Sherlock Holmes.

The play was a hit and moved to the Globe after finishing its run at the Adelphi. It closed on October 10, 1910, after a total of 169 performances. It was already being performed in the country, with Julian Royce in the lead role. It even went over to America for performances in New York and Boston.

Doyle was quite pleased with the play, writing to his mother: “It went wonderfully well. I don’t think I have ever seen a play go so well.” Critical reviews were mixed, though Saintsbury and Harding received almost universal praise.

The play had a few minor changes, but there was no doubt it was based on the popular Strand story. Most importantly, it had the denouement that readers expected. Doyle had wanted to give it an original title: “The Stonor Case.” However, he was convinced that The Speckled Band would have much more appeal and draw a larger audience.

The full text of the play can be found in Jack Tracy’s excellent “Sherlock Holmes: The Published Apocrypha.”

The story has been the subject of four television episodes. The first was in 1949 for a US broadcast. It starred Alan Napier and was not part of a series. This was only the second time Holmes had appeared on tv.

1964 saw a more important version produced. Douglas Wilmer appeared as the great detective in a pilot for director David Goddard’s television series. The pilot was successful enough to spawn twelve episodes the following year.

The snake returned to tv screens in 1980. In 1954, Sheldon Reynolds had produced a series of thirty-nine Holmes episodes featuring the entertaining Ronald Howard as the great detective. Only a few were based on Doyle’s stories, as he did not have the rights to the Canon. Howeer, plot elements of the story were contained in the episode entitled The Singing Violin.

Reynolds produced a second series in 1980 with Geoffrey Whitehead as Holmes. The only Doyle title included was The Speckled Band.

Finally, in 1986, the great Jeremy Brett filmed a version for Grenada that looked as if Sidney Paget’s drawings had come to life. 

There have been three film versions of The Speckled Band. We’ve mentioned the first two, starring Georges Treville (1913) and Eille Norwood (1923). These were both based on the original story. But in 1931, the play was brought to the screen as the second “talking” Holmes film. A young Raymond Massey would portray the master sleuth in his first starring role.

Raymond Massey - 1931

The best-known film version of The Speckled Band featured Canadian Raymond Massey, who had been appearing on the British stage for several years. This is a dark, gothic film. Cameraman Freddy Young used shadows so extensively that the print, now about seventy years old, is hard to watch at times. But he certainly conveyed the ancient manor, Stoke Moran, as a dark, poorly lit place with a pall of gloom hanging over it.

Massey had the lean, sharp features that Doyle wrote of, not the more handsome look that Sidney Paget drew. It is a foreshadowing of the portrayal to come in a few years with Arthur Wontner. Athole Stewart played Watson and was appearing in his fourth film. While he is not bad, neither is his performance memorable. This is unfortunate, as Watson has a bit more of a role in the play version of Doyle’s story, which was used for this film.

Lyn Harding, mentioned above, brought his stage performance to the screen. He played Dr. Grimseby Rylott with the same menace and evilness that had earned him rave reviews at the Adelphi Theater. He is a large, cunning man and appears as a worthy nemesis for Holmes. Of course, his bulk makes him singularly unsuited to play Professor James Moriarty, but he was cast as that arch-villain as well.

The setting is made contemporary and Holmes has a nifty crime lab, secretaries (what a boss he must have been!), intercoms and automated filing systems. It was state of-the-art for 1931. As seems to always be the case, any attempt to update the Holmes setting looks poor years later. The Eille Norwood movies avoided this because Edwardian England did not look much different than its Victorian predecessor. This film would have been better off by staying in the 1890’s. In a completely inexplicable change, 221-B Baker Street is renumbered 107! No explanation for this has ever been given, which is just as well, for it could not be found acceptable.

The film starts with Violet Stonor’s death in her sister Helen’s arms at Stoke Moran. Her stepfather, Dr. Rylott, is there as well. There is an inquest the next day. Watson is there to testify. He knew the girls’ mother in India, though not Rylott. We see Rylott’s suspicious Indian valet, Ali, and some wary looking gypsies who are camping on the grounds. Violet’s dying words were “the speckled band.” The good doctor decides things are a bit strange and decides to visit Holmes.

As Watson sits on the couch next to Holmes and explains the situation, an image of each character appears floating in the background as they are discussed. This is a very interesting technique and one that has stayed with me long after I had forgotten other parts of the film. Holmes then informs Watson that his narrative had been recorded for future use. Hmm, this reminds me of a U.S. president who did the same thing.

Rylott visits Baker Street in a memorable scene. Holmes is dismissive to him and the villain bends a poker in half as a warning. Holmes proceeds to unbend it. Rylott is upset because Helen is going to be married, depriving him of access to his late wife’s money. He sees Holmes as a meddler in the affair. Rylott has ordered some construction to be done on the manor, including Helen’s room. He forces her to move into her sister’s room. She is terrified at this development. As the tension is increased, the use of darkness and shadows does contribute to the gloom and despair that seems to hang over the household.

Holmes, Watson and Helen Stonor spend the night in the room where her sister died. Holmes has his hunting crop, which was his favorite weapon. We see the shadows of Rylott and his Indian servant in the next room. Ali is playing his flute, which causes the deadly snake to go through a ventilator shaft and onto a pull-rope in the room next door. Holmes lashes furiously at the snake, which retreats back from whence it came. We hear Rylott scream. He has become the victim of his own nefarious plan.

The film ends with Watson stopping by Baker Street on his way to Helen Stonor’s wedding. Holmes appears to be saddened by the realization that he will never have such an event. The film ends as he tells his secretary to add the Rylott affair to the “cases closed” files.

Largely because it is based on such a popular story, this movie has aged fairly well. The lighting is quite poor on my print, and you have to look closely at the Stoke Moran scenes to see what is going on. But the film captures the feeling of the play quite well. Massey makes a distinctive Holmes, though it is hard to say exactly why. If you are a Holmes fan and want to see an early sound film, this isn’t a bad choice.