MusicChat It's complicated... I really like the directing, acting and writing but, there are issues with the way it's shot that I just can't deny. As much as I love the storytelling and the fantastic performance but, there are also certain scenes that didn't need to exist.

FuzzyTagz If the ambition is to provide two hours of instantly forgettable, popcorn-munching escapism, it succeeds.

Maleeha Vincent It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Blake Rivera If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

Rainey Dawn I don't have a problem with Arthur Wontner as Sherlock Holmes, Ian Fleming as Dr. Watson or Lyn Harding as Prof. Moriarty - they are quite good. It's the way this story is written that I was not crazy about - it is mainly in flashback form told by Ettie Douglas, the wife of the slain man John Douglas. The film is interesting in it's way but it's not the greatest Wontner/Holmes film I've seen either.I also agree that it's not like Sherlock Holmes to retire - completely out of character for him - and Holmes is suppose be in retirement in Sussex when this story begins and brings him back out of retirement. Very strange to add this if you ask me.At any rate, it's not a terrible Holmes film but it's not a grand film - still worth watching if you like Sherlock Holmes.6/10

tedg This is the second of the early Holmes film experiments that I have seen. In The Sign of Four, they messed up the detective form by showing us the entire history before Holmes appears. Here, they do something similar. While Holmes interviews a woman about her recently dead husband, we have the major part of the film time occupied in a flashback illustrating her story. That story is a small film by itself. The outer story is a combat between Moriarty and a *retired* Holmes that ends with a chase up a medieval tower with what might have been exciting camera-work in its day. This story does respect Holmes as a detective, and the task he tackles is not something we already understand. I can see that as they made extra films, they tried different mixes of explicit storytelling and deduced and explained stories.

bkoganbing For his inspiration in The Valley Of Fear, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle went across the pond to America for and the troubles with the coal miners in Pennsylvania. The Triumph Of Sherlock Holmes is based on that Conan Doyle story and stars the British team of Arthur Wontner and Ian Fleming as Holmes and Watson.For a more accurate view of the source of Conan Doyle's story, I heartily recommend the Sean Connery/Richard Harris film, The Molly Maguires. They were an offshoot of the Ancient Order Of Hibernians and protected the coalminers trying to unionize in American back then. A Pinkerton agent named James McParland went undercover and got the goods on them and the leaders of the Molly Maguires were hung.The Mollys are called the Scowlers here and they are a band of thugs who use terror tactics to intimidate decent law abiding citizens. A McParland like character infiltrates and gets the goods on them and unlike the real McParland, flees the country in fear of retaliation.Holmes gets involved in the case when both his arch enemy Professor Moriarty visits him and congratulates him on an announced retirement and a woman played by Jane Carr asks for his help. In a lengthy flashback the story of her husband the police informant is told. Where Moriarty fits in is for the viewer to see.Lyn Harding is a scowling and menacing Moriarty, but I like my Moriarty cold and calculating as Henry Daniell was against Basil Rathbone. As for Wontner and Fleming they are certainly the equal of Rathbone and Nigel Bruce.Character actor Ben Welden plays a surviving Scowler on the hunt for the guy who ratted his friends out. Welden was American, but was appearing in many British films at this time. He could be menacing as he is here, but is far better known as a goofy henchman type, a role he perfected on the old Superman series with George Reeves.I think Baker Street aficionados would be pleased with this film.

allan-broadfield I am afraid that I am a complete sucker for the Arthur Wontner series of Sherlock Holmes films. These films aren't presented in a very good form, in fact the copies of each of these Wontner titles have awful soundracks, soft focus and very flat contrast, seemingly copied from the worst scource possible. It is a pity that we should be subjected to this third class sort of presentation, as I have seen them on British television in a much more acceptable form, so a liitle bit of effort could have produced the goods! I am quite ellated that one of the two missing Wontner films , 'THE SLEEPING CARDINAL', has been found alive and well in the states...I suppose it is a bit too much to expect that this will be be an improvement in picture quality.