General Evans Above Archive for Oct 25, 2025
Sherlock Holmes’ Fatal Hour Blu-ray review
Oct 25, 2025 – permalink
Thankfully the Canada Post strike moved from a national one to a series of rotating strikes, so my Blu-ray review copy of Sherlock Holmes’ Fatal Hour finally arrived after a few weeks of delay. This Film Masters release, also known as The Sleeping Cardinal in the UK, is a 1931 mystery directed by Leslie S. Hiscott, the co-founder of Twickenham Studios, and starred Arthur Wontner as the titular detective. Wontner would play Holmes in a series of mysteries between 1931 and 1937. Ian Fleming – the Australian actor, not the British writer – played Watson. Holmes and Watson are called in to investigate diplomatic attaché Ronnie Adair’s involvement in transporting counterfeit money, a case that takes leads them to Professor Moriarty. Thanks to Allied Vaughn Entertainment for making this review possible.
The 1080p AVC encoded digital transfer is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The HD restoration has done a good job of cleaning the source material up, with only a few scratches here and there. Though there is a heavy film grain, the amount of detail on textiles, facial features and sets is amazing. It’s always great to see films be given this loving treatment.
On the audio side of things, the release has an English DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 soundtrack. English subtitles are also available. The dialogue is clear and hiss and crackle is not evident.
This Film Masters Archive Collection release does not contain any supplemental materials.
I’m always pleased when we see a piece of film history given the restoration treatment. Sherlock Holmes’ Fatal Hour has a very solid audio and video presentation and will add nicely to your Holmes library.