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The Man with the
Twisted Lip
(1921)

This collection of short British Sherlock Holmes productions includes films from the first 1921 series of Holmes films produced by the Stoll company. Eille Norwood portrays a believeable and satisfying Holmes.

For The Man with the Twisted Lip (1921), Holmes dons one of his disguises to investigate a curious beggar amid London’s seedier denizens, who is in turn accused of the murder of a well-to-do family man. Holmes solves the mystery with surprising results.

— Carl Bennett

Alpha Video
2019 DVD edition

Sherlock Holmes Silent Film Collection (1921), black & white, 80 minutes total, not rated, including The Man with the Twisted Lip (1921), black & white, 28 minutes, not rated.

Alpha Home Entertainment, distributed by Oldies.com,
ALP 8220D, UPC 0-89218-82209-3.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc; 1.33:1 aspect ratio picture in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan image encoded in SDR MPEG-2 format at 3.8 Mbps average video bit rate (capable of progressive scan upscaling to 30 fps); Dolby Digital (AC3) 2.0 mono sound encoded at 384 Kbps audio bit rate; English language intertitles, no subtitles; no chapter stops (within the film); standard DVD keepcase; $7.98 (raised to $8.98).
Release date: 16 April 2019.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 4 / audio: 3 / additional content: 2 / overall: 3.

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a good 16mm reduction print, which has a persistent case of the frame jitters. Some highlights are burnt out to white but the print still retains a reasonable greyscale range. Picture details are soft.

The film is accompanied by a soundtrack of preexisting orchestral music recordings.

Not a great viewing experience but still watchable. A slight visual quality edge is given to this edition over the Grapevine disc below. This is our recommended home video edition of the film.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

Canada: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.ca. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .

Grapevine Video
2002 DVD edition

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1912-1921), color-toned black & white and color-tinted black & white, 105 minutes total, not rated, including The Man with the Twisted Lip (1921), color-toned black & white, 26 minutes, not rated.

Grapevine Video, no catalog number, unknown UPC number.
One single-sided, single-layered, Region 0 NTSC DVD-R disc, 1.33:1 aspect ratio image in full-frame 4:3 (720 x 480 pixels) interlaced scan MPEG-2 format, SDR (standard dynamic range), 4.5 Mbps average video bit rate, 224 Kbps audio bit rate, PCM 48 kHz 2.0 mono sound, English language intertitles, no subtitles; no chapter stops (within the film); standard DVD keepcase; $16.95.
Release date: 2002.
Country of origin: USA

Ratings (1-10): video: 3 / audio: 3 / additional content: 0 / overall: 3.

This DVD-R edition has been mastered from a fair to good 16mm reduction print and is the best-looking of the three Stoll film prints in the collection but is still contrasty, with closed shadows and detailless highlights. Like the others, frame jitters can be distracting.

The film is accompanied by a soundtrack compiled from preexisting recordings.

The print quality of the Stoll films brings down the overall visual quality of this disc.

USA: Click the logomark to purchase this Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition from Amazon.com. Your purchase supports Silent Era.

This Region 0 NTSC DVD-R edition is also available directly from . . .