The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (film) in which Holmes is played by Robert Downey, Jr.. The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (film) The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (released theatrically as Sherlock Holmes in the United Kingdom) is a 1939 mystery-adventure film released by Twentieth Century Fox. It is a pastiche featuring the characters of the Sherlock Holmes series of books written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The film is an adaptation of the 1899 play "Sherlock Holmes" by William Gillette, though there is little resemblance in the plots. The picture is the second installment to the series of fourteen "Sherlock Holmes" film series released between 1939 and
Sherlock Holmes pastiches been inverted for comic effect, as in Gene Wilder's 1975 film "The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother". Here Holmes' younger brother Sigurson (Wilder), who is jealous of 'Sheer Luck' as he calls him, is manipulated by Holmes into solving one of his cases. 1988 brought Thom Eberhardt's role-reversal comedy "Without a Clue". The film depicts Dr. Watson (Ben Kingsley) as the real detective genius and Holmes (Michael Caine) as a bumbling idiot who is merely an actor and a front man for Watson, with a plot which cleverly mirrors the real life circumstance of Conan Doyle (also a physician)