The Sleeping Cardinal

The Sleeping Cardinal is a 1931 British mystery film directed by Leslie S. Hiscott and starring Arthur Wontner and Ian Fleming. The film is an adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, though it is not based on any one particular story it draws inspiration from "The Empty House" and "The Final Problem". It is unrelated to the Basil Rathbone series of Holmes films which also began in the 1930s.

The film is also known as Sherlock Holmes' Fatal Hour in the USA.

Plot summary

Opening with a silent sequence in silhouette within the Bank of England, we’re whisked to a London home where Foreign Office bureaucrat Ronnie Adair (Leslie Perrins) is once again winning handsomely whilst gambling at bridge. Adair is called to a meeting with The Sleeping Cardinal, a picture disguising the identity of Professor Moriarty (Norman McKinnel), and blackmailed into taking counterfeit money to Paris in his diplomatic pouch. Adair’s concerned sister calls for the assistance of Sherlock Holmes (Arthur Wontner) and Dr. Watson (Ian Fleming) to investigate the reasons for her brother's gambling excesses and depressed moods. After Adair succumbs to an apparent suicide; Holmes derives from a trail of clues Moriarty's involvement.

Cast

• Arthur Wontner as Sherlock Holmes
• Ian Fleming as Dr. Watson
• Philip Hewland as Inspector Lestrade
• Jane Welsh as Kathleen Adair
• Norman McKinnel as Prof. Moriarty, alias Col. Henslowe
• Minnie Rayner as Mrs. Hudson
• Leslie Perrins as Ronald Adair
• Gordon Begg as Marston, the butler
• William Fazan as Thomas Fisher
• Sydney King as Tony Rutherford
• Louis Goodrich as Colonel Sebastian Moran
• Charles Paton as J.J. Godfrey

Critical reception

Allmovie wrote, "Sherlock Holmes' Fatal Hour got the Wontner Holmes series off to a rousing start."

External links

• The Sleeping Cardinal at IMDb
• The Sleeping Cardinal is available for free download at the Internet Archive