Sherlock Holmes - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[discussimdb]

Fan of Sherlock Holmes or just want to share your movie knowledge? This topic is dedicated to all trivia and questions related to Sherlock Holmes

[kyle]

The outfits worn by the navvies are the same ones worn by the railway workers in Cranford: Return to Cranford: Part One - August 1844 (2009).

[bernard]

The address of the Blackwood manor is 1856 which also happens to be the year that Sherlock Holmes writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is born.

[oscar]

After Guy Ritchie signed on as the director, he insisted that the two most common clichés of Sherlock Holmes, the "Elementary, my dear Watson" quip and Holmes' deerstalker, be dropped entirely.

[christina]

Despite Moriarty's obsession with the Blackwood Device, and saying how it is crucial to his plans, it plays absolutely no important part in Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows (2011).

[maureen]

There are repeated references to five women murdered by Lord Blackwood before the beginning of the movie. Five is also the number of women that the bulk of historians agree were murdered by Jack the Ripper (additional victims are disputed).

[ava]

Before the scene where Sherlock Holmes reenacts the black magic ceremony, we see a brief shot of an inn called The Punch Bowl. The Punch Bowl is the name of Guy Ritchie's pub in Mayfair, London.

[jesus]

Towards the climax, at the Houses of Parliament, and Tower Bridge, the dramatic music score is heavily influenced by the regular sound of the landmark Big Ben Bell melody, "Ding, Dong, Ding, Dong (etc)" before it chimes the hour.

[victoria]

The story "The Adventure of the Musgrave Ritual" mentions that Holmes practiced shooting his pistol by putting VR (Victoria Regina) on his wall with bullet holes. In the movie, Holmes shoots VR in the wall in his room with a gun.

[jeffrey]

The film depicts Watson pressing Holmes to meet his fiancée, Mary Morstan. Holmes is reluctant to do so. In the original stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Mary Morstan is introduced as a client (in the novel "The Sign of Four"). She and Watson fall in love while he assists Holmes in her case, and he proposes to her at the end of the novel.

[wesley]

Jude Law previously appeared in the Granada television series The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes (1991), in The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes: Shoscombe Old Place (1991).

[dustin]

The bare-knuckle fight between Holmes and McMurdo references the Holmes story "The Sign of Four". In the story, Holmes encounters McMurdo and says to him, "I don't think you can have forgotten me. Don't you remember that amateur who fought three rounds with you at Alison's rooms on the night of your benefit four years back?"

[gerald]

Robert Downey, Jr. and Jude Law have worked with other actors who played Holmes and Watson. Downey appears in Avengers: Infinity War (2018) with Benedict Cumberbatch, Captain America: Civil War (2016) with Martin Freeman, Iron Man 3 (2013) with Sir Ben Kingsley, and The Judge (2014) with Robert Duvall. Law appeared on the 1980s Sherlock Holmes series that starred Jeremy Brett as Sherlock, and David Burke and Edward Hardwicke as Watson; Breaking and Entering (2006) with Martin Freeman, A.I. Artificial Intelligence (2001) with Sir Ben Kingsley; and Hugo (2011) with both Kingsley and Sir Christopher Lee. He also appeared in Wilde (1997) with Jason Morell, whose father André Morell played Watson.

[russell]

A raven is visible every time a character is killed, or thought to be killed.

[frederick]

Several of the film's details recall "The Adventure of the Mazarin Stone". The first is the name of the primary antagonist, Lord Blackwood, which parallels that of "Mazarin Stone" villain Count Negretto Sylvius (Negretto is Italian for black, and Sylvius is Latin for woods). (As Holmes scholar W. W. Roberts notes, this is "presumably a private joke at the expense of Blackwood's Magazine, long and unavailingly courted by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in the 1880s.") Another common detail is the Crown Diamond, an alternate name for the Mazarin Stone, which hangs around Irene Adler's neck in the film. "The Mazarin Stone" is also the first story to mention that the 221B Baker Street apartment had multiple exits and a waiting room. The extra exit, which was through the bedroom, is employed by Holmes to follow Irene early in the film.

[duane]

When Sherlock says "Now that you're sitting comfortably, I shall begin." to begin explaining Blackwood's plot, it is a reference to a BBC children's radio program from the 1950s, Listen With Mother, which was famous for its opening line "Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin."

[clayton]

This movie contains three actors from Marvel Cinematic Universe; Rachel McAdams who plays Christine Palmer in Doctor Strange, Robert Downey, Jr who plays Tony Stark/Iron Man, and Jude Law who plays Yon-Rogg in Captain Marvel. Eddie Marsan and Robert Maillet both appeared on another Marvel adaption, Deadpool 2, tied to the X-Men Universe.

[ethel]

The letters VR, visible throughout the film, stand for Victoria Regina, the Royal Cypher (monogram) of then-reigning Queen Victoria.

[ethel]

The song that plays from 1:03 to the end on the second trailer is a piece called "Unstoppable" by the group E.S. Posthumus (specifically 1:47 to the end on the track).

[jessica]

In the first film Moriarty is obsessed with the Blackwood device: a unique style of bomb. In the sequel "Game of Shadows" the opening sequence revolves around a series of political bombings showing Moriarty and Holmes picking up right where the previous film left off.