Sherlock Holmes - Trivia, Questions and Fun Facts

[wesley]

All events take place in the year 1891. After Holmes and Watson are released from custody following the events in the shipyard, Inspector Lestrade hands a newspaper ("The National Police Gazette") over to Holmes. The title on the newspaper is "London In Terror", and the date is Friday, November 19, 1891, but oddly the first newspaper, foretelling Blackwoods hanging, given to Holmes by Watson in his apartment is dated Novemeber 13, 1890. This sets the story during the period when, in the original Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stories, Holmes was believed dead. According to "The Final Problem", Holmes and Professor Moriarty apparently plunged to their deaths over the Reichenbach Falls in May 1891. Holmes did not reveal he had survived until the spring of 1894, as described in "The Adventure of the Empty House".

[leo]

Early rumors had Brad Pitt as Moriarty, but were quickly denied.

[ronnie]

Delivered to some theaters under the fake title "Elementary Education".

[cassandra]

Sam Worthington was considered for the role of Watson.

[mathew]

Sienna Miller was in talks for a role, before her ex-fiancé Jude Law was cast as Watson.

[miriam]

Lord Blackwood's "final" words, "Death is only the beginning", are the same words that were carved in Imhotep's sarcophagus in The Mummy (1999).

[fred]

Attempting to escape the clutches of wearing a tight corset every morning, Rachel McAdams would trick the costumers by pushing her stomach out or eating a big breakfast of oatmeal before being laced up. However, they eventually caught on to her ruse.

[kristina]

Director of photography Philippe Rousselot used a special high-speed digital camera specifically to film the Punch Bowl fight sequence. The key moment where Holmes punches his opponent's jaw was filmed one second in real time, and turned into a seven-second shot without additional post-production aid.

[wallace]

Watson's line to Holmes, "You know that what you're drinking is for eye surgery?", is an obscure reference to Holmes' cocaine usage. At the time, cocaine was used as a topical anesthetic for eye surgery. In the stories, Holmes injects cocaine.

[melinda]

When Holmes (Robert Downey, Jr.) looks back at Irene (Rachel McAdams) when the barrels begin to explode outside the slaughterhouse, the number 221 can be seen on one of the still intact barrels; the same number as Holmes' address (221 Baker Street).

[kenzi]

The name of Holmes and Watson's English bulldog is Gladstone. He seems to be named after William Gladstone, four-time Prime Minister under Queen Victoria. A Gladstone is also a type of bag, named after the man, which was sometimes used by doctors in this period to carry their medical equipment.

[tom]

In the newspaper with the headline "London In Terror: Blackwood Lives and the Devil Walks With Him", handed by Lestrade to Holmes when Holmes is bailed out, the names of the five women who were Blackwood's first five victims are revealed. They are: Susan Willis, Margaret Coile, June Gray, Mary Wilson, and Sarah Moss. The woman, on whose murder Holmes intervened, is revealed to be named as Beatrice Church.

[addison]

Robert Maillet (Dredger) accidentally knocked out Robert Downey Jr. (Sherlock Holmes) while filming a fight scene.

[gerald]

When Sherlock and Watson visit Blackwood's grave, Sherlock says "And on the third day..." - a reference to Jesus as he rose from the dead on the third day.

[lena]

Robert Downey, Jr. read many Sherlock Holmes stories and watched The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (1984) in order to learn more about the character.

[kenneth]

Rachel McAdams and Kelly Reilly were also in the series True Detective (2014) together. They do not share any scenes together in this film.

[claude]

The four symbols to which are referred in the movie, the Man, the Lion, the Ox, and the Eagle, are also attributed to the four Gospels of the Christian Bible: Matthew (Man, the humanity of Christ), Mark (Lion, for courage and for action), Luke (Ox, for strength and perseverance), and John (Eagle, for clarity of sight and for divinity).

[jim]

The scene in which Holmes and Watson make a series of deductions from a dead man's watch closely mirrors a similar sequence in "The Sign of the Four" (as does Holmes' ability to follow the carriage's path whilst blindfolded), in which Holmes uses nearly identical observations (scratches around the watch's keyhole, pawnbroker's marks on the inside of the case) to deduce information from a watch belonging to Watson's late brother. Holmes's passing reference to locking Watson's checkbook in his desk parallels a similar statement in "The Adventure of the Dancing Men", which commentators such as William S. Baring-Gould have taken to mean that Watson had a gambling problem, an interpretation that the film adopts. Holmes also uses a riding crop as a weapon throughout the film, as he does in "A Case of Identity". In the "Six Napoleons", it is described as his "favorite weapon".

[ivan]

Rachel McAdams, Jude Law, and Robert Downey Jr. reportedly did most of their own stunts.

[manuel]

After Holmes recreates the ritual on his own, as he describes it to Watson and Irene Adler, he holds his spotted stick to his forehead for a few seconds. This is a reference to the story "The Speckled Band", in which a speckled snake wraps itself around the villain's head and bites him.