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The Sleeping Cardinal, also known as Sherlock Holmes' Fatal Hour in the United States, is a 1931 British mystery film directed by Leslie S. Hiscott and starring Arthur Wontner and Ian Fleming.[1] The film is an adaptation of the Sherlock Holmes stories by Arthur Conan Doyle, although it is not based on any one particular story it draws inspiration from "The Empty House" and "The Final Problem".[2]

The Sleeping Cardinal
U.S. trade ad in Moving Picture Daily
Directed by	Leslie S. Hiscott
Written by	Arthur Conan Doyle (stories) Leslie S. Hiscott H. Fowler Mear Cyril Twyford
Produced by	Julius Hagen
Starring	Arthur Wontner Ian Fleming Philip Hewland Jane Welsh
Cinematography	Sydney Blythe William Luff
Edited by	Jack Harris
Music by	John Greenwood
Production company	Twickenham Studios
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc. (UK) First Division Pictures (US)
Release date	February 1931
Running time	84 minutes
Country	United Kingdom
Language	English

It as shot at Twickenham Studios in London with sets designed by the art director James A. Carter. The film is the first in the 1931–1937 film series starring Wontner as Sherlock Holmes. It is unrelated to the Basil Rathbone series of Holmes films which began in the late 1930ss.

Plot summary

Opening with a silent sequence in silhouette within the Bank of England, we're whisked to a London home where a young diplomatic attache, Foreign Office bureaucrat Ronnie Adair (Leslie Perrins), is once again winning handsomely while gambling at bridge.

Adair is called to a meeting ^{[clarification needed]} with "The Sleeping Cardinal", a picture disguising the identity of Professor Moriarty (Norman McKinnel),^{[clarification needed]} 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 deduces Moriarty's involvement from a trail of clues.

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
• Harry Terry as No. 16
• Charles Paton as J.J. Godfrey

Critical reception

Allmovie wrote, "Sherlock Holmes' Fatal Hour got the Wontner Holmes series off to a rousing start."[3]

References

External links

• The Sleeping Cardinal at IMDb

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