Best movie of this year hands down!

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

The movie's neither hopeful in contrived ways, nor hopeless in different contrived ways. Somehow it manages to be wonderful

Over 110 years before Robert Downey Jr. gives his approach on the character, this is the very first Sherlock Holmes movie ever starring an unknown actor. The film was considered lost, but rediscovered in the 1960s. To put it in relation, the author Arthur Conan Doyle was 40 years old, when Arthur Marvin shot this very short film, which lasts clearly under a minute. It's one of 3 films made by Marvin, but he was one of the most prolific cinematographers of the early years of cinema. He participated in over 400 films despite dying in his early 50s already.Holmes surprised a burglar who's about to steal a big sum of cash and tries to take it from him. However, the burglar seems to have great magic abilities as he not only manages to keep disappearing when Holmes confronts him. But he even reappears shortly afterward and takes the money with him. Too much for old Sherlock. And only one for early cinema enthusiasts really.

Sherlock Holmes Baffled (1900) *** (out of 4) This thirty-second film from American Mutoscope and the Biograph Company is the earliest surviving (and perhaps first made) Sherlock Holmes movie. The story is pretty simple as Holmes walks in on a thief and as he goes to grab him he disappears into thin air. Holmes, as the title suggests, is baffled but the thief reappears only to quickly disappear again. At just 30-seconds one shouldn't go into this thing expecting any type of real story and as you can tell by the story what we're basically got is a Georges Melies rip-off but I must admit that I found it entertaining. The actors are unknown I believe but I enjoyed the Holmes here. There's not much of a performance but I thought the actor did a nice job with his short time and the cigar was a nice touch and something that wouldn't be seen in future versions. The magician tricks aren't nearly as good as what you'd see in an actual Melies movie but at the same time they're actually quite a bit better than most rips including some from this very studio. The disappearance trick happens about three times and it's clearly done with the editing but the effect works well enough. While I'm sure many viewers of today would just see this as some sort of generic junk, it's actually pretty interesting in its own right and not to mention the fact that it's probably the first Holmes movie. That there is reason enough to check it out.

I guess this was the first Sherlock Holmes movie ever made. the special effects are superb (especially for the time back then), they do get every attention. some guy appears and disappears a lot of times. I wonder how they would do it nowadays. anyway, the effects are way better than the acting performances. they act quite ridiculous, so it's more a comedy than a detective movie. it's even more a horror movie than a comedy. the villain who seems to be untouchable, is a theme that would come back in a lot of films nowadays. yes, this short movie is very important in the history of cinema: without this genre mix, movies as Jurassic Park (reactions on something that isn't there) would be impossible to make.

No character, no plot, one set, trick photography but no camera movement--did anyone of the time consider these few seconds a harbinger of Holmes in the cinema? Not all of the stories had been written, and when this was made Holmes was still murdered by Professor Moriarty. Besides that, people weren't going to the movies in theaters yet, because no one was making any decent films in 1900: they were only considered nickel arcade curiosities. That's why it's neat to watch this little turn, once or twice; and to think about people who already knew who Sherlock Holmes was. But, I'm afraid the people who made the movie didn't!