Stronger than Sherlock Holmes
About Stronger than Sherlock Holmes
Totò Travetti, played by Émile Vardannes, reads crime stories in the paper until his wife, bored by the commentary, falls asleep, and the warm room puts him to sleep too. A robber's shadow steps out of the newspaper. Totò is suddenly in a policeman's uniform. The chase runs through a wood and then a gambling den. The bandit shuts him in a sack. Totò gets out, accepts a drugged cigarette, and is caught again. He wakes swinging at his wife.
Cast & crew
More about Stronger than Sherlock Holmes
Giovanni Pastrone directed the comedy for Itala Film in Turin. Segundo de Chomón photographed it. Domenico Gambino plays Saltarelli. The Italian listing gives 428 meters, about 16 minutes. A review in L'Araldo della Cinematografia is dated 18 October 1913, so the film was out by then.
Themes
Making
Pastrone and Chomón built a comic chase in which the newspaper itself supplies the criminal.
Reviews
L'Araldo della Cinematografia (Turin, no. 8, 18 October 1913) called it a good comedy and said it had left behind the foolish subjects Itala's comic line had been using.
Look
Segundo de Chomón photographed the shadow leaving the newspaper and the jumps from wood to gambling den.
Notes
- The Italian title is Più forte che Sherlock Holmes.
- The dream changes place under him: a forest, then a gambling room, then the sack.
- The cigarette the bandit offers is what puts Totò back in the villain's hands.
- The last blow is aimed at the wife who was asleep in the chair when the dream started.
Scenes
- A robber's shadow steps off the page while Totò sleeps.
- He is tied in a sack in the gambling den and works his way out.
- He wakes and finds he has been fighting his wife.
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Più forte che Sherlock Holmes (1913).webm)
