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	''The Movietone Interview: Arthur Conan Doyle'' is an article written by [[Michael W. Homer]] & [[Christopher Roden]] published in the [[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 6, 1995).		''The Movietone Interview: Arthur Conan Doyle'' is an article written by [[Michael W. Homer]] & [[Christopher Roden]] published in the [[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 6, 1995).

	This documentary article reconstructs the filming, publication history, and later reissues of [[Arthur Conan Doyle]]'s 1928 Fox Movietone interview at Windlesham, drawing on archival photographs, newspaper reviews, and contemporary sources. It reproduces and contextualises the full transcript of the interview, in which [[Arthur Conan Doyle\|Conan Doyle]] discusses the origins of [[Sherlock Holmes]] and his lifelong commitment to Spiritualism.		This documentary article reconstructs the filming, publication history, and later reissues of [[Arthur Conan Doyle]]'s 1928 Fox Movietone [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (movie 1928)\|interview]] at Windlesham, drawing on archival photographs, newspaper reviews, and contemporary sources. It reproduces and contextualises the full transcript of the interview, in which [[Arthur Conan Doyle\|Conan Doyle]] discusses the origins of [[Sherlock Holmes]] and his lifelong commitment to Spiritualism.

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TCDE-Team: Created page with " ''The Movietone Interview: Arthur Conan Doyle'' is an article written by Michael W. Homer & Christopher Roden published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 6, 1995). This documentary article reconstructs the filming, publication history, and later reissues of Arthur Conan Doyle's 1928 Fox Movietone interview at Windlesham, drawing on archival photographs, newspaper reviews, and contemporary sources. It reproduces and cont..."

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Created page with " ''The Movietone Interview: Arthur Conan Doyle'' is an article written by Michael W. Homer & Christopher Roden published in the A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society (Vol. 6, 1995). This documentary article reconstructs the filming, publication history, and later reissues of Arthur Conan Doyle's 1928 Fox Movietone interview at Windlesham, drawing on archival photographs, newspaper reviews, and contemporary sources. It reproduces and cont..."

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''The Movietone Interview: Arthur Conan Doyle'' is an article written by [[Michael W. Homer]] & [[Christopher Roden]] published in the [[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 6, 1995).

This documentary article reconstructs the filming, publication history, and later reissues of [[Arthur Conan Doyle]]'s 1928 Fox Movietone interview at Windlesham, drawing on archival photographs, newspaper reviews, and contemporary sources. It reproduces and contextualises the full transcript of the interview, in which [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] discusses the origins of [[Sherlock Holmes]] and his lifelong commitment to Spiritualism.

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== The Movietone Interview: Arthur Conan Doyle ==
[[File:Acd-society-journal-1995-vol6-p18-the-movietone-interview.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 5, 1994, p. 18) The envelope which contained the Conan Doyle family photographs of the filming of the Movietone Interview at Windlesham in October 1928. (Courtesy of the Lancelyn Green Collection)]]
[[File:Acd-society-journal-1995-vol6-p19-the-movietone-interview.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 5, 1994, p. 19)]]
[[File:Acd-society-journal-1995-vol6-p20-the-movietone-interview.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 5, 1994, p. 20)]]
[[File:Acd-society-journal-1995-vol6-p21-the-movietone-interview.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 5, 1994, p. 21) Denis and Adrian Conan Doyle, presumably assisting the photographer to check lighting prior to the commencement of filming. (Courtesy of the Lancelyn Green Collection)]]
[[File:Acd-society-journal-1995-vol6-p22-the-movietone-interview.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 5, 1994, p. 22)]]
[[File:Acd-society-journal-1995-vol6-p23-the-movietone-interview.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 5, 1994, p. 23)]]
[[File:Acd-society-journal-1995-vol6-p24-the-movietone-interview.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 5, 1994, p. 24)]]
[[File:Acd-society-journal-1995-vol6-p25-the-movietone-interview.jpg|thumb|250px|right|[[A.C.D. - The Journal of The Arthur Conan Doyle Society]] (Vol. 5, 1994, p. 25) All photographs for this article courtesy of the Lancelyn Green Collection]]

The Movietone Interview was part of a series of newsreels produced in England and in the United States in the 1920s and 30s. There seems to be some confusion over the date when [[Arthur Conan Doyle]]'s interview was filmed — 1928 or 1929 — but a definite date is provided by an envelope containing the family's photographs taken at the time. The photographs now form a part of the Lancelyn Green Collection, and the notation on the envelope, clearly written by [[Jean Elizabeth Leckie|Lady Conan Doyle]], records: '[[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|Arthur]] being Movitoned at Windlesham. Oct 1928.' [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] left on his South African tour shortly afterwards, arriving in Cape Town on 12 November. It will be noted that he has cleverly worked in a reference to South Africa, in the knowledge that his tour would have been completed by the time the film was ready for release.

The [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (movie 1928)|interview]] was filmed in the rose garden by William Fox for the Fox-Case Movietone and the Fox Film Corporation. A transcript of the interview was published in the New York Times on 26 May 1929 (p.4x). On the same date the paper published a short review of the interview in 'Past Week's Pictures' by Mordaunt Hall (p.7x). The interview was published after [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]'s death by the Revd John Lamond, a Spiritualist who was commissioned to write a biography of [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]] [John Lamond: ''Conan Doyle: A Memoir''; London, [[John Murray]], 1931; pp.203-6]. There was a second release of the Movietone interview after [[Arthur Conan Doyle|Conan Doyle]]'s death in 1930. In 1974, the interview was reissued by Blackhawk Films, although portions of the Blackhawk version are out of sequence with the original. The transcription was also published in Whodunit (Helen's Fantasia) in August 1978.

The following is the text of the review by Mordaunt Hall which appeared in the New York Times on 26 May 1929:

: There is at the Gaiety Theatre with the Blackwatch, a brilliant piece of Movietone work in which [[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]] tells how he came to write the [[Sherlock Holmes]] stories and also of his firm belief in Spiritualism. This audible film, which runs for about twenty minutes, is especially good, perhaps even better than the George Bernard Shaw and the King of Spain Movietones because of Sir Arthur's easy flow of words. Unlike Shaw, he talks in serious fashion, which naturally interests the spectators to such an extent that they forget all about the novelty of the shadow with a voice and react to the talking figure of Sir Arthur in the same way they might if the author were himself actually on the stage. This specimen of Movietone made out of doors is another feature of William Fox's now well-decorated cap, for this subject can be seen and heard by millions in all the wired theatres of the world. In another column of this section there will be found Sir Arthur's speech in full.

=== Transcription of the Movietone Interview ===

FIRST FRAME:

WILLIAM FOX HAS THE HONOR TO PRESENT THE WORLD FAMOUS AUTHOR AND SCIENTIST

SECOND FRAME:

[[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle|SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE]]

THIRD FRAME:

[[Sir Arthur Conan Doyle]] is famous the world over for his [[Sherlock Holmes]] stories. He has devoted the past 40 years to spiritualistic study and is one of the leading advocates of the existence of spirit life and communication with the beyond.

INTERVIEW:

I've got to speak one or two words, just to try my voice, I understand. There are two things that people always want to ask me. One of them is how I ever came to write the [[Sherlock Holmes]] stories, and the other is about how I came to have psychic experiences and to take so much interest in that question.

Well, first of all, about the [[Sherlock Holmes]] stories, they came about in this way. I was quite a young doctor at the time. I had of course a scientific training and I used occasionally to read detective stories, and it often annoyed me how in the old fashioned detective story the detective always seemed to get at his results either by some sort of lucky chance or fluke or else it was quite unexplained how he got there. He got there but he never gave an explanation how. Now that didn't seem to me quite playing the game. It seemed to me that he's bound to give his reasons why he came to his conclusions.

Well, once I began to think about this, I began to think of turning scientific methods, as it were, on to the work of detection, and I used as a student to have an old professor — his name was Bell — who was extraordinarily quick at deductive work. He would look at the patient, he would hardly allow the patient to open his mouth, but he would make his diagnosis of the disease, also very often of the patient's nationality and occupation and other points, entirely by his power of observation. So naturally I thought to myself, well, if a scientific man like Bell was to come into the detective business, he wouldn't do these things by chance. He'd get the thing by building it up scientifically. So, having once conceived that line of thought, you can well imagine that I had, as it were, a new idea of the detective, and one which it interested me to work out. I thought of a hundred little dodges, as you may say, a hundred little touches by which he could build up his conclusions, and then I began to write stories on those lines.

At first I think they attracted very little attention, but after a time when I began the short adventures, one after the other coming out month after month in the Strand Magazine, people began to recognise that it was different to the old detective: that there was something there which was new. They began to buy the magazine and it prospered, and so, I may say, did I. We both came along together, and from that time [[Sherlock Holmes]] fairly took root. I've written a good deal more about him than I ever intended to do, but my hand has been rather forced by kind friends who continually wanted to know more. And so it is that this monstrous growth has come out of what was really a comparatively small seed.

The curious thing is how many people there are in the world who are perfectly convinced that he is a living human being. I get letters addressed to him. I get letters asking for his autograph. I get letters addressed to his rather stupid friend, Watson. I've even had ladies writing to say that they'd be very glad to act as his housekeeper. One of them, when she'd heard that he had turned to the occupation of keeping bees, wrote saying that she was an expert at segregating the Queen, whatever that may mean, and that she was evidently predestined to be the housekeeper of [[Sherlock Holmes]].

I don't know that there is anything more I can say with advantage about him.

But on the other point, which is to me, of course, a very much more serious one, on the question of my taking up this psychic matter. Curiously enough, my first experiences in that direction were just about the time when Sherlock Holmes was being built up in my mind. That would be about the year 1886 and 1887. So nobody can say that I formed my opinions on psychic matters very hastily. It was just forty-one years now since I wrote a signed article upon the subject which appeared in a magazine called [[Light]], so that I put myself on record. During these forty-one years, I never lost any opportunity of reading and studying and experimenting on this matter. People ask me will I write any more Sherlock Holmes stories? I certainly don't think it's at all probable. But as I grow older the psychic subject always grows in intensity, and one becomes more earnest upon it, and I should think that my few remaining years will probably be devoted much more in that direction than in the direction of literature. Nonetheless, of course, I haven't abandoned writing. One has to earn one's living.

But my principal thoughts are that I should extend if I can that knowledge which I have on psychic matters and spread it as far as I can to those who have been less fortunate. But don't for one moment suppose that I'm taking upon myself to say that I'm the inventor of Spiritualism, or that I am even the principal exponent of it. There are many great mediums, many great psychical researchers, investigators of all sorts. All that I can do is to be a gramophone on the subject. To go about, to meet people face to face, to try and make them understand that this thing is not the foolish thing which is so often represented, but that it really is a great philosophy, and, as I think, the basis of all religious improvements in the future of the human race.

I suppose I've sat with more mediums, good and bad and indifferent, than perhaps any living being: anyhow a larger variety because I've travelled so much all over the world and wherever I've gone, either in Australia, America, or South Africa, the best that there was to be had in that direction was put at my disposal. Therefore when people come along and contradict me, who have had no experience at all, read little, and perhaps never been to a seance, you can imagine that I don't take their opposition very seriously.

When I talk on this subject, I am not talking about what I believe, I'm not talking about what I think, I'm talking about what I know. There's an enormous difference, believe me, between believing a thing and knowing a thing. I'm talking about things that I've handled, I've seen, that I've heard with my own ears, and always, mind you, in the presence of witnesses. I never risk hallucination. I usually in most of my experiments have had six, eight, or ten witnesses, all of whom have seen and heard the same things that I have done. Gradually I became more and more convinced on the matter as I studied year in, year out. But it was only in the time of the war, when all these splendid young fellows were disappearing from our view, the whole world was saying, 'Well, what's become of them? Where are they? What are they doing now? Have they dissipated into nothing, or are they still the grand fellows that we used to know?' It was only at that time that I realised the overpowering importance to the human race of knowing more about this matter. Then it was that I flung myself more carnestly into it, and that I felt the highest purpose that I could possibly devote the remainder of my life to was trying to bring across to other people something of that knowledge and assurance which I had acquired myself.

Certainly the results have justified me. I'm quite sure I could fill a room of my house with the letters that I have received from people telling me of the consolation which my writings on this subject and my lectures on this subject have given to them. How they have once more heard the sound of a vanished voice, and felt the touch of a vanished hand.

Well, good-bye. Come along [to his dog, an Irish Terrier named 'Paddy', which belonged to his daughter, Jean.]

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The Movietone Interview: Arthur Conan Doyle - Revision history

TCDE-Team at 16:12, 28 February 2026