Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace

Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace
Original French film poster
Directed by	Terence Fisher Frank Winterstein (assistant)
Produced by	Artur Brauner
Written by	A. Conan Doyle (novel) Curt Siodmak
Starring	Christopher Lee Thorley Walters
Music by	Martin Slavin
Cinematography	Richard Angst
Edited by	Ira Oberberg
Production company	CCC Filmkunst GmbH, Critérion Films S.A., Incei Film S.p.A.
Distributed by	Constantin Film
Release date	1962
Running time	87 min.
Country	West Germany / France / Italy
Language	German
Box office	198,324 admissions (France)

Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (German: Sherlock Holmes und das Halsband des Todes) is a 1962 black-and-white film directed by Terence Fisher. It was a West German-French-Italian international co-production. The film starred Christopher Lee as Sherlock Holmes and Thorley Walters as Dr. Watson. Curt Siodmak wrote the screenplay, based on characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.

The film's plot has Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson attempting to recover a stolen necklace, formerly worn by Cleopatra, from Professor Moriarty. Holmes tries to convince the police that the professor is a criminal, but they are disbelieving.

One-time Universal screenwriter Curt Siodmak (The Wolf Man) wrote the screenplay, based on the characters created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. The film was intended to be an adaptation of Doyle's final Holmes novel, The Valley of Fear, but only minor elements of this story remained.

West German producer Artur Brauner originally conceived the film as the first of a German film series. The producers' contact with the Arthur Conan Doyle estate led to the estate vetoing their original schemes to set the film in the present day such as the Edgar Wallace German film series and have Dr. Watson played by German comedian Heinz Erhardt. Many scenes of the film had to be reshot due to the Doyle estate not approving the dailies. Director Terence Fisher wrote memos to Brauner complaining the film was too static and not cinematic enough leading to many rewrites by various uncredited screenwriters.