BBC Sherlock Fan Forum - Serving Sherlockians since February 2012 / Filmed interview with Conan Doyle

**Posted by Davina** June 12, 2012 7:34 pm

On YouTube there is to be found what is believed to be the only filmed interview with ACD made in 1930. The first part of the interview is about his creation of Sherlock Holmes and the second is about his involvement with Spiritualism.

This is the YouTube link:

**Posted by veecee** June 12, 2012 9:49 pm

Davina wrote:
On YouTube there is to be found what is believed to be the only filmed interview with ACD made in 1930. The first part of the interview is about his creation of Sherlock Holmes and the second is about his involvement with Spiritualism.

This is the YouTube link:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWjgt9PzYEM

Sounds really interesting. Can't wait to watch it. Thank you for sharing.

**Posted by m0r1arty** June 15, 2012 6:05 pm

Davina wrote:

I'm happy to announce that my being bored and your post count made me investigate your 1895th post.

This is it!!

Rather apt I find.

-m0r

**Posted by Davina** June 15, 2012 8:38 pm

How appropriate! Perhaps Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is influencing us from beyond the grave after all. Watching interviews from over 80 years ago has got to be better than shooting at the wall...quieter anyway.

I half expected my post count to stop when it got to 1895.

**Posted by jenosborn** June 16, 2012 8:21 pm

Oh Davina thanks very much for this link! So fascinating to watch Conan Doyle and to hear him talk. Very interesting, his absolute conviction that his later years would be best used as an advocate for what he saw as the emerging psychic field of the time.

I loved his bemused take on his Sherlock Holmes stories, the fan reaction, the inspiration of his medical school professor Bell's deductive talents, his one-word Watson description 'stupid' (an over-simplicification we would hope?)- amazing to hear his accent, see his dress, sweet dog, and of course his healthy ego intact, as one of the commenters pointed out:

"I'm not talking about what I believe.
I'm not talking about what a think.
I'm talking about what I know..."

**Posted by Davina** June 16, 2012 9:11 pm

I too found his voice interesting you can hear the Scottish accent. I was intrigued by his scientific approach towards spiritualism even though history would show him to have been gullible. It is wonderful to be able to actually see and hear him speak. It makes him so much more REAL. You are right about his bemused take, it is as if he really cannot quite understand how Sherlock Holmes had become so successful and taken on something of a life of his own somehow.

**Posted by Sentimental Pulse** June 16, 2012 9:34 pm

m0r1arty wrote:
Davina wrote:
I'm happy to announce that my being bored and your post count made me investigate your 1895th post.

This is it!!

Rather apt I find.

-m0r

This board s so inviting it is amazing how fast the post count goes up. I just joined recently and I am already a Cipher Expert. How many posts do you need to get to the Sleeping with Sherlock category?

As to ACD, I always thought it was fascinating that a guy who created no nonsense deductive reasoning Sherlock was totally engrossed in sham seances, photo hoaxes and spiritualism Fascinating!

**Posted by m0r1arty** June 16, 2012 9:37 pm

I find it kind of sad personally.

The man who made 'brainy' 'sexy' forgoes all of that for spiritualism which is sheer fool fodder.

I can rationalise it to the death of his wife, and I can empathise with him upon that, it just seems really odd that someone who shoved provable theorem in a manner which was praised by many would give up that reputation for something which is ridiculously broken and plays on fragile emotions.

There's something ironically grand to it, I just hope that he got something from it all as his life was ending.

-m0r

**Posted by Davina** June 17, 2012 7:57 am

I had resisted using the word 'sad' earlier but I agree with you completely. His bereavement at the death of his wife definitely seemed to have damaged his critical faculties. I mean, the fairy photographs...how could so many intelligent people have believed them to be genuine? The answer, I suppose, is that they desperately wanted them to be. Too much reading of Peter Pan as children, perhaps?