The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother
1975 film by Gene Wilder
The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother is a 1975 American musical comedy film with Gene Wilder, Marty Feldman, Madeline Kahn, Dom DeLuise, Roy Kinnear, and Leo McKern. The film was Wilder's directorial debut, from his own original script.
Douglas Wilmer and Thorley Walters appear respectively as Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson. Wilmer had previously appeared as Sherlock Holmes in the 1960s BBC TV series, and Walters played Watson in three other films: Sherlock Holmes and the Deadly Necklace (1962), The Best House in London (1969), and Silver Blaze (1977).
Plot
In 1891, Foreign Secretary Lord Redcliff haphazardly receives a document from Queen Victoria; the document is stolen from his safe later that night. Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson discuss the case. Deciding to lie low for a while, Holmes informs Watson that he will delegate cases to his younger brother, Sigerson, who has toiled in his brother's shadow without credit for decades. At a railway station, Holmes passes the message to Scotland Yard records clerk Orville Sacker.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother” is 1975 film by Gene Wilder. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Adventure, Sherlock and Holmes', not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “1975 film by Gene Wilder” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Attribution, date and provenance are strongest when supported by the original work, a catalogue record and documented transmission. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jun 12, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1813978. 16 of 16 selected statements include explicit references; 16 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1975, 1962, 1969 and 1977.
Later fame can flatten the distinction between original context, subsequent adaptation and institutional collecting history. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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Three-step research path
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- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
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This entry incorporates text from “The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.