Actor William Powell, who lived to the age of 92, retired from the screen in 1955 having made 94 films, beginning with the role of Moriarty in the 1922 silent version of Sherlock Holmes (1922) starring John Barrymore. He was never more than a supporting player, generally a villain of some kind or another during the 1920s, until his accomplished performance in a featured role in Von Sternberg's The Last Command (1928) brought him attention. It was, however, the coming of sound, which ruined the career of many a silent star unable to deliver lines, that gradually elevated him to stardom as the quintessential screen sophisticate of the glamorous 1930s—immacu-lately tailored, impeccably spoken, witty, occasionally attractively caddish, and sometimes cynical. He was as much the perfect embodiment of the type as Gary Cooper was the archetypal emblem of honor, or Clark Gable the prototype of brash and unbridled masculinity...