Herge’s Secret Inspiration?

This comment is from IMDB on the film Captain Applejack.

I’m watching this antique Old Dark House mystery on TCM right now and it quickly became evident to me that the film, its first silent incarnation (”Strangers In The Night”) or the play it was adapted from were the first kernel of inspiration for Belgian comic book artist Hergé (Georges Rémi)’s “Secret of the Unicorn” and its sequel “The Treasure of Racham the Red” (1943-1944). More proof that a large part of the inspiration for Hergé’s melodramatic adventures were from rather second-rate Hollywood movies and plots that were very creaky to begin with. What he did with them of course was sheer genius and entirely original. But the basic idea was this: An ordinary man discovers that he is the descendant and inheritor of a famous pirate’s treasure hidden somewhere in an old house. In the process, he has flashbacks of being the pirate himself, which is just what happens to Captain Haddock in those comic books.

A quick Google finds no further information on this, making this comment nothing but pure speculation. Though it is not impossible Herge saw the film, or the original play, it seems unlikely. English language films and plays where not as dominant as they are nowadays. The central idea, that a character has a pirate ancestor with buried treasure is not new either. It is the basis of Treasure Island and is probably much older than that.

Ultimately, this is all just idle, though fun, speculation.

Source: Movie Review: CAPTAIN APPLEJACK (1931)