Bulldog Drummond - The Paramount Series 

Bulldog Drummond Escapes (1937) - 6.0



As far as I can tell there were no more Bulldog Drummond films after 1934 until this one (other than Bulldog Jack aka Alias Bulldog Drummond in 1935 in which Drummond disappears two minutes into the film). Paramount signed a contract with the author ( H.C. 'Sapper' McNeile) of the Drummond books for the rights to make films of all his novels that had not been contracted out. McNeile was to pass away shortly afterwards from throat cancer. Paramount had just signed up Ray Milland after his role in Universal's Three Smart Girls with Deanna Durbin and gave him the role of Bulldog. Apparently, they also made the decision to turn the Drummond films into B films running around 60 minutes. Milland was not yet a star and he was only to make this one Drummond film before it was passed on to a more B actor and Milland went on to better things. There were to be 8 films in the series all produced from 1937 - 1939. But the Brits once again produced a Bulldog Drummond on their own in this same year, 1937, titled Bulldog Drummond at Bay starring John Lodge.



Milland is fine as Drummond though perhaps he piles on the charm and devil-may-care attitude like a trowel. It is fine for a quick shot like this. It doesn't take the film long to establish his character with Drummond landing in a thick fog - that lasts for the entire film - all the better to disguise the low budget - in order to get to the side of his loyal friend Algy. Whose wife is on the verge of having a baby. Drummond has no compunction though about dragging him off on another adventure that is soon to pop up on a deserted fog filled road when he almost runs over a woman. She steals his car and so he is immediately smitten. Turns out she is being held a prisoner who has temporarily escaped just down the road. Similarly to Bulldog Drummond Strike Back her jailers are two men and a woman. Drummond to the rescue as the film moves along with nary a slow down. It all takes place in one long night. One of the pleasures is seeing the damsel in distress not be a wall flower but be quite active in the action that follows - in fact she saves Drummond.




Milland is surrounded by a solid group of character actors - three who would appear in most of the Paramount Drummond films. Algy is played by Reginald Denny, an often occurring face in films of the 1930s and 40s almost always as a person of questionable intelligence but good breeding. Interestingly, in real life he was quite smart and developed a radio controlled man-less drone for the military for training during WW11. Drummond's butler is E. E. Clive who seemed to make a career of playing butlers but this version of a butler is more like a Man Friday. The woman is Heather Angel and her character is Phyllis Clavering and she and Drummond become a pair in films to come. And the female villain was none other than Faye Holden - Andy Hardy's mother - have to admit I didn't recognize her at all. She was to begin the lengthy Hardy series this same year. The actor who plays Commander Nielson, a recurring character, is Sir Guy Standing, a well known actor in the theater, was to die not long after this film.



 Bulldog Drummond Comes Back (1937) – 5.0

 


John Howard takes over the reins from Ray Milland’s one time appearance in the second of the Paramount series. He was to be Bulldog Drummond for seven films in total. He was a solid good looking fellow in B films through the 1930's and 40's but was in two classic films - Lost Horizon as the brother and Philadelphia Story. He is fine as Bulldog Drummond as he grows on you over the series but an American playing the character doesn't feel right though with his pencil moustache and slight vocal affectation it isn't jarring. Back from the previous Milland film are Reginald Denny as the dizzy friend and E.E. Clive as the unrufflable always proper butler. Clive almost steals the show here as he can do with no effort.



Drummond is engaged to Phyllis (Louise Campbell in this one) here but is always stopped from getting to the church on time - a running joke through the series. Two villains are out for revenge against Drummond for sending someone near and dear to the gallows the year before - Valdean (played by veteran character actor and master of changing his looks J. Carroll Naish) and Irena Soldanis (Helen Freeman). They kidnap Phyllis and force Bulldog to go through a series of puzzles to rescue her. With his reward being death. Or so they hope.



Playing his friend Colonel Neilsen is none other than John Barrymore who by 1937 was happy to be in a B film and appeared in three of these Bulldog films. He was apparently drunk much of the time and they had to put his lines on giant cue cards for him to read. But he does get to don various disguises and has a few good moments and there is one joke about his famous profile. The film comes in at a little more than an hour and is on the go practically from minute one - but even so it rarely rises to more than a plodding B film - perhaps the plot of getting revenge just feels like an old hat. But I should be fair - the dvd quality I saw this on was all washed out and I just had surgery on my back and so was watching it in pain. The film didn't add to the pain but didn't mitigate it either!

Bulldog Drummond’s Revenge (1937) – 6.0




The whole crew is back in the follow-up to Bulldog Drummond Comes Back. This makes a better go of it as it revolves around espionage and stolen bomb material. There is oddly no revenge of any kind. Given top billing again is John Barrymore as Colonel Nielson of Scotland Yard even though he is not the title character nor does he get the majority of screen time. But he is John Barrymore. He doesn't even try to affect an English accent. Drummond is again played by John Howard in his second outing and in this one he is identified as an American when he asks for chewing gum from a fellow American. Drummond as an American is just wrong.

 


He is preparing to go off to get married in Switzerland to Phyllis (Louise Campbell again) when of course he finds himself in the middle of spies. An inventor is flying to Paris with a new very volatile explosive that could destroy London if it fell into the wrong hands - and of course it does - but first it literally falls into the hands of Drummond from a parachute in the sky. He has no idea what it is and tosses the suitcase around as if it is a football. He, Phyllis, the butler Tenny who gets all the good lines (E.E. Clive as stoic as possible) and Alygy-Walgy (Reginald Denny) as his wife calls him all board a train to Dover and coincidentally the spies are on board as well. Lots of mix-ups, a man dressed as a woman, murder, the explosive always ready to blow up and silliness all occur during the train ride. All at the speed of a Marx Brothers routine.

 

Perhaps too much silliness for the good of the film - I lost count of people fainting, bumping into each other and other attempts at humor - some admittedly amusing - but there were too many. You really want to kick Phyllis off of the train as she keeps telling Drummond to stop getting involved and Algy is not much better as he is such a twit. As a film, one has to wonder if Drummond would be better just with the butler who is unflappable than with the other two characters. But these B films (57 mins) felt they needed to add comedy as well. Still a nice effort and decent script directed by Louis King.

Bulldog Drummond’s Peril (1938)



For the third film in a row the same cast of actors are present for another Bulldog Drummond adventure. As best as I can tell all these films were based on specific novels by Herman McNeile aka Sapper. This one was based on The Third Round. But McNeile had died the previous year and the scriptwriting duties were done by Stuart Palmer, who was the author of the Hildegarde Withers series of mysteries. He was to script the next two Drummond films as well. This follows the usual routine of this series with Drummond unable to tear himself away from a case to settle down. It moves quickly enough but does not land a punch really. Drummond seems rather dim at times and keeps turning his back on the wrong people.

 

It begins right where the previous film Bulldog Drummond's Revenge left off with Drummond (John Howard) and Phyllis (Louise Campbell) in Switzerland about to be married. They have received piles of wedding presents among them a penguin (recall the scriptwriter who had a thing for penguins in Hildegard novels) from Algy (Reginald Denny) and a diamond from Algy's wife Gwen (Nydia Westman). The diamond though perfect was actually manufactured by her father in his little lab. This upsets the representatives of the diamond industry as well as a fellow inventor (Porter Hall) trying to do the same thing. Murder and confusing disguises follow as Drummond and Algy soon to be followed by the two women head back to London. The wedding again does not take place.

 

John Barrymore is also back as Colonel Nielsen of Scotland Yard but for some reason they decide to make him a buffoon this time around. Barrymore, very drunk much of the time and you can spot him looking for the cue cards, overplays his character like a badly tuned piano. Yelling, glaring and most annoyingly being wrong all the time. I almost felt sorry for him. This was to be Louise Campbell's last time as Phyllis as that role was to be transferred to the wonderfully named Heather Angel. And once again E.E. Clive as the manservant to Drummond is the best thing about the film - he needed his own series.

 

In comments, I noticed that people raved about the video quality of the film that they watched on the Criterion streaming channel. Nice if they have cleaned these films up as the ones I have are from these bargain basement dvds and the quality is quite bad.

Bulldog Drummond in Africa (1938)



One of the threads that have been running through this Paramount series is Drummond is always on the verge of marrying his long time frustrated girlfriend Phyllis Clavering, but at the last minute something always intervenes. This time to be sure that doesn't happen Drummond (John Howard) and his very able butler Tenny (E.E. Clive) have been forced to stay at home with no money, no weapons and no pants - isolated and undressed. He is getting married that very night when Phyllis (Heather Angel) goes to pick up their friend Colonel Nielson, only to see him kidnapped and hauled away. Nielson isn't being played by John Barrymore in this one but by H.B. Warner who you would definitely recognize if not be familiar with his name. As an Englishman he makes much more sense as Nielson of Scotland Yard than Barrymore ever did. Warner showed up in loads of classic films over his career - The Ten Commandments, Sunset Boulevard, It's a Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and so on going all the way back to the silent era when he played Jesus in Demille's King of Kings.

 

Drummond gets his pants back from Algy (Reginald Denny) and the four of them are on their way to Morocco by plane to track down the kidnappers. In Morocco they come up against an international spy who has kidnapped Nielson to obtain secret plans and has lion as pets. Somehow you know the lions will be eating well tonight. The spy is played by that man of all seasons, J. Carroll Naish and his underling is the suave Anthony Quinn. The film comes in at a sleek 58 minutes which is rather amazing that they went from England to Morocco and saved the day and are on their way back - presumably to be married - all in less than an hour. The days when not a minute was wasted.

Arrest Bulldog Drummond (1938)




The whole crew is back from Bulldog Drummond in Africa. Nice to see the same actors playing the same characters for two films in a row. So John Howard as Drummond, Heather Angel as his girlfriend Phyllis, E. E. Clive as the faithful butler Tenny, Reginal Denny as the not very capable friend and H.B. Warner as Colonel Nielsen from Scotland Yard.  And the director James Hogan of Bulldog Drummond's Peril and Bulldog Drummond Escapes returns for another outing. And written by Stuart Palmer - of Hildegard Withers fame is back for his second Drummond film. Old Home Week. And we get that perennial bad guy behind his thick glasses, George Zucco. There really isn't much here but they do it quickly.

 

1938 and war is approaching and it filters down into films. A scientist has invented a ray (as one character says, not another death ray) that he hopes will bring peace to the world but the devious and dastardly Zucco kills him with a sting from a stingray and steals the ray with the intention of selling it to the highest bidder. It can blow up any type of munitions from a quarter of a mile away. Time for Bulldog Drummond! He is as usual about to marry Phyllis and take a liner around the world. And as usual that doesn't pan out. Nothing particularly new here but a decent B film that tiptoes close to being an hour long but falls a bit short.

Bulldog Drummond’s Secret Police (1939)

 

John Howard is Bulldog Drummond for the sixth time and he has the same crew of the last two Drummond films with him. They are a good sort of people and you know exactly what to expect. Drummond looks for adventure wherever he can find it, Phyllis (Heather Angel) tries to deter him and get him to marry her and settle down, Tenny (E. E. Clive) is always the perfectly proper gentleman's gentleman and keeps a gun handy, the simpleton Algy (Reginald Denny) will always get in the way or break things (this time a Ming vase twice) and Colonel Nielson (H.B. Warner) of Scotland Yard stays calm and bemused by it all.

 

For much of this film it feels like they are doing it by the numbers and it even has a five minute dream by Drummond in which scenes from earlier films are played in it. Algy is particularly irritating and Phyllis and her Aunt (Elizabeth Patterson in her second outing in the series) are just in the way of good boy's fun. Once again - perhaps getting a little stale at this point - Drummond is set to marry Phyllis the next day and is moving into the family home. The family home is the size of Yankee Stadium but a lot older going back to ancient times. A scholar shows up telling the wedding party that he has an old manuscript that shows that a treasure was hidden there hundreds of years previously and he is breaking a code to find out where. So is someone else (Leo G. Carroll) and murder and a hunt commences.

 

The film is quite dull for the first 35 of a 55 minute film - nothing much happens  - and then the final 20 minutes is terrific as they chase Carroll through this huge mansion and into the long forgotten dungeons with all sorts of traps. It is done very well and made up for the inert film that came before. Only one more to go in the series.

Bulldog Drummond’s Bride (1939)



The final episode in the Paramount Bulldog Drummond films with John Howard. And Phyllis finally gets her man. A running gag through the series was that Drummond and Phyllis are always on the verge of happy nuptials when a case of murder or espionage intrudes and Drummond is off to the races. It nearly happens here with a madcap ending of exploding bottles of wine, a chase across the rooftops of a small French village while being chased by a wedding party and a judge insistent on marrying the couple no matter what. One of the better endings in the series though the film itself is slightly ragged and silly.

 

Still I am glad to finally be done with these films. I have had these bargain basement DVDs sitting around for years and never got very far into them. An hour each, they are like after dinner mints. Not very filling but an ok snack. It could easily be argued that the hours I spent watching these films could have been better spent elsewhere or making company with better films - but I have a weakness for all the B crime series of the 1930s and 40's. They are a part of our cinematic history in a time when we got two movies for our money. Lots of directors got their start in these and many actors passed through on their way to better things and they are a great reservoir of character actors from that period.



In this one a bank robbery takes place a block away from Drummond's new apartment that is being refurbished. The robber ( Eduardo Ciannelli) pretends to be a painter and hides the loot inside a radio in the apartment. Lots of complications occur with the radio ending up in France along with Phyllis and the crooks moving in on them. It is the usual gang of actors as there have been for the past few films - Howard, E.E. Clive, Reginald Denny, Heather Angel and H.B. Warner. They are like comfortable shoes by this point.

 

This wasn't to be the end of Bulldog Drummond though. He has been resurrected a few more times - Columbia with two films in the 1940's, 20th Century Fox with two films also in the 1940s. MGM with one film in 1951 and then two very James Bond styled films were produced by Rank in the late 1960s. No films since and I expect Bulldog Drummond and his author Sapper have faded from memory for most.