binapiraeus This is certainly an absolute highlight of the long and prolific 'career' of amateur sleuth Bulldog Drummond. A very clever story, not quite unlike Hitchcock's "The Lady Vanishes": a young woman knows someone is in great danger, but a very influential person has instructed everybody around her to tell her lies until she almost thinks she's crazy - and while in "The Lady Vanishes" it was Michael Redgrave, here of course it's charming, nonchalant and fearless Ronald Colman alias Bulldog Drummond who rushes to her aid - happy that he's stumbled upon a mysterious case again at last, while he was just about to 'retire' to Essex...But this time the madness goes even further: while Drummond thinks he's got the girl in a safe place, she disappears - and when he manages to 'kidnap' her aunt in turn from the baddies and take her to his home, she disappears too - and now his old friend from Scotland Yard, Colonel Nielsen, thinks Bulldog's mad! But of course he's not...So there's plenty of entertainment and examples of British humor here amidst the contrasting creepy, foggy night streets of London with mean faces lurking in the dark: Bulldog spoils his best friend Algie's wedding night asking to assist him in this strange case, and he doesn't let poor old Colonel Neilsen get a minute of sleep all night with his constant disturbances, who in turn threats he'll hang him someday...In short, a real feast for every fan of classic murder mysteries with a good dose of humor - laughs as well as shudders guaranteed!

dbborroughs Algy, Hugh Drummond's right hand man has gotten married. At the wedding Drummond (Ronald Coleman) tells Algy that his days of adventuring are over since the partners must retire together. As Drummond walks home he becomes lost in the fog and deciding to phone for help he walks up to the nearest house. Once there he finds the door open and a dead man on a divan. After racing to find a cop he returns to the house and finds the body gone and Prince Achmed (Warner Oland) and his group acting suspiciously. After the cop and Drummond leave together, Drummond returns to investigate where Achmed warns Drummond to leave the matter alone or die. What follows is a round and round affair through the night as Drummond attempts to rescue a damsel and get to the bottom of matters, all the while not letting anyone, including the newlyweds, sleep.Good little thriller is better once things get going about a half an hour in. Coleman is an amusing hero and his battle with Oland, particularly towards the end, is rather amusing since it leaves Oland's character completely apoplectic, something we never saw in all of the Charlie Chan or Fu Manchu films that Oland made. The film's mix of danger and comedy doesn't always work, especially when we find out what is really going on, the denouncement is much darker than some of the earlier silliness suggests, and I for one felt rather uneasy laughing at what Oland and his crew was really trying to do.A solid thriller of the sort they don't make any more, and didn't make as an A film that often after this was released. Worth a look if you get the chance.Around 7 out of 10.

mraguso I have been lucky enough to collect all the old Bulldog Drummond movies and I believe that this one is the best all-around offering.Ronald Coleman comes across as sophisticated without being pretentious, as adventuresome without being an unreasonable risk-taker. In fact his whole demeanor is one of having fun and inviting the audience along for the ride. Lorreta Young is as beautiful as ever and plays the damsel in distress in true 1930s melodramatic splendor.Warner Oland comes across with one of his classic, pre-Charlie Chan villian portrayals that is both menacing as well as full of oily charm, also common in the 30s adventures.I loved it when I first saw it a year ago and I have brought it out for several viewings since then and I have enjoyed it every time.In short it is the kind of movie that reminds the viewer of how charming and full of fun Ronald Coleman was on the screen.

mgmax Bulldog Drummond was sort of the James Bond of the 1930s (not least because in both cases, a rather thuggish and brutal book character was made more gentlemanly and dashing on screen). Ronald Colman had a huge success with 1929's Bulldog Drummond, which is fairly creaky as a film but unquestionably showed him off as one of the first actors to understand acting for talkies, and remains watchable today because of his relaxed and charming presence.Where it took three or four increasingly over-the-top Bond films before the spoofs started coming, two of the next three Drummond films (all made in 1934) were at least semi-tongue-in-cheek-- sort of like if Casino Royale and In Like Flint had followed immediately after Dr. No. While the British Return of Bulldog Drummond (with Ralph Richardson as the only screen Drummond apparently as racist and violent as the original) was serious, Bulldog Jack starred the rather dire comic Jack Hulbert as a nebbish ineptly posing as Drummond (with Richardson again, phoning in a performance as a shaggy-haired villain). And then there's this sort-of sequel to the 1929 Colman film ("sort of" because apart from Colman it's a completely different cast, crew and even studio), which is ostensibly a straight thriller, and quite suspenseful in parts-- yet has a self-mocking, absurdist edge far beyond anything in the 1929 film.Under the fast-paced direction of Warner Bros. veteran Roy Del Ruth, there's a definite screwball influence here, with bodies disappearing and reappearing and Colman reacting to it all with a kind of bemused unflappability that goes well beyond even Powell and Loy's approach to detective work in The Thin Man. For a 1930s film it's startlingly self-referential and conscious of being a movie-- Colman declines a ride because he says it fits his image better to be seen disappearing into the fog, and at one point he flat out predicts that this is just the moment when a beautiful woman in distress should appear at the door, which of course she does. You half expect Basil Exposition's father to turn up and help him advance the plot.Warner Oland makes a nicely exasperated villain, part straight man and part genuine menace, and though Charles Butterworth's exceedingly dim Algy is a bit tiresome (when Algy turns out to be a ex-wartime cryptographer, you're startled to discover he can even read), it's a genuine delight to see C. Aubrey Smith playing a real character and not Stock Crusty Old Gent #1.Now then, if this is so good, why haven't you ever seen it? Unfortunately, 20th Century (not Fox yet) only owned the rights to the story it's based on for a certain period, so though they still own the film itself, they no longer have the legal right to exhibit it in the US. So it's never been released to TV here (although for some reason they have shown it on TV in Britain, and passable copies reportedly circulate in this country duped from British TV broadcasts). Fox ought to look past the constant repackaging of its ten most famous movies, write a small check to the McNeile estate for permanent rights and then make a big ballyhoo about the rediscovery and video release of a lost classic from the golden age of Hollywood.