Bulldog Drummond's Peril

This entry begins with another wedding about to take place. One of the gifts is a huge diamond, brought by Algy, and created by his father in law. It turns out that he has a process for making diamonds for as cheap as a shilling each. This, of course, would upset the balance of trade and the diamond industry would be destroyed. He still wants credit for his findings, but it brings a whole host of bad people into the mix. The best scene is Tenny riding a motorcycle and crawling onto a moving car. He, of course, is the best character in all of the movies I've seen, and once again is called on to fix things. There are murders. There are notes destroyed. The whole state of the world's economy is never really taken care of. Ours is not to worry about such things, I guess. There are several cases of mistaken identity which makes this a lot of fun.

One of the weaker entries in the Drummond series, but it's still entertaining. Perhaps I've seen too many of the Drummond films too close together. The humor is not as sharp as earlier entries. The pacing is fine, but the plot and villains don't seem to be up to snuff. The villains don't appear evil or sharp enough to harm a fly, let alone our hero.

There is a nice sequence of that wonderful 30s "lab equipment" working its magic. So much more exciting and dramatic than computer chips and LEDs! Now that's evil!

Sharp dialog and decent plotting make this another of the better entries in the Bulldog Drummond series. This time, John Howard as Hugh Drummond is entangled in a murder and diamond theft in Switzerland and tracking the heavies back to England. Nice locations, some train and airplane travel, explosions, and a bullwhip vs sword fight make for a nice adventure. Barrymore as Nielson doesn't have much to do, nor do Phyllis or even Algy, but faithful Tenny is on hand, of course (even riding a motorcycle!). For those keeping score, in this one, Drummond starts out in Switzerland about to marry Phyllis, and for once Algy isn't worried about anything.

Also interesting is how this little potboiler was well ahead of its time with the invention of artificial diamonds and corporate conspiracies to suppress rival technology.

Once again Bulldog Drummond is planning to marry his fiancée Phylllis. Once again, he gets sidetracked. This time by a mystery involving synthetic diamonds and, of course, murder. This would be the third and final Bulldog Drummond film for both John Barrymore and Louise Campbell. Barrymore would be replaced by H.B. Warner and Campbell by Heather Angel, who returned to the role she played in Bulldog Drummond Escapes. The reason for Barrymore leaving is his alcoholism, which was affecting his performance. Reportedly he had trouble reading lines even when they were written for him on cue cards. You can definitely see something is off with him here. He shouts all his lines, for one thing. I'm not sure of the reason for Campbell's departure. This was the biggest role of her short career and I think she was very good. But I admit Angel was better so I'm not terribly upset over the replacement. The rest of the cast of regulars that would continue on with the series (John Howard, Reginald Denny, E.E. Clive) are fine. Clive has some of the movie's best scenes. There's a nice supporting cast that includes Halliwell Hobbes and Porter Hall.

As with most of the entries in the Paramount series, this is a middling B detective flick with a short runtime. This one passes the hour mark (barely) but the last couple didn't even do that. I don't mind the runtime. It works fine for this type of picture. It's not like Paramount was doing anything innovative or unique with this series, after all. It's just this one is pretty dull. Still, if you're fan of the series you will want to see it. If nothing else, see it for the scene with the cool old-school sci-fi laboratory.

Capt. Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond is finally marrying his long standing fiancé Phyllis, while on a retreat in Geneva. During a reception party, Hugh and Phyllis receive a flawless man-made diamond from friend Gwen's scientist father. Sir Raymond Blantree, a guest at the party and jewel magnate, sees the diamond and plans to get both it and Prof. Goodman (Gwen's father) before the discovery decreases the value of all jewels around the world (smirk). Hugh, Algy, and Tenny chase Blantree, and his accomplice Greer, back to London, but being of position, Blantree is able to avoid police persecution by Col. Neilson, who is still fed up with Drummond's wild adventures. Blantree tries to buy the formula from Goodman, but he refuses to sell, saying he will give it away. Blantree learns that Goodman plans to borrow equipment from a rival gemologist Dr. Botulian and plans to have Greer impersonate Botulian to get the formula, but the doctor has plans of his own for obtaining the formula. Will one of their plans succeed despite the efforts of Drummond and company? Good entry in the series, but it didn't live up to its potential with plenty of setup and weak execution. Biggest problem was at first the audience was intended to left in mystery as to who the real Botualian was, but after two minutes of it, this reviewer was just confused. The first half of the film focused on the villainy of Blantree and then he was discarded in the second half for Botulian, and frankly both of them were limp adversaries. I had to laugh at Blantree's idea of the man made gems weakening the financial value of pure gems, apparently the executives at QVC would have given Bulldog more of a run for his money. Rating, 6.