Bulldog Drummond at Bay

The plane,which is the maguffin of this film,can be stopped in midflight.Roll on to 1944 and you have rockets being programmed to do the same thing.Other than that this is a fairly routine detective film.

A well-paced outing for the classic British hero who was very much the James Bond of his day. In this one, Drummond tackles some spies desperate to get their hands on the plans for a new aeroplane prototype. The film is short and sweet, with a fast running time and plenty of action to see it through from beginning to end. John Lodge isn't my favourite actor to play Drummond, I didn't quite buy him as much as some others, but it's nice to see Wilfred Hyde-White in support and the supporting cast do fit their roles well. The interesting thing about this film is that it becomes quite vicious in the second half, with violent, murderous acts aplenty.

Interesting... John Lodge only played starring role Bulldog Drummond this once, and director Norman Lee only directed this one chapter, before others would take over the well known roles. Lodge has an interesting story on wikipedia.org... was big in politics, and had a running competition with the Kennedy gang. Lodge had turned down a huge role with Mae West, and the wisdom of that can be debated. After this, the role of Bulldog Drummond would be played by John Howard many times. although the character had been created in the 1920s, for silent films, during the 1930s, the stories were now adapted into war-time plots, since europe was about to be pulled into WW II. Dorothy MacKaill is "Doris", and this was her final film. Foreign spies try to kidnap an inventor to steal his invention. Large actor William Dewhurst is "Mr. Portside", who brings them to a secret meeting of the underground. Died at 49, but he was so large, i guess it's not a surprise. sound and picture are all pretty iffy. story goes all around. It's pretty good. Victor Jory and Hugh Miller co-star. and a funny scene where a pickpocket gets caught picking a pocket.

In this Bulldog Drummond from 1937, Drummond is played by John Lodge, who later became a congressman. He was only Drummond once. He was solid enough, but he didn't have the light touch of some of the others or the wit.

The criminals here (Victor Jory and Hugh Miller) have a fake club for world peace, but it's really just a front to get people to give them a lot of money. They kidnap a man endeavoring to get some new airplane plans from him in order to sell them, but just before he is caught, he throws a rock through Drummond's window with a piece of paper.

Dorothy Mackaill is a woman, seemingly on the side of the criminals, who comes to Drummond's house with car trouble, but really wants to look for anything of the kidnap victim's.

Pretty good, though the prints on these films are never very good. This one had sound that skipped as well. But as a series, Bulldog Drummond is interesting, with so many actors playing him over the years: Ray Milland, Ronald Colman, Sir Ralph Richardson, John Howard, Ron Randell, Tom Conway, Walter Pidgeon, Robert Beatty and Richard Johnson.

"Bulldog Drummond goes up against foreign agents trying to steal plans for a top-secret aircraft." -- this about sums it up.

The most "meh" of the series so far . A biography of dimpled but rather lackluster John Lodge may have made a better film than tis one.

Torture by matches, poison gas and threats to mom abound along with the usual rolling around "fights" and private citizens with pistols. .

Younger Victor Jory and an uncredited Wilfred Hyde White are highpoints in the casting.