Bulldog Drummond at Bay

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.

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.

This British Bulldog Drummond movie was made at the same time Paramount was producing their series back in the States. I've heard that it's also the movie that's most faithful to the Drummond books. Having read none of the books, I can't say one way or the other if that's true. But if this movie is indicative of what the books are like, I think I'll pass on trying them out. This is future politician John Lodge's only Bulldog Drummond film. He was one of three actors to play the character in 1937 alone. The other two, Ray Milland and John Howard, would play the character over at Paramount. Of the three, Lodge is the most colorless and dull. The story in this one has Hugh 'Bulldog' Drummond fighting foreign agents who kidnap an inventor. As with most of the British films I've seen from the '30s, this movie is pretty stiff. There's some playful banter between Lodge and Dorothy Mackaill, for example, but it's hurt by the dry matter-of-fact delivery. No charm or sexiness to it at all. The same can be said of the humor and action -- it's all just very blah. Claud Allister's Algy is highly annoying. Look out for Victory Jory's unintentionally funny death scene. Fans of Bulldog Drummond or the American movies might want to try it out for comparison's sake but I can't think of a reason to recommend it to anyone else.

"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.

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.