Bulldog Drummond Escapes

Bulldog Drummond returns to England and, when driving home, encounters a young lady who steals his car. He traces her to a manor house and she asks for his help to get out of a difficult situation.

One of a series of B films in that period which featured the character Bulldrog Drummond. On this occasion Ray Milland fills his shoes and does a decent job but, with his star rising, he soon moved on to better films. Watchable and of interest to fans of the series.

I was very pleasantly surprised by this racy little number,available in the UK on one DVD with two other movies from the same series.A simple but effective plot and some good stand out action scenes,pretty well mounted for a 'programmer'.Bulldog Drummond was served better by these movies than Dick Barton fared in the Hammer productions that came a dozen or so years later.Well worth watching,with a nice late thirties flavour,and far superior to the later Richard Johnson attempts at the character.Maybe its time for a resurgence of interest in Bulldog Drummond !! Ray Milland is a suave hero,and Heather Angel a pert heroine.When major stardom priced Ray Milland out of the series,John Howard played the part with equal charm.

This is a solid low-budget feature that delivers the main things you hope for in a 'Bulldog Drummond' movie. It has good action, a plot involving a heroine in distress and some crafty villains, and a confident, good-natured hero played here by Ray Milland. All of the actors who portrayed Drummond gave the movies their own feel, but Milland, like most of them, gives the character the right balance of energy and British poise, while putting his own style into the role as well.

The story is set up by an odd encounter between Drummond and Phyllis (Heather Angel) that leads to an involved sequence of events, with Drummond determined to find out exactly what dangers Phyllis is facing, at times even having to oppose his friend Colonel Neilson. The story moves at a good pace, moving quickly from one predicament to the next. There are times when it doesn't quite fit together smoothly, and with even better writing and editing it could have been even more effective, but the basic idea works pretty well.

Heather Angel makes a good Phyllis, winning and energetic. It's interesting to see her in this early Drummond episode, since she later came back to play Phyllis after the character was played by other actresses for the next few features. Neilson is not given a particularly large role here, but the rest of the usual crowd is present, with E.E. Clive as the resourceful Tenny and Reginald Denny as the befuddled but helpful Algy.

Porter Hall also helps out, with one of his many good character performances as Drummond's slippery opponent. The low budget look is helped by having most of the action take place at night and/or in darkened settings, giving it a decent atmosphere despite the lack of detail. It makes for a solid feature that works well enough as light entertainment.

Ray Milland's only outing as Bulldog Drummond is a pretty good start to Paramount's series. The story is about Drummond trying to help a woman who's being kept prisoner by her nefarious guardian at the ominously-named Greystone Manor. There's also a subplot about Drummond's right-hand man Algy being a nervous wreck waiting on his wife to give birth. Milland makes for a charming and lively Bulldog Drummond. He was one of three actors to play the character in 1937 alone and, for my money, he was better than the other two. Reginald Denny and E.E. Clive offer fun support. Lovely Heather Angel plays the heiress and has a nice playful chemistry with Milland. She's also something of a tough cookie, helping fight the bad guys instead of just standing around doing nothing. The rest of the cast features fine actors like Porter Hall, Walter Kingsford, Fay Holden, and Guy Standing. This was Standing's final movie, dying from a rattlesnake bite (!) a month after this was released. The Bulldog Drummond series wasn't one of my favorites of the many detective film series that littered the '30s & '40s but I have liked many of them. This one is particularly enjoyable with lots of humor and some nice foggy atmosphere. Short runtime and good pace also help.

Three Bulldog Drummond films were made in 1937 in quick succession, this being the first, and the only one starring Ray Milland as Drummond. It was the eighth Drummond film to be made. It came out in April, 'Bulldog Drummond at Bay' came out in July, and 'Bulldog Drummond Comes Back' came out in September. Each had a different leading man, the next two in succession being John Lodge and John Howard. In this one, the young Ray Milland was amusing and engaging, but over-acted in a way which was not helpful. He portrayed the hero as someone with adolescent, almost juvenile, attitudes, thereby turning Drummond into a rather idiotic parody, and making the whole film too much like a comedy, despite its scenes of danger and distress. The producers instantly realized they had made a mistake and had endangered their plans for a series of films, so they sought someone with more gravitas. The next film used John Lodge once. But after that, inspiration finally came in the form of John Howard, who was perfect casting and would go on to make many Drummond films, with just the right combination of gravitas mixed with a residual boyish sense of fun, openness (never Milland's strong point), and solid, sporting good humour. In this film, Phyllis Clavering is introduced for the first time, and inspired casting occurred when Heather Angel played the part. The producers made a big mistake in having Phyllis played for three more films by the boring Louise Campbell, but Heather Angel would reappear the next year five films later (Phyllis does not appear in one of them), and carry on for several films to great effect. Phyllis enters the world of Drummond as a helpless imprisoned maiden in distress, whom he rescues. Eventually she ends up suspended in his arms, kissing him, with marriage beckoning. (As all Drummondonians know, this marriage would be 'interruptus' on numerous future occasions.) Guy Standing is boring as Inspector Nielson in this film, and they got rid of him too. E. E. Clive as Tennie the Butler, and Reginald Denny as Algy are in fine fettle for this episode, and were to grace the series for a long while with their charm and talents. There is a curious scene in this film where the villains are driving through the gates of a great house in a Rolls Royce. This shot is actually cut from the 1929 'Bulldog Drummond' and re-used! Much of this film is spent with Algy Longworth desperately trying to phone the hospital to see if his wife has had her baby yet. In 'Bulldog Drummond Comes Back', he will be desperately trying to make it to that same baby's christening, while Drummond will be desperately trying to marry Phyllis, the villains preventing both of these things. This film is entertaining and lively if one is not fussy, and has humour as well, so it is good viewing. As Tennie the Butler would say: 'That is my thought exactly, Sir.'