Bulldog Drummond's Bride

BULLDOG DRUMMOND'S BRIDE is another of the short-lived but prolific Paramount series of movies and it's my favourite yet. This one involves a group of bank robbers whose latest heist interferes with Bulldog's marriage (in what seems to be a common plot point in these movies). What follows is a neat little escapade in which there's plenty of comedy to get your teeth into, alongside brisk pacing and a predominance of action which really helps. Add in the usual suspects, villains, wisecracking heroes and a good eye for the era's detail, and you have a short and snappy programmer that doesn't let up.

The only reason I even give this dull film a 4 is that there is some excellent continuity from the previous film--something unusual for a B-movie. Hugh Drummond (John Howard) is back with the same fiancée (Heather Angel) and her perennially frustrated aunt (Elizabeth Patteson). All too often in Bs, each episode was unique and continuity was almost always a problem--and in most Drummond movies this is definitely true as about 2739 different actors played this character over the years. At the very end of the last film, Drummong and his fiancée were about to be married when the house exploded! Now, they are STILL trying to get married--but they've rescheduled it to take place the next day. The problem is that the plot, apart from that, is amazingly dull and concerns a spy--but it never engages the viewer in the least. Poor writing (aside from the continuity) and lots of listless action make this tough going. Only for die-hard Drummond fans.

Lame entry in the Drummond series. Everyone, including the robbers, is after a portable radio that has the loot from a bank heist hidden away in it. Trouble is it's like the writers (3) have no idea what to do with the narrative. Instead the cast gets to run around shadowy stage sets and literally throw bombs when things slow down. Too bad, because the cast includes a number of capable performers, including Howard, Denny, Clive, et al. At the same time, the comely Angel has little more to do than stand around and look pretty. The best part is the bang-up opening that promises more than's delivered. Anyway, there's no suspense or real surprises one would expect from a detective show. Instead, it's like there's really no script, or worse, a deadline to meet. So everyone gets to run around and wing it. All in all, the flick's an unfortunate waste of money and talent. Good thing the series was usually better than this.

The final Bulldog Drummond movie in the Paramount series stars John Howard and finally has Drummond marrying longtime fiancée Phyllis (the delightful Heather Angel). But before they get hitched there's another last-minute interruption in the form of a bank robber, a radio, and a trip to France. The cast of regulars (Reginald Denny, E.E. Clive, H.B. Warner, and Elizabeth Patterson) are all fine. Eduardo Ciannelli plays the villain and hams it up nicely. There's even more comedy than usual in this one. Some of it is funny but most of it is just stupid, particularly where Algy is concerned.

Bulldog Drummond would return to the movies after WW2. First at Columbia, then Fox and MGM, with yet more actors playing the role (including Tom Conway and Walter Pidgeon). But none of those would be quite as enjoyable as the Paramount series. Which isn't saying a lot since these movies were never better than time-passers anyway. But I can honestly say I never found any of the movies bad, just ranging from 'ok' to good. Even this final one, while weaker than the others, is still watchable. And it's not even an hour long so it's hard to argue against giving it a shot when you have time to kill.

This is the sixteenth of the Bulldog Drummond films, and it brings to an end the Drummond films as they were before the outbreak of World War II. (They would resume in 1947.) With this film, John Howard also ends his career as Drummond, which had lasted for seven films, all made within two breathless years between September of 1937 and September of 1939. Heather Angel once again plays Phyllis Clavering, E. E. Clive plays Tenny the Butler, Reginald Denny plays Algy Longworth, and H. B. Warner plays Commissioner Nielson, all for the last time. John Howard left the film business to join the U. S. Navy (he was an American), where he ended up winning the Navy Cross and the French Croix de Guerre for conspicuous acts of bravery, becoming in other words a real life hero of the sort he had played in the Drummond films. After the War, he returned to acting but was never again fortunate to shine as a major player. It seems a poor return for a fictional Drummond who became a real Drummond, that he could not resume the role. E. E. Clive died the next year, in 1940. Reginald Denny contributed to the War effort by manufacturing 15,000 target drones for the U. S. Army. He later returned to acting, but was never in another Drummond film. H. B. Warner and Heather Angel went on acting, but they never appeared in another Drummond film either. The team was totally broken up, and 'vintage 1930s Drummond' was over. This film is moderately entertaining, with lots of comedy, so that it is not actually serious. What with people having cans of paint thrown over them and slipping and sliding, Algy staging pratfalls continually, and other such antics, there is barely room for a mystery plot. However, Drummondians will be thrilled to know that ... oh no, I must not say ... that business which was continually being interrupted between Hugh and Phyllis, ... well, that must remain a mystery. The plot, what there is of it, concerns a ruthless villain who has robbed a bank for what then was considered a vast sum, of ten thousand pounds. It is hard to conceive of a time when that was a sum worth getting excited about, worth exploding bombs all over the place, killing people without compunction, and carrying on as if all the gold of the Indies were at stake. But that was then, and this is now. In this film as in so many others of the time, Scotland Yard 'seal off an area with a cordon, and no one can get through'. It seems incredible, doesn't it, that it was even remotely conceivable to seal off a sector of London like that just for a measly little bank robbery? Naturally, the villain gets away in an ambulance disguised as a madman. Maybe it really was time for the world to move on and get real. After this, there were tanks and planes and the Holocaust to worry about, and whether Hugh and Phyllis got married or not was no longer important, with so many women widowed that Phyllis having to wait for another crime to be solved no longer qualified as a tragedy.