La Police privée de Bulldog Drummond

After a bit of a slow start, this Bulldog Drummond feature is a solid B-movie with some moments of good suspense and effective atmosphere. It has all the familiar characters, with John Howard as Drummond, and E.E. Clive, Reginald Denny, Heather Angel, and H.B. Warner in the recurring roles, plus a young Leo Carroll (billed without the G.) heading the supporting cast.

The first part is a little slow-moving, dwelling rather lengthily on the series's running joke about Drummond's often-postponed wedding to Phyllis. Although it tries to get a bit too much material out of it, this part does include a sequence of flashbacks to earlier 'Bulldog' features that offers some pleasant moments to those who enjoy the series.

The main plot has a familiar premise, with a search for a hidden treasure whose location needs to be deduced from an old cipher. It becomes a race, as Drummond and his friends are determined to find it before a criminal adversary can. While not an especially imaginative story idea, it does lead into a pretty good sequence in the last part of the movie, with some good and rather macabre atmospheric settings as the hunt for the treasure plays out.

The penultimate Bulldog Drummond movie from Paramount starring John Howard finds Drummond once again on the verge of marrying Phyllis. But, once again, something interrupts their plans. This time it's in the form of murder and a search for hidden treasure at Drummond's family estate. There's a different vibe to this one than others in the series. It almost doesn't feel like a Bulldog Drummond movie at all. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. I pretty much like any movie of the 'old dark house' variety and this one fits that bill nicely.

John Howard and Heather Angel are both fine. The interrupted marriage plot is already stale by this point but they do what they can with it. E.E. Clive is great as Tenny. He was typically the highlight of these movies and this is no exception. Reginald Denny and H.B. Warner also return. Denny is especially slapsticky this time around. Mrs. Trumbull herself, Elizabeth Patterson, plays Phyllis' aunt. She's a nag but a fun one. Great character actor Leo G. Carroll plays the villain. I don't think that's a spoiler since he almost always played the villain. Makes use of lots of footage from previous Drummond movies for a dream sequence. It's not poorly done but it raises some eyebrows given the already-brief runtime. After a slow start, it turns out to be an enjoyable B mystery thriller of the 'old dark house' variety. Effective atmosphere and good sets help. It is one of the best of the series, as several other reviewers here note. But I can't rate it as high as some of them do because, while good for a Drummond film, it's really not all that special judged against other similar movies of the era.

This one started so...comically...that I thought it was going to be a poor entry in the Bulldog Drummond series, with seemingly endless clownish slapstick from Denny & Clive. But it warms up after 20 minutes into an effectively atmospheric thriller, with Drummond yet again in the throes of getting married while adventure takes hold of the situation.

It's surprisingly bloodthirsty, with the baddie killing 3 including an unarmed bobby pointblank - when it happens it's treated by everyone with everyday calmness.

But what really makes it for me are the catacombs/dungeons sets - the film was shot on a shoestring budget (witness the dream sequences) and yet these sets were so convincing I wondered if they were genuine for a while. They must have been re-used but I can't remember seeing them in any other film. Of course the grainy darkness of the print I was watching helped a lot, but it's worth watching for these scenes anyway. But talk about a corny, contrived ending!

Terrific adventure that caps the 1937-39 series nicely, with John Howard comfortable in his role as Drummond and Heather Angel a treat (if not an especially good actress) as poor Phyllis. The whole gang is at the old tower estate, preparing for the Drummond wedding, when an absent-minded scholar shows up with a tale about secret passages and treasure right under their feet! Drummond tries to keep out of it, but a sinister figure enters in the night and causes havoc. Soon, the whole troupe is creeping thru dark passages and avoiding deadly traps.

The dialog isn't quite as witty or sardonic as in previous entries, but the tension is keen. Ciphers, skeletons, spikes, raging torrents, crumbling platforms, and more make this one of the best of the Bulldog Drummond series. For those keeping score, in this one, Drummond is (again) about to marry Phyllis, and Algy seems to have forgotten that he is already married.

This is the fifteenth Bulldog Drummond film, and the second to be based on Herman C. McNeile (Sapper)'s novel 'Temple Tower', though the earlier film is not included in the IMDb list for McNeile, which is thus incomplete. The first filmed version of the novel was 'Temple Tower', released 13 April 1930, and starring Kenneth MacKenna as Drummond. There appears to be no surviving print of this earlier film, and no one alive has apparently ever seen it. We must presume that it is permanently lost, as the first Bulldog Drummond film, a silent of 1922, presumably is as well. Here the old gang are all back: John Howard as the perfect Drummond, Heather Angel as charming and plucky as ever as Phyllis Clavering, trying unsuccessfully for the sixth time to marry Drummond, Reginald Denny as Algy Longworth being as endearing and clumsy and twittish as ever (he breaks a Ming vase this time), H.B. Warner as the Commissioner who this time does not say 'Please don't call me Inspector!' because he is a house guest of Drummond's, as the entire action takes place at Drummond's large mansion, E. E. Clive as the inimitable gentleman's gentleman Tenny ('I try to give satisfaction, sir'), Leo G. Carroll as the dastardly and rather obvious villain Henry Seaton, and Phyllis's aunt over-played by Elizabeth Patterson (same name as my cousin who married Napoleon's brother Jerome!). (But no, Temple Tower is no relation.) The plot concerns the royal jewels having been hidden by a royalist colonel during the Civil War of 1642-5 in the cellars of Temple Tower of Drummond's own family mansion. An absent-minded professor has figured this out, and travelled all the way from the British Museum Library with the royalist's original diary in his bag, including maps of tunnels and a mysterious cipher, to discover the treasure which he has calculated is 'worth a million pounds' (in 1939 money). This is a typical comedy thriller, of the type soon coming to an end. One more would be made with John Howard before the War put an end to all this fun ('Bulldog Drummond's Bride', released four months later). We are nearing the end of an era, and this kind of jollity (piping oboes when people make funny faces, Algy falling down the stairs entangled in a suit of armour in the dark, the occasional witty line delivered with old-fashioned applomb) would soon vanish like smoke, as the dogs of war were unleashed and howls of laughter were replaced by howls of anguish of the murdered and the bombed.