Bulldog Drummond at Bay (1937)

Just perfect...

Instant Favorite.

The story-telling is good with flashbacks.The film is both funny and heartbreaking. You smile in a scene and get a soulcrushing revelation in the next.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

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.

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.

John Lodge adds his name to the long list of different actors who portrayed Bulldog Drummond throughout the years, and he is solidly adequate in the role. But what really differentiates (somewhat) "Bulldog Drummond At Bay" from the previous films in the series is the main female part, played by the largely forgotten today Dorothy Mackaill. She's not the usual damsel-in-distress; she is an enigmatic woman and you're not sure whose side she is on until the very end; she also has good interplay with Drummond ("You have no spark", Drummond says, talking about her car; "That's the first complaint I've had!", she responds). The plot is also a bit more complicated than usual, with several villains, sometimes at odds with each other. And there is even a good old-fashioned Scottish castle! **1/2 out of 4.

John Lodge is Captain Hugh Drummond in one of a long series of films (its one of thee films from 1937 all with different Drummond's. The other two are the miscast Ray Milland and the perfectly cast John Howard). Here Drummond and his friends take on a group of foreign spies trying to get their hands on a new plane. One of the baddies is played to perfection by Victory Jory, who really turns in a highly evil performance. This is one of the darkest of any of the Drummond films with the bad guys really doing a number on anyone and everyone who fall into their hands. This is a solid, if slightly nasty little film that plays very differently than the seven films that followed with John Howard in the lead. Those films, while good little mysteries of their own, were just a tad lighter than this film. Very much worth a look, especially if one looks at how the character changed in one year by watching Ray Milland in Bulldog Drummond Escapes and John Howard in Bulldog Drummond Comes Back.