Bulldog Drummond's Revenge (1937)

I'll tell you why so serious

In truth, there is barely enough story here to make a film.

One of the most extraordinary films you will see this year. Take that as you want.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

At this point, the "Bulldog Drummond" film series seems to be merely going through the motions, and the films are starting to blend together. Although the plot of "Revenge" (amazingly inaccurate title, by the way) involves a powerful explosive that could theoretically wipe out an entire city, there is nothing interesting or urgent about it. And there are no memorable scenes in the film, except for a plane crash and a severed hand. The cast is largely going through the motions as well, except for E.E.Clive who continues to score with his comic deliveries. I did prefer John Barrymore's more serious, less disguise-heavy take on the role of Colonel Neilson, compared to the previous entry. Louise Campbell's Phyllis is around mostly to scream and faint. ** out of 4.

Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond was one of those British gentlemen of leisure who one assumes was mentioned in dispatches for gallantry during The Great War. These amateur sleuths had superb manners and upper-class attitudes. They solved some of England's most ingenious crimes during the Twenties and Thirties. According to Drummond's chronicler, H. C. McNeile, Drummond "has the appearance of an English gentleman: a man who fights hard, plays hard and lives clean...Only his eyes redeem his face. Deep-set and steady, with eyelashes that many women envy, they show him to be a sportsman and an adventurer." In Bulldog Drummond's Revenge, John Howard plays Drummond. The Bulldog is turned into a conventionally handsome man with a carefully groomed moustache and not much sign of life. It's a bland, pleasant performance. The plot, told in 57 brisk minutes, has something to do with haxonite, a super explosive, often unstable, that can obliterate cities. A large sample is stolen from the inventor while he's flying his single-engine plane at night in the fog. When Hugh Drummond and his best friend, Algy Longworth (Reginald Denny, playing the epitome of the English twit), discover the suitcase (it had been tossed out of the plane attached to a parachute) on their way to meet Phyllis Claverling, Hugh's long time fiancée, all sorts of complications arise. There's the increasingly impatient Phyllis who wants a husband and not a detective, a hand reaching around a doorway to turn out the lights, a long train ride to Dover with a suspicious woman who looks so mannish she must either be a male in disguise or on heavy-duty hormones, and international spies. All this takes place, or course, at night. Phyllis despairs of ever getting Hugh to the altar. Algy's wife shows up briefly and then disappears, thankfully. She brings a shrill laugh that is to comedy what a drill is to dentistry. There's also a severed arm, a few days old, which makes an occasional appearance. And there is John Barrymore playing, in a few brief scenes, Colonel J. A. Nielson, head of Britain's most shadowy secret service. He's top billed, has little to do but be authoritative and lend his name to this enterprise. It's a poignant situation. Barrymore still can dominate any scene he's in. E. E. Clive is one of the best things in the movie, and in the series. He plays Drummond's manservant, Tennyson. "Tenny" is an elderly snob, but marvelously competent, remarkably resourceful and, one surmises, probably smarter that Drummond. His performance brings some acerbic life to the movie. "Ah, Tenny, getting married is great fun, isn't it?" says Drummond. "In Switzerland, sir?" says Tenny, raising an eyebrow. "Anywhere, Tenny, anywhere!" Says Tenny, with finely tuned distaste, "It's a popular belief, sir." Bulldog Drummond's Revenge is one of those many time-filling programmers from the past that do no harm. They're fun to watch every now and then.

The third and weakest of the Paramount series, "Bulldog Drummond's Revenge" seems to run much longer than its 57 minutes, thanks mostly to the exasperating "comic relief" contributed by Reginald Denny, and the boring clichés of its ho-hum, stolen secret formula plot. Although the climactic action is set on a train, director Louis King proves unequal to the task of providing suspense, let alone atmosphere. Top-billed John Barrymore actually has an extremely small role as Colonel Nielson (he's given a big introduction and then virtually disappears), while Louise Campbell makes little impression as Phyllis Clavering. No match for Ray Milland's Bulldog, super-spruce John Howard even allows scheming heavy, Frank Puglia, to steal the picture.

This is a pretty good, if unspectacular, Bulldog Drummond feature with the usual good cast and a story with plenty of action plus a little humor at the right times. The story is a little less imaginative than the ideas in some of the other features in the series, but it makes up for it with plenty of action that keeps things going.Most of the story-line revolves around a secret new explosive that a scientist has invented, which the villains would obviously love to get their hands on. Some of the better moments come when the main action interferes with Drummond's plans to marry Phyllis (Louise Campbell), while flustering the befuddled but ever-helpful Algy (Reginald Denny).John Barrymore is always good fun as Colonel Neilson, and he makes good use of his opportunities here, while E.E. Clive does likewise as the quick-witted Tenny. It's a good feature that should satisfy any fan of the series, though its fairly familiar plot ideas and rather nondescript villains keep it from being one of the very best entries in the series.