Bulldog Drummond Escapes *** (1937, Ray Milland, Guy Standing, Heather Angel, Reginald Denny, Porter Hall, Fay Holden, E E Clive) – Classic Movie Review 8,191

The amusing 1937 American mystery thriller film Bulldog Drummond Escapes stars Ray Milland as Captain Hugh ‘Bulldog’ Drummond, who tries to save beautiful heiress Phyllis Clavering (Heather Angel) from a spy organisation.

Paramount Pictures’ first film in a series of eight B-movies about Sapper’s Captain Hugh ‘Bulldog’ Drummond stars Ray Milland in his one and only shot at the role in Bulldog Drummond Escapes (1937). The studio continued with the series in seven more films over the next two years, but replaced Milland with John Howard.

In the screenplay by Edward T Lowe Jr, based on the play Bulldog Drummond Again by Herman C McNeile (aka Sapper) and Gerard Fairlie, Captain Drummond becomes a prisoner when he starts interfering in a case being investigated by his police commissioner friend Colonel Nielson (Sir Guy Standing) and tries to protect beautiful heiress Phyllis Clavering (Heather Angel) from an espionage and counterfeiting organisation who are holding her prisoner in creepy Greystone Manor.

Director James P Hogan’s Bulldog Drummond Escapes is lightly entertaining with a lot of quirky and amusing incident and detail. Milland is expertly smooth and jaunty in the star role, an ideal Drummond. Angel is a good, feisty co-star, and Milland has a strong character actor cast to back him up, especially E E Clive as Drummond’s canny valet ‘Tenny’, though Sir Guy Standing and Reginald Denny as Algy Longworth are amusing enough. There is a useful collection of villains: Porter Hall as Major Norman Merridew, Fay Holden as Merridew’s sister Natalie Seldon, and Walter Kingsford as ‘Professor’ Stanton.

The plot is entirely decent, and when it sticks to being a mystery thriller, the film is very enjoyable, but the larky comedy undermines it annoyingly, including comic coppers, providing work for vintage comic entertainer Clyde Cook. The tone is often wrong, tipping it into slapstick and farce when there is kidnap and murder afoot that need to be taken seriously, preferably in deadly earnest. Okay, comedy relief maybe, if we have to, but not this descent into silliness.

Luckily for him but unluckily for the series, Ray Milland was becoming a major star, so the studio decided to replace him after doing this one film only as Bulldog Drummond. Paramount next offered the role to John Howard, who then took over, but with second billing to John Barrymore who plays Drummond’s police commissioner friend/ colleague Colonel Nielson, in Howard’s first film as Drummond, Bulldog Drummond Comes Back (1937).

It is the final film appearance of Sir Guy Standing, who died from a heart attack on 24 February 1937, aged 63. His last words were: ‘I never felt better in my life’. Kay Hammond was his daughter and John Standing is his grandson. He was succeeded in his part of Colonel Sir Reginald Nielson by John Barrymore (in three films) and H B Warner (in four films).

British actress Heather Angel makes the first of five appearances as Phyllis Clavering in the Bulldog Drummond series.

Australian-born vaudevillian Clyde Cook (16 December 1891 – 13 August 1984) ironically found himself typecast in cockney roles when he went to Hollywood. In 1925 he was signed by Hal Roach for a series of short silent comedies and was signed by Warner Bros in 1927.

Also in the cast are Reginald Denny as Algy Longworth, Porter Hall as Norman Merridew, Fay Holden as Natalie Merridew Seldon, E E Clive as ‘Tenny’ Tennison, Walter Kingsford as ‘Professor’ Stanton, P J Kelly as Stiles the butler, Charles McNaughton as Chief Constable Higgins, Clyde Cook as Constable Alf, Frank Elliott as Bailey, David Clyde as Gower, Doris Lloyd as Nurse, and Barry Macollum as Blodgson.

Release date: January 22, 1937.

Running time: 67 minutes.

It is one of eight Bulldog Drummond capers made by Paramount Pictures in the late 1930s and sold in mid-1954 for re-release by Congress Films, who amateurishly redesigned the opening and closing credits to eliminate any signs of Paramount’s previous ownership.

Paramount did not renew the copyright, and the films fell into public domain.

The Paramount Bulldog Drummond series

Ray Milland starred in the 1937 Paramount Pictures film Bulldog Drummond Escapes, but was replaced as Bulldog Drummond in Bulldog Drummond Comes Back (1937) by John Howard, who played Bulldog Drummond in seven films produced by Paramount. John Barrymore stars in Bulldog Drummond Comes Back (1937). Howard continued opposite Barrymore in Bulldog Drummond’s Revenge (1937) and Bulldog Drummond’s Peril (1938). H B Warner replaced Barrymore in Bulldog Drummond in Africa (1938), Arrest Bulldog Drummond (1939), Bulldog Drummond’s Secret Police (1939), and Bulldog Drummond’s Bride (1939), the last in the series.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 8,191

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