Bulldog Drummond (1929)

This is a must-see and one of the best documentaries - and films - of this year.

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

Captain Bulldog Hugh Drummond (Ronald Coleman) is bored. He is bored of peace in a contracting British empire made so by the decimation of everybody who was of fighting age in WWI. Hugh is one of the few survivors of that war and he longs for adventure. So he puts an ad in the paper saying he is looking for adventure, and would rather crime not be involved but won't rule it out.He gets tons of responses, but the letter of Phyllis (Joan Bennett) asking for help strikes his fancy and especially the mystery she puts around their meeting. She has reserved a room for them in a local inn. On the appointed day Drummond arrives at the inn, goes to the room, and soon in walks a woman dressed from head to toe in black. She uncovers her face, and Drummond is instantly smitten. She tells a rather fantastic tale of how her fabulously wealthy uncle is being held captive in an asylum in a plot to rob him of his assets and how she is being watched by the people who run the asylum. That was why she chose the remote inn in the middle of the night. Now Drummond's friend Algie and Drummond's butler have followed Drummond to the inn, and prior to Phyllis' entry Drummond has locked them in the bedroom. While all of this conversation is going they are listening in.Now Phyllis could have been a complete crackpot, but in the middle of their meeting in come the people running the asylum and fetch Phyllis back, validating her story. Drummond follows them, gets Phyllis out, manages to grab the uncle too, and then after some clever maneuvers in a high speed chase, makes a bone headed mistake - he takes them BOTH BACK to the inn where the villains found them in the first place. Of course they show up AGAIN. How will all of this work out? Watch and find out.This is not to say that the villains do not make mistakes or strange decisions. They seem to be running an asylum in a huge castle like structure in which Phyllis' uncle is the only inmate. Nice work if you can get it. This was a very well done early talkie. The entire film takes place at night, the architecture looks like something straight out of a German expressionist film, and the dialogue and performances are not static or stilted at all. There is clever use of the camera to give the illusion of motion where there really cannot be any, and the same is true for Colman's performance - he was actually wounded badly in WWI and could not use one leg hardly at all. Yet when you think back after watching, you'll swear he was climbing and swinging about like Errol Flynn.Lilyan Tashman steals the show as the villainess, who for some reason is dressed up in an evening gown for all of this skulking about. Drummond may be her technical enemy, but you can tell by every word she says she is sexually attracted to him, if only she could get him under her spell.This film was Joan Bennett's first talking film, Ronald Colman's second talking film and first surviving one, and Lilyan Tashman's second talking role. For these three actors, the coming of sound was a boost to their careers rather than the end of them. Of course, Colman had been a star for some years, but his marvelous voice would have made it a pleasure to listen to him recite the dictionary. Watch it for the fun, romance, and adventure of it all.One more thing, unlike James Bond, apparently Bulldog Drummond was extremely monogamous. In the later low budget Drummond pictures of the late 30's with John Howard in the starring role Drummond is engaged to a girl named Phyllis. The joke of the series is how the planned wedding just never manages to come off because of some mystery into which Drummond becomes entangled. It's good B fun but this is the first and the best of the talking Bulldog Drummond films, largely because of the charming Ronald Colman.

So far, all the Ronald Coleman movies I've seen have beensilents. Therefore, I was glad to get a hold on his talkie debut,Bulldog Drummond. As a film, it is very good. It's pretty exciting,full of good acting from Coleman, Lilyan Tashman, Claud Allister,Montague Love and a few others. I found Joan Bennet's work to bepretty poor and forced. Not quite the same as that role in Womanin the Window. Still, not bad for a first sound picture.Since it's an early talkie, the slow-moving moments are excusable. And there are really very few if you think about it. Plus the dialoguewas hillarious. Props to whoever came up with the role of Algy. Deffinatly my favorite character. It's not a film everybody will enjoy,but if you so desire it, this is a better example of a 1929 talkie. 7/10.

Imagine growing up with Ronald Colman on the silent screen: a man with striking good looks & natural ease before the camera. And then to hear, for the first time, that enchanting voice! I love Ronald Colman, like almost all today I did not discover him until later in life. I am a big fan, but I do not love all his movies. I do love Bulldog Drummond. Yes it is dated. The film & particularly the sound shows its age. But Colman is wonderful, romping through scenes with gay abandon. The doctor is still playing in a silent film, complete with overdone dramatic gestures & expressions. One wishes Joan Bennett would warm up. She is a delicate, beautiful pixie. Even Colman's proximity fails to thaw her. But who cares? Colman rarely lingers in any scene, his energy & grace vibrating on the screen. See the first Colman talkie. Smile when the actors cluster around an object (hidden microphone here!). And just enjoy Ronald Colman.

Melodramatic, overacted, and occasionally senseless, but who cares? Colman is almost devestatingly charming in his first talkie, Bennett is lovely (but a bit whiny at first), and Algy is a first class twit. The villains are vile, the action is fast once you adjust, and Colman is a sheer delight to watch. Why there hasn't been a major Colman revival is beyond comprehension.