Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back (1934)

Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Excellent, Without a doubt!!

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Amazing worth wacthing. So good. Biased but well made with many good points.

I just saw this film today on Youtube, and it is another Colman winner. His version of Drummond is very much like William Powell's Nick Charles, except there is a lot more action to it. Spoilers ahead: One major plus is seeing Warner Oland as Prince Achemad, who is trying to smuggle furs into London, despite the fact they are infested with cholera. What I like about the film is the way that Drummond always finds a way to come out on top and does it with class and sophistication, which includes catching the villain (With a note hidden in a cigarette case, warning about the cholera), and marrying the girl Lola Fields (Loretta Young). Anyone who likes Colman and or detective stories should make sure they catch this film. I consider myself lucky that I caught it, because although it is listed as being available on DVD, I have never seen it anywhere except Youtube.

Algy, Hugh Drummond's right hand man has gotten married. At the wedding Drummond (Ronald Coleman) tells Algy that his days of adventuring are over since the partners must retire together. As Drummond walks home he becomes lost in the fog and deciding to phone for help he walks up to the nearest house. Once there he finds the door open and a dead man on a divan. After racing to find a cop he returns to the house and finds the body gone and Prince Achmed (Warner Oland) and his group acting suspiciously. After the cop and Drummond leave together, Drummond returns to investigate where Achmed warns Drummond to leave the matter alone or die. What follows is a round and round affair through the night as Drummond attempts to rescue a damsel and get to the bottom of matters, all the while not letting anyone, including the newlyweds, sleep.Good little thriller is better once things get going about a half an hour in. Coleman is an amusing hero and his battle with Oland, particularly towards the end, is rather amusing since it leaves Oland's character completely apoplectic, something we never saw in all of the Charlie Chan or Fu Manchu films that Oland made. The film's mix of danger and comedy doesn't always work, especially when we find out what is really going on, the denouncement is much darker than some of the earlier silliness suggests, and I for one felt rather uneasy laughing at what Oland and his crew was really trying to do.A solid thriller of the sort they don't make any more, and didn't make as an A film that often after this was released. Worth a look if you get the chance.Around 7 out of 10.

This is an enjoyable light murder mystery, but I might have enjoyed it more if I hadn't recently seen BLIND ADVENTURE, made the year before by Ernest B. Schoedsack for RKO. The plot elements, as I recall, are strikingly similar: a foggy London night, the hero accidentally going into a house and finding a body, which is then missing when he comes back with help; a young girl's relative disappearing, and a foreign ambassador of some sort who seems legit but is a bad guy; constant breaking into the house in question; all the action occurring in one evening; and the hero and the girl-in-distress an item by the evening's end. And, in both instances, comedy relief that actually adds to the film! Roland Young was very pleasing in BLIND ADVENTURE, but no one can match Butterworth at his best, which he is here. Once again, one feels that he had to have written many of his lines. Here, he's married that very day to Una Merkel, who affectionately calls him "Mousey." Colman: "Never leave your wife." Butterworth: "I'll speak to her about it." When Drummond finds adventure, he calls up Butterworth and asks him to tag along, without a care that it's Butterworth's wedding night. Butterworth isn't really an innocent here, he knows what he's missing out on. In response to one of these calls, he says, "we've reached sort of a critical moment." Robert Armstrong in BLIND ADVENTURE seems a more real, more interesting character. Here, both the script and Colman play it as a not-to-be-taken-seriously, boy's-own adventure, a tacit acknowledgment that this is just another caper in a series. One nice addition here is that the inevitable policeman who doesn't believe there's a problem is C. Aubrey Smith. You're on his side, really. Why doesn't this boy scout let him get some sleep?Apparently Butterworth was an off-screen drinking buddy of such literary wits as Robert Benchley and Corey Ford. Note that Benchley wrote "additional dialogue" for BLIND ADVENTURE, presumably for Young's Butterworth-like character.

I have been lucky enough to collect all the old Bulldog Drummond movies and I believe that this one is the best all-around offering.Ronald Coleman comes across as sophisticated without being pretentious, as adventuresome without being an unreasonable risk-taker. In fact his whole demeanor is one of having fun and inviting the audience along for the ride. Lorreta Young is as beautiful as ever and plays the damsel in distress in true 1930s melodramatic splendor.Warner Oland comes across with one of his classic, pre-Charlie Chan villian portrayals that is both menacing as well as full of oily charm, also common in the 30s adventures.I loved it when I first saw it a year ago and I have brought it out for several viewings since then and I have enjoyed it every time.In short it is the kind of movie that reminds the viewer of how charming and full of fun Ronald Coleman was on the screen.