Bulldog Drummond (1929)

Ronald Colman and Lilyan Tashman in Bulldog Drummond. (Photo: MGM)

Starring: Ronald Colman, Heather Angel, Lucille Ball

Tired of his sedentary postwar existence, Col. Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond (Ronald Colman) offers his services as adventurer for hire. This gets him mixed up with lovely Joan Bennett, whose wealthy father is being held against his will in a gloomy sanitarium. Armed with little more than bravado, Drummond, his pal Algy (Claud Allister) and faithful butler Danny (Wilson Benge) walk right into the villain's lair--said villain being the evil Dr. Lakington. Drummond is overpowered by Lakington's henchpersons, played by Lilyan Tashman and Montague Love. Our Hero is willing to accept the inevitability of his own death, but when the unspeakable Lakington fondles the unconscious Ms. Bennett, that's too much! Drummond escapes, and in a jaw-dropping sequence kills Lakington in cold blood. He then becomes his old charming self and allows secondary villains Love and Tashman to escape, since he's not really mad at them. Drummond saves the millionaire and wins the girl, though later "Bulldog Drummond" films bear out the fact that he doesn't marry her immediately as he should (virtually every subsequent "Drummond" flick would open with an interrupted wedding). Filmed in the earliest days of the talkie era, Bulldog Drummond is a remarkably sophisticated film for its time, directed with assurance by former Mack Sennett associate F. Richard Jones (who unfortunately died shortly after the film's release). Its only concessions to the "all talking/all singing" mania of 1929 are the unnecessary Irish songs performed by tenor Donald Novis. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide