Bulldog Drummond Escapes (1937)

Director: James Hogan

Cast: Ray Milland, Guy Standing, Heather Angel

Synopsis: Captain Drummond attempts to rescue an heiress from family members after her fortune.

A young Ray Milland makes a suave but occasionally bug-eyed and slightly manic Bulldog Drummond. He greets every setback with good humour and never shows any sign of being discouraged when things don’t go his way. And they frequently don’t in James Hogan’s 1937 outing for the quintessentially British gentleman.

The plot sees pretty young heiress Phyllis Clavering Heather Angel (Lifeboat, Alice in Wonderland) imprisoned by her evil guardian, Norman Merridew (Porter Hall – The Thin Man, Satan Met a Lady), sister Natalie (Fay Holden) and sham psychiatrist Professor Stanton (Walter Kingsford – Captains Courageous), all of whom have designs on her inheritance. Drummond makes her acquaintance after she steals his car one fog-shrouded night. She was making an escape attempt in which her accomplice was murdered, but instead of driving Drummond’s car to safety, she unaccountably drives back to the home from which she had just escaped. But then, Bulldog Drummond Escapes is full of odd moments like that, and even though it’s called Bulldog Drummond Escapes, Drummond never actually escapes from anywhere. Naturally, Drummond comes to Miss Clavering’s rescue despite getting on the wrong side of series regular Inspector Neilson (Guy Standing, who would die of a rattlesnake bite a month after this movie was released).

As usual, Drummond has a couple of accomplices; there’s Tenny (E. E. Clive – The Invisible Man, The Gay Divorcee), his faithful butler, and Algy, played by Reginald Denny (The Little Minister, Rebecca) who was one of those character actors who divided his time between prestige productions and b-movie fodder like this. Algy is the comic relief, but as with many of these low budget 30s movies, he isn’t very funny.

(Reviewed 8th April 2015)