Prismark10 Ronald Coleman stars in this early talkie from 1929 which now appears to be rather creaky, not helped that some of the actors appear to be making a difficult transition to talking pictures.Not so with Ronald Coleman he seems to have stepped up with ease as the dashing hero, Captain Hugh Drummond a retired army officer who places a personal ad in the Times newspaper advertising his services. A young lady Phyllis (Joan Bennett) responds as her wealthy American uncle is being held captive in a Nursing Home by a gang which consists of a mad doctor and his cohorts who are after the uncle's money.Drummond is assisted by his valet and the annoying as well as dim friend Algy (Claude Allister.)This is a rather stagy film being adapted from a play and it also comes across as rather starchy.

MartinHafer One of the big reasons I sought out this film was because it starred Ronald Colman. With only a very few exceptions, his films were terribly entertaining and he was a classy actor. In this film, his acting, as always, is great. The problem is that the film as a whole is pretty forgettable.First the good. Apart from his acting, the other actors are generally good (though his friend "Algy" is played poorly--just too dopey and pointless a characterization). And, for a sound movie from 1929, the sound quality is great. Of course it won't match films in sound quality made just a few years later, but it's obvious this was no silent movie with sound later tacked on--which is so typical of Hollywood films of the late 20s (and French films well into the 1930s). Characters moved about and even had their backs to the camera with no sound problems.Now the not so good. It is obvious that this was first a play, as the plot and pacing is very stagy and stilted. AND, the movie kept going on and on and on. The film would have best been completed in about 60 or 70 minutes, but to continue the movie they kept having the characters do really dumb things--I mean too stupid to make any sense at all. An Example was escaping from the evil gang and instead of going to the police or running to a hidden location, they went back to the inn where the film began and just assumed the gang wouldn't think to look for them there! Well, they DID find them and the movie continued on and on from there. It's a shame really, because with a tighter script this would have been a terrific film.

Kieran Kenney 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.

Cajun-4 The literary character of Bulldog Drummond has not worn well. Reading the books now, Drummond tends to come across as more of a fascist bully than as a hero. This 1929 movie was Ronald Colman's first in a talkie and he plays the character with his usual charm, honing down the more brutal aspects of the Drummond in the books (although in one scene he does gleefully choke a man to death with his bare hands).The movie is based on the stage play rather than on the book and the stage origins show. One can almost sense actors waiting for their cue to make an entrance. Colman and Bennett are pretty good in the lead roles but the over acting of Lawrence Grant as the mad doctor is painful to behold.For collector's it's worth seeing once for the record.