TheTBulldog Drummond Escapes

The superexcellently ennui-ridden captain lands in a pea soup, finds a girl on the road (Kiss Me Deadly), murder in the marshes, a plot to counterfeit war loan certificates, and all of it under the nose of Inspector, that is, Commissioner Nielson of Scotland Yard.

TheTThe Last Train from Madrid

The Spanish Civil War, while it still was raging.

Zinnemann has Anthony Quinn and certain elements of the composition, notably the ending, in Behold a Pale Horse.

A general resemblance to Sternberg’s Shanghai Express will be noted.

There are various reasons for exiting the Republic, a Republican soldier gives his life to uphold them.

Tom Milne (Time Out Film Guide) could not follow the subtle comprehension and complicated treatment, he pronounced it an “atrocious farrago”.

Great guns took aim, “probably the worst film of the decade” (Graham Greene), “a glib little fiction” (Frank S. Nugent), both cited in Halliwell’s Film Guide, which borrows one of Nugent’s characterizations, “topical”.

TheTBulldog Drummond’s Peril

A man who thinks, a man who creates, say, imperils the industry of thought and the empire of creation, where everything is tabulated, catalogued and valuated.

The syndicate that controls all this goes after him, the unsuccessful rival is another threat (money is his concern, too).

Drummond is nearly married and nearly merry, the gift of a top-hatted penguin shows him the corpse under the table, a life of wedded tedium contemplated in Switzerland is avoided, only just.

Nugent of the New York Times affected condescension.

Poe and Wilde are adduced in excellent humor.

TheTBulldog Drummond’s Secret Police

They are Algy Longworth, Tennyson the butler, and Commissioner Nielson, who makes the joke.

Royalist gold missed by the Roundheads lies somewhere in Drummond’s digs, newly-opened for his wedding.

Nugent (New York Times) pooh-poohed this very daintily.