Arrest Bulldog Drummond (James P. Hogan, 1938)

Richard Gannett, the self-styled "Earl of Destiny" (The Mummy's Leonard Mudie) sends a letter to Colonel Nielsen of Scotland Yard (H. B. Warner, Mr. Gower in It's a Wonderful Life) saying with his invention he will bring peace to the world, whether they want it or not. Meanwhile, Captain Hugh C. "Bulldog" Drummond (The Invisible Woman's John Howard) is preparing for his forthcoming nuptials to Phyllis Clavering (Alice in Wonderland's Heather Angel) when his chum Algy Longworth (Rebecca's Reginald Denny, no relation to the truck driver who was a victim in the L.A. riots) shows up, having also received a letter from Gannett about his invention. They go to Gannett's flat in Birnam Wood Road to investigate. Gannett is showing his machine, an explosive ray, to Rolf Alferson (the ever-dependable George Zucco). Gannett wants to offer his device to the governments of the world, beginning with his own country's, but Alferson murders him with something called "the Stinger."

Arriving at Birnam Wood Road, Drummond and Algy discover the lights in the building have been flickering every night. Breaking into Gannett's place, they find his body, and are promptly arrested by the police. The autopsy confirms their innocence, and reveals he was murdered by a stingray. Drummond and Algy become resolved to look into the matter further, aided by Drummond's butler Tenny (Bride of Frankenstein's E. E. Clive), even though it may jeopardize Drummond's wedding plans.

Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond was the two-fisted hero of a series of novels by H. C. McNeile, who wrote under the pen name "Sapper." Drummond was a Great War veteran who found peacetime utterly monotonous, and being an adrenaline junkie, soon found himself getting mixed up in thwarting evildoers, notably the master of disguise Carl Peterson, who appeared in several of the books alongside his equally sinister mistress Irma. Arrest Bulldog Drummond was the fourth film Paramount Studios made with John Howard as Drummond; he was neither the first nor the last to play the character, the latter being Richard Johnson in Deadlier Than the Male (1967) and Some Girls Do (1969).

The reason the character has not been seen on film since is probably due to some unfortunate content in the novels. Their depiction of non-WASPs is not always very enlightened. I hesitate to call them "a product of their times," since that implies everyone in the past was a bigot, but of the two Drummond novels by McNeile I've read, The Return of Bulldog Drummond has Drummond using the expression "n***** in the woodpile" in the very first chapter, while one of the criminal conspirators in Bulldog Drummond at Bay is a wealthy anti-Semitic stereotype. I understand, however, from people who've read more of the series than I have, that McNeile dialed back the xenophobia in the later books, and Gerard Fairlie, who continued the series after his death, even called out some of Hugh's earlier methods of crimefighting as fascist in the text of the books themselves. Apart from the cringeworthy bits, I found the ones I read enjoyable if not particularly deep adventure stories.

Arrest Bulldog Drummond is based on McNeile's The Final Count, but makes several changes, including replacing Carl Peterson with the somewhat less distinctive Rolf Alferson. Carrying over from the previous films, Hugh's significant other, the lovely Phyllis Benton, has her surname changed to the more unwieldy Clavering, while Drummond's butler Denny's name is changed to Tenny, presumably to avoid confusion with actor Reginald Denny playing a different role. The script was written by Stuart Palmer, better known for his series of novels about spinster sleuth Hildegarde Withers. Howard pulls off the literary Drummond's wisecracking swagger reasonably well, though he's a little too good-looking compared to McNeile's Bulldog's "pleasantly ugly" features. The aforementioned Reginald Denny and E. E. Clive provide some adequate comic relief, with one notable example being Tenny lighting a candle in a warehouse that turns out to be storing fireworks, with predictable results. George Zucco is as sinister as ever, and deserves more screen time than he actually gets.

Being based on a book of the mostly male-oriented "clubland heroes" genre, it's no surprise that the women come off pretty undeveloped here. Heather Angel as Phyllis is a pretty bland love interest, and her Aunt Meg (Werewolf of London's Zeffie Tilbury) doesn't do much more than provide moral support for her niece in her nuptial travails, while Jean Fenwick doesn't do much as Alferson's female accomplice, presumably taking Irma's place.

As with other movies from the '30s I've seen there's surprisingly little music in the film - only a bit at the beginning and the end. One thing that I find astounding is that when Drummond is rehearsing his speech at his bachelor party, he addresses his "fellow members of the Drones Club." For the uninitiated, this is the name of the London gentleman's club (not in the ecdysiastal sense) many of P. G. Wodehouse's upper class twit protagonists, including the immortal Bertie Wooster, belonged to. I love crossovers myself - in fact, I've written two massive books on the subject, and if you haven't bought them yet, click this link RIGHT NOW, so finding a shout-out to Wodehouse in an unexpected place tickled me to no end. This is a fun film, the second with Howard in the role I've seen, and you can bet I'll check out the others.

The Pace That Kills (Wm. A. O'Connor, 1935)

Nick (Noel Madison) and his cohort are making a cocaine delivery for their boss when they find themselves pursued by the cops. Nick goes to a diner, where he meets waitress Jane Bradford (Lois January), who he convinces that the men following him are hijackers. Afterwards, he tries to convince her to go to the city with him. He offers her some coke, which he calls "headache powder." They marry and move to the big city. Jane, now called Lil, learns that the "headache powder" is actually dope. Now hooked, she is forced by Nick to get a job at the Dead Rat Cafe. Meanwhile, Jane's younger brother Eddie (Dean Benton) comes to the city to look for her, getting a job as a carhop at a drive-in restaurant, where he works alongside waitress Fanny (Sheila Bromley), a customer of Nick's. Lil recognizes Eddie at the restaurant, and is careful not to be seen by him. Later, at the Dead Rat, Eddie does see Lil, who pretends she doesn't know him. They also encounter Dan (Charles Delaney) and his "questing" girlfriend Dorothy Farley (Lois Lindsay), who were also at the restaurant. Fanny introduces Eddie to cocaine, and soon they're both fired, and living as addicts in a cheap apartment.

Anti-drug films of the '30s are often good for a few easy laughs, such as the infamous Reefer Madness, but The Pace That Kills (aka The Cocaine Fiends, a remake of the 1928 silent film of the same name, with which it shares Wm. A. O'Connor as director), while not exactly the searing indictment its opening text makes it out to be, is less histrionic and more depressing than Dwain Esper's cult classic. Although the film never shows the characters actually taking cocaine, the effects of the drug on addicts are shown in a fairly realistic manner. All the drug users have tragic fates, with the possible exception of Eddie, and he will have to deal with heartbreaking loss even if he kicks the habit. Jane, meanwhile thinks she has no hope of ever going straight, telling her brother "girls can't come back," an obvious bullshit sexist premise. In addition to the sexism, there's also a racist song in pidgin English sung by a guy at the Dead Rat (and who wouldn't want to frequent an establishment with that name?) called "Towsee Mongalay." As a (hopefully) enlightened Millennial, this song made me cringe.

The performances are mostly understated, with Lois January as the initially naive Jane/Lil being a standout. Amazingly, four years later, she would appear in The Wizard of Oz as Dorothy's manicurist in the Emerald City! Charles Delaney's last film role was in The Beatniks, notable for characters who resembled beatniks in no way, shape, or form, not to mention a wildly overacting Peter Breck, who gives the shrillest delivery of the line "I KILLED THAT FAT BARKEEP!!!" imaginable. In a golden example of how financial times march on, Eddie and Fanny's bill of $9.79 at the Dead Rat is portrayed as exorbitant spending. Fanny also points out an actress to Eddie, who is played by stock footage from the original The Pace That Kills of the actress who played Fanny in that film! This never becomes important to the plot, so I assume it was added for padding. The happy ending for Dan and Dorothy doesn't ring true, particularly as we find Dan has been lying to her the whole film. This is a pretty unspectacular anti-dope film for the era, certainly never reaching the heights of Dave O'Brien imploring Lillian Miles to "Play faster!" on the piano while they both furiously puff on joints, but it's worth a view for those who want to see how America's attitude towards drugs has evolved over time.

The Crime of Monsieur Lange (Le Crime du Monsieur Lange; Jean Renoir, 1936)

A man drops a couple off at an inn near the Belgian border. The innkeeper's son recognizes the other man as Amédeé Lange (René Lefèvre), who is wanted for the murder of his former boss, the publisher Batala. Those inside the inn consider alerting the police. The woman, Valentine Cardes (Florelle), confirms Lange's identity, and recounts his story to them. Lange is a clerk for Batala (Jules Berry), who is seeking to launch a crime magazine called Javert (the name of course being an homage to Victor Hugo). Lange, an avid aficionado of the Old West, finds himself doing a pulp magazine for Batala called Arizona Jim, signing a contract without looking it over, and giving his creative rights to the publisher. Batala is a self-styled Lothario, and once had an affair with Valentine, the owner of a laundry service, with whom Lange becomes romantically involved. He also impregnates Estelle (Nadia Sibirskaïa), an employee of Valentine and the sweetheart of Lange's friend Charles (Maurice Baquet). Furthermore, he owes substantial money on a loan to a wealthy man named Meaunier. When Batala seemingly dies in a train crash, Meaunier's son (Henri Guisol), who will someday drive Lange and Valentine to an inn, comes to tell his former employees his father has bought the publishing empire, turning it into a cooperative. Arizona Jim proves to be a spectacular success for Lange. Unfortunately, someone reenters his life who threatens his happiness.

Jean Renoir's two best-known films, The Grand Illusion and The Rules of the Game, are considered by many to be among the best movies ever made. I haven't seen either yet, but if they're better than this one, they must be quite excellent indeed. Renoir's film is equal parts political commentary (with something of a socialist bent) and romance, and succeeds spectacularly as both. Lange and Valentine are a very likable couple, and Lefèvre and Florelle have great chemistry together. Jules Berry is superb, imbuing Batala with charm and slime at different times. Although we know how Valentine's story is going to end, Renoir tells it in such a compelling way that the viewer likely won't mind. I also have to give props to the props department (heh), as the covers of the Arizona Jim magazine seen in the film really do resemble the European pulp covers of the '30s I've seen, many of which were indeed of the Western genre, presaging the Spaghetti Westerns so loved by Yr. Humble Critic. I had a great time seeing this film on the big screen at the Gene Siskel Film Center, and I will definitely seek out Renoir's two most famous works!