Ronald Colman is far too handsome and urbane to be cast as Herman C. McNeile's eponymous character in this atmospheric adaptation of Sapper's play. Mind you, I haven't read the play, but I can understand why scenarist Sidney Howard and director F. Richard Jones weren't faithful to the novel. McNeile's novel is nothing short of brilliant and I cannot imagine Ronald Colman slithering behind German line during the First World War II and strangling enemy soldiers with his bare hands. If you haven't read the original McNeile novel, you're definitely missing a classic. Little of the jingoism in the novel migrated to the screen in this adaptation. Indeed, the entire film seems as urbane as its debonair star. Drummond's perennial nemesis. Peterson isn't half as dastardly as he was in the novel. The evil Lakington is incredibly immaculate compared to his literary counterpart. The 1920 novel surprised me in many respects, most particularly the sulfuric acid bath that the villains dispose of one of their own. Lakington concocted this bath, and he earned his comeuppance in the novel. Nevertheless, you could do the same things in a novel and put it on the big screen back then because the censors would never have tolerated it. Irma Peterson's role as the villain's daughter is expanded here, while most of the novel's plot is eliminated. I would love to read the play, but it is difficult to find. The film will do.
Review of Bulldog Drummond
