''Bulldog Jack'' (released as ''Alias Bulldog Drummond'' in the USA) is a 1935 British film produced by

Gaumont British The Gaumont-British Picture Corporation produced and distributed films and operated a cinema chain in the United Kingdom. It was established as an offshoot of the Gaumont Film Company of France. Film production Gaumont-British was founded in 18 ...

, directed by

Walter Forde Walter Forde (born Thomas Seymour Woolford, 21 April 1898 – 7 January 1984) was a British actor, screenwriter and director. Born in Lambeth, south London in 1898, he directed over fifty films between 1919 from the silent era through to 1 ...

, and starring

Jack Hulbert John Norman Hulbert (24 April 189225 March 1978) was a British actor, director, screenwriter and singer, specializing primarily in comedy productions, and often working alongside his wife (Dame) Cicely Courtneidge. Biography Born in Ely, Ca ...

Fay Wray Vina Fay Wray (September 15, 1907 – August 8, 2004) was a Canadian/American actress best known for starring as Ann Darrow in the 1933 film ''King Kong''. Through an acting career that spanned nearly six decades, Wray attained international r ...

, Ralph Richardson and

Atholl Fleming Atholl Fleming MBE (6 December 1894 – 6 May 1972) was a British actor and an Australian radio personality. Early life He was the third of nine children of the Rev R. S. Fleming, a Scottish Baptist minister of Pitlochry and later Beckenham in ...

. The film was followed by many others involving the story of Captain Hugh 'Bulldog' Drummond; however, because of the various production companies involved, the actor playing Bulldog was frequently changed. It premiered at the Tivoli Theatre in London on 15 July 1935The Times, 15 July 1935, page 12: ''New films in London''
Linked 2017-01-07 and reached the US in September the same year, renamed ''Alias Bulldog Drummond''. ''Bulldog Jack'' includes action set in a fictional

London Underground The London Underground (also known simply as the Underground or by its nickname the Tube) is a rapid transit system serving Greater London and some parts of the adjacent counties of Buckinghamshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in England. The ...

station of Bloomsbury.

Plot

Bulldog Drummond (

) is injured when his car that has been sabotaged is involved in a crash. When Jack Pennington (

) agrees to masquerade as the sleuth, he is enlisted to help Ann Manders (

) find her jeweller grandfather who has been kidnapped by a gang of crooks who want him to copy a valuable necklace they want to steal. Their plan backfires in the British Museum and the film climaxes in a chase on a runaway train in the London Underground.

The London Underground as a Key Element

A fictional closed Tube station (Bloomsbury) is featured as an important part of the staging of the film, being part of an intricate hideaway for the bad guys. The Underground becomes a key element in the film when the trail "Bulldog" and his assistant are on leads them to the boarded-up street entrance of a closed "Bloomsbury" station; the dapper detectives in tophats and tails ride the Tube circuit back around to the nearest station to the closed one, and then sneak onto the tracks headed to the closed platform. Part way there, a train appears down the tunnels and the men hastily climb onto the tube walls and lay flat, only to see the train disappear one car after another, switching to another Tube line. In a short but memorable scene, "Bulldog" turns a table upside-down and rides the long spiral staircase all the way to the bottom, passing two crooks on the way, and sliding across the platform and tumbling onto the tracks. The film's smashing climax is on a runaway train in the Tube, and throughout the scene the point of view is from the front of the train. In all, ''Bulldog Jack'' shows the basic appearance of the Underground in the 1930s and WWII, including the seemingly endless spiral staircases and other features that most Londoners would have been familiar with.

Cast

as Jack Pennington *

as Ann Manders * Ralph Richardson as Morelle *

Claude Hulbert Claude Noel Hulbert (25 December 1900 – 23 January 1964) was a mid-20th century English stage, radio and cinema comic actor. Early life Claude Hulbert was born in Fulham in West London on Christmas Day 1900. He was the younger brother of J ...

as Algy Longworth *

Gibb McLaughlin George McLoughlin (19 July 1879 – 30 June 1961), known professionally as Gibb McLaughlin, was an English film and stage actor. Early days McLaughlin was born in Sunderland, County Durham, England in 1879. For about 10 years he was a sales ...

as Denny *

Bulldog Drummond Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond is a fictional character, created by H. C. McNeile and published under his pen name "Sapper". Following McNeile's death in 1937, the novels were continued by Gerard Fairlie. Drummond is a First World War veteran who, ...

Paul Graetz Paul Graetz (8 August 1889 – 16 February 1937) was a German actor and star of the Weimar cabaret. Selected filmography * ''The Peruvian'' (1919) * ''The Princess of the Nile'' (1920) * ''Christian Wahnschaffe'' (1920) * ''Mary Magdalene'' (192 ...

as Salvini *

Cyril Smith Sir Cyril Richard Smith (28 June 1928 – 3 September 2010) was a prominent British politician who after his death was revealed to have been a prolific serial sex offender against children. A member of the Liberal Party, he was Member of ...

as Duke (uncredited)

Reception

The reviewer for

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper '' The Sunday Times'' (f ...

wrote: "''The progress of this picture is like many a left-hander's innings – slow and quite unconvincing at the start, but providing some highly entertaining fireworks before the finish.''"

References

External links