Bulldog Jack

Film still

Bulldog Jack - 1935 | 72 mins | Comedy | B&W

The Production Team

Director: Walter Forde.
Producer: Michael Balcon.
Script: Gerard Fairlie, Sidney Gilliat, Jack Hulbert, Herman C. McNeile and J.O.C. Orton.
Cinematography: Mutz Greenbaum.
Film Editing: Otto Ludwig.
Art Direction: Alfred Junge.
Costume Design: Marianne and Joe Strassner.
Sound Department: A. O'Donoghue.
Original Music: Louis Levy.

The Cast

Jack Hulbert - Jack Pennington
Fay Wray Ann - Manders
Ralph Richardson - Morelle
Claude Hulbert - Algy Longworth
Gibb McLaughlin - Denny
Atholl Fleming - Bulldog Drummond
Paul Graetz - Salvini

Plot Synopsis

Many regard The Return of Bulldog Drummond (1934), starring Ralph Richardson, as the closest to the original stories. The most polished and entertaining of the British Drummond films of the 1930s was in fact not a straight thriller but a pastiche. Walter Forde's Bulldog Jack (1935); a vehicle for the light entertainer Jack Hulbert. Along with the slapstick and puns, the film includes some nice touches of irony. The robbery sequence in the British Museum is atmospheric, and the fight aboard a speeding train from Bloomsbury Underground is as exciting as a straight thriller. The US version was edited into a straight thriller with the comedy scenes removed.

Bulldog Drummond (Atholl Fleming) is injured in a car crash with Jack Pennington (Jack Hulbert), a first-class cricketer, who agrees to impersonate the bedridden detective in order to help the heroine, Ann Manders (Fay Wray), whose father has been kidnapped by arch-criminal Morelle (Ralph Richardson). Assisted by Drummond's silly-ass friend Algy (Claude Hulbert), Jack saves the girl and foils a plan to steal a priceless jeweled necklace from the British Museum.