Ronald Colman, the elegant romantic hero of the Twenties and Thirties, achieved stardom in the silent films of Samuel Goldwyn, but his great success came when the move to sound required actors with good diction. In his first talkie, Bulldog Drummond, Colman plays the young British army officer who, bored with post-World War I humdrummery, advertises for adventure and is answered by a young American woman (Joan Bennett) in distress. It seems Uncle is being held captive in an insane asylum until such time as he signs away his fortune to a sadistic physician. It's high anxiety until Colman gets the uncle...and, of course, the girl.
Cinematography by George Barnes (who later did Rebecca), and Gregg Toland (best known for Citizen Kane, but who shot many a classic, including William Wyler's Wuthering Heights, see February 16), as well as sets by William Cameron Menzies, combined, according to film historian William K. Everson, with “slick and beautifully spoken dialogue...and a fast-paced (for 1929 at least) plot-line” to make Bulldog Drummond “seem far slicker, modern and more polished than the average transitional film of that period. Its tongue-in-cheek villainy is still delightful.... Bulldog Drummond was unanimously considered the best picture of 1929....” (JB)