1929's Bulldog Drummond was an enormous commercial and artistic success, easily one of that year's best pictures, and, largely by virtue of Ronald Colman's dashing manner and debonair diction, transforming him instantly from a modestly popular silent star to a talkie star of the first magnitude. This follow-up, done in much the same tongue-in-cheek vein, is in some ways even better than its predecessor. As a post-Production Code picture, it has to deny both its villains and its hero the leeway in cheerfully amoral behavior that they enjoyed in the earlier film. But its full-blooded self-satire is more restrained and wittier, and all the better for it. The plot is actually an offshoot of that famous occurrence at the Paris Exposition at the end of the last century that has since provided fodder for many a novel and movie-both in its original form in So Long At the Fair, and in sundry derivations such as The Lady Vanishes. As such, it doesn't follow the standard mystery pattern and provides some extra surprises as a result. The welding of mystery, menace and light-hearted comedy is superbly smooth, with no element dominating the other; the pacing is brisk, and the dialogue and performances a delight. Sets, camerawork, art direction, all exude a production gloss and expertise that are a constant pleasure to watch, and above all else, the film is an "entertainment"-a word that is becoming increasingly hard to apply to contemporary movies, which seem to regard themselves as "experiences," which they certainly are, although perhaps not in the way that their promoters intended. --WKE