I tried very hard to cut Bulldog Drummond some slack, since it's almost 100 years old. But folks, it feels like it's almost 100 years old. There are parts that are melodramatic, vaudevillian, like a silent film, or just silly. It's supposed to be a comic thriller, where Ronald Colman seeks excitement to rescue him from his boring life. He puts an ad in the paper, and Joan Bennett answers him, asking him to meet her at a hotel and help her out of a dire situation.
The rest is like a spoof of a horror movie that isn't funny. There are evil people holding an innocent man hostage and torturing him, a damsel in distress who bats her eyelashes, and effeminate sidekicks who are too stupid to function in real life. I appreciated Ronald's performance in the beginning because it felt like he was trying to put a modern spin on it, but he regressed into a melodrama like the others. Try Raffles if you want an old Colman comedy instead.
The rest is like a spoof of a horror movie that isn't funny. There are evil people holding an innocent man hostage and torturing him, a damsel in distress who bats her eyelashes, and effeminate sidekicks who are too stupid to function in real life. I appreciated Ronald's performance in the beginning because it felt like he was trying to put a modern spin on it, but he regressed into a melodrama like the others. Try Raffles if you want an old Colman comedy instead.