The year 1929 was a pivotal year in Hollywood for the talkie with a great rise in the percentage of all talking pictures and a slowdown on silents. Ronald Coleman, a box office star in silent pictures, makes his talking debut. Audiences of the day were pleased with his wonderfully cultured English. Also giving great support is Claude Allister as his wealthy society friend Algy. Joan Bennett in her film debut at age 18 shows her inexperience, though her lines are not much to work with, and Lawrence Grant as the evil Dr. Lackington hams it up like John Barrymore and delivers his lines at the slow and deliberate pace of Bela Lugosi.
Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond is a wealthy retired office of the British army who yearns for another war to fight. Like Bruce Wayne (Batman), he wants to use his skills to help those in need. He answers the call to meet Joan Bennett at the Green Bay Inn and finds out that her father is being held against his will and tortured at a nursing home run by the evil Dr. Lackington (Grant). Montague Love is Dr. Lackington's strong man. In one very funny scene Love goes to the Green Bay Inn to catch Drummond. An Irish tenor has been singing and playing his accordion all evening. Love and a crony toss him out the door with his accordion making glissandos as it exits with him.
Drummond has a stable of cars of which two are shown in the film. The one he chooses to drive is a Mercedes SSK (the Excalibur is a copy of it). He drives it at night with the top down wearing a hat, scarf, and trench coat. Algy and his valet are always nearby following him in his Rolls Royce!
This movie might seem crude by today's standards, but judging it in the context of its time, it is far more entertaining than the poor musicals or slow boring adaptations of plays that the talkies usually featured during this era. Compare it with "The Great Gabbo" also released that year or "Annie Christie" , Garbo's first talkie released in 1930, and you'll see what I mean. In my opinion it's the best talkie prior to "All Quiet on the Western Front", which was filmed in 1929 and released the following year and went on to win "Best Picture".
