The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.

The penultimate Bulldog Drummond movie from Paramount starring John Howard finds Drummond once again on the verge of marrying Phyllis. But, once again, something interrupts their plans. This time it's in the form of murder and a search for hidden treasure at Drummond's family estate. There's a different vibe to this one than others in the series. It almost doesn't feel like a Bulldog Drummond movie at all. Not that that's necessarily a bad thing. I pretty much like any movie of the 'old dark house' variety and this one fits that bill nicely. John Howard and Heather Angel are both fine. The interrupted marriage plot is already stale by this point but they do what they can with it. E.E. Clive is great as Tenny. He was typically the highlight of these movies and this is no exception. Reginald Denny and H.B. Warner also return. Denny is especially slapsticky this time around. Mrs. Trumbull herself, Elizabeth Patterson, plays Phyllis' aunt. She's a nag but a fun one. Great character actor Leo G. Carroll plays the villain. I don't think that's a spoiler since he almost always played the villain. Makes use of lots of footage from previous Drummond movies for a dream sequence. It's not poorly done but it raises some eyebrows given the already-brief runtime. After a slow start, it turns out to be an enjoyable B mystery thriller of the 'old dark house' variety. Effective atmosphere and good sets help. It is one of the best of the series, as several other reviewers here note. But I can't rate it as high as some of them do because, while good for a Drummond film, it's really not all that special judged against other similar movies of the era.

When done right, Bulldog Drummond can be very entertaining. This one, however, is formulaic and predictable and wears thin after a promising start. Hugh is getting married in the morning at Rockingham Castle. A Distinguished Professor appears on the scene to announce that a treasure is hidden somewhere in the Castle and a Bad Guy follows him - from here you can fill in the blanks.The plot proceeds clumsily. There are elements of comic relief that are unfunny and annoying, provided by Reginald Denny as Algy and by Elizabeth Patterson as Aunt Blanche. Evidently, neither of them are equipped to handle comedy and the film suffers as a result. This series never lived up to the promise of the first talking Drummond, with Ronald Colman in the lead.I gave this one a rating of 5 and cannot recommend it despite good production values and a good cast.

This is the fifteenth Bulldog Drummond film, and the second to be based on Herman C. McNeile (Sapper)'s novel 'Temple Tower', though the earlier film is not included in the IMDb list for McNeile, which is thus incomplete. The first filmed version of the novel was 'Temple Tower', released 13 April 1930, and starring Kenneth MacKenna as Drummond. There appears to be no surviving print of this earlier film, and no one alive has apparently ever seen it. We must presume that it is permanently lost, as the first Bulldog Drummond film, a silent of 1922, presumably is as well. Here the old gang are all back: John Howard as the perfect Drummond, Heather Angel as charming and plucky as ever as Phyllis Clavering, trying unsuccessfully for the sixth time to marry Drummond, Reginald Denny as Algy Longworth being as endearing and clumsy and twittish as ever (he breaks a Ming vase this time), H.B. Warner as the Commissioner who this time does not say 'Please don't call me Inspector!' because he is a house guest of Drummond's, as the entire action takes place at Drummond's large mansion, E. E. Clive as the inimitable gentleman's gentleman Tenny ('I try to give satisfaction, sir'), Leo G. Carroll as the dastardly and rather obvious villain Henry Seaton, and Phyllis's aunt over-played by Elizabeth Patterson (same name as my cousin who married Napoleon's brother Jerome!). (But no, Temple Tower is no relation.) The plot concerns the royal jewels having been hidden by a royalist colonel during the Civil War of 1642-5 in the cellars of Temple Tower of Drummond's own family mansion. An absent-minded professor has figured this out, and travelled all the way from the British Museum Library with the royalist's original diary in his bag, including maps of tunnels and a mysterious cipher, to discover the treasure which he has calculated is 'worth a million pounds' (in 1939 money). This is a typical comedy thriller, of the type soon coming to an end. One more would be made with John Howard before the War put an end to all this fun ('Bulldog Drummond's Bride', released four months later). We are nearing the end of an era, and this kind of jollity (piping oboes when people make funny faces, Algy falling down the stairs entangled in a suit of armour in the dark, the occasional witty line delivered with old-fashioned applomb) would soon vanish like smoke, as the dogs of war were unleashed and howls of laughter were replaced by howls of anguish of the murdered and the bombed.

The long playing wedding scenario between Captain Hugh Drummond (John Howard) and fiancé Phyllis Clavering (Heather Angel) manages to get within one hour of the ceremony in this outing, but not before another adventure gets in the way. This time the action stays local, as a scatterbrained professor intrigues Drummond with a tale of treasure hidden somewhere at his palatial Rockingham Tower. A long shot of the Tower reveals a rather imposing structure, made to order for the creepy fun that's about to follow.In the early going, Miss Clavering's Aunt Blanche makes it a point to remind Phyllis of the five previous failed attempts to make it to the altar. Obviously this had an impact on Drummond, as he relives those events in a dream sequence, unable to get a good night's sleep on the eve of his wedding. With the prospect of a million pound fortune somewhere close by, it's a safe bet that the marriage will be put on hold once again.This time, the villain of the piece is Leo (minus the 'G') Carroll. He impersonates a butler named Boulton hired for the wedding occasion, but is really Henry Seton, arrested three years earlier for the attempted theft of papers held by Professor Downie (Forrester Harvey). Just released from prison, Seton's timing is perfect. He dispatches Downie and begins to solve the cipher that leads to the treasure. For all the mystery involving the cipher, it comes as a bit of a letdown that it simply involves a reverse alphabet.The hunt for the treasure leads Seton and his unwilling captive Miss Clavering into an underground series of murky caverns beneath Rockingham Tower. Harry Potter would have been inspired by what he found there, the secretive 'Tower of Water' and 'Chamber of Spikes'. With Drummond and Company in hot pursuit, the hapless villain manages to discover the hidden treasure only to lose it just as quickly. Seton becomes distracted in a rather inept cat and mouse game with Miss Clavering over control of a lever that operates a trap door gate meant to keep Drummond's gang at bay.As usual, Captain Hugh Drummond finds himself aided by his regular cast; Reginald Denny, E.E. Clive and H.B. Warner in the role of Colonel Nielson of Scotland Yard. If you've seen all the Drummond adventures up till now, you'll wonder if Nielson has anything else to do besides serving as Drummond's personal attaché. At least Nielson provides the rationale for the movie's title when Drummond assigns areas of Rockingham to his accomplices for inspection; it was then that the Colonel referred to themselves as the 'secret police'.For at least the third time in a Bulldog Drummond film, the old lights out trick is used when Seton/Boulton attempts to get his hands on the diary containing the cryptic cipher. That lack of originality and the aforementioned clumsiness in dealing with Miss Clavering seemed to undermine his threat as a villain. Too bad he couldn't swim either.Too bad also the way the film ended; for all the time spent pining for her long delayed wedding, it's Miss Clavering who disappears this time when Algy's Molotov cocktail explodes during the wedding rehearsal, compliments of a rigged bottle of Mountain Mary Scotch. The finale didn't make much sense except to justify one more sequel. I wonder what happens in "Bulldog Drummond's Bride"!