Bulldog Drummond

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Bulldog Drummond is a British fictional character created by "Sapper", a pseudonym of H. C. McNeile (1888-1937), in imitation of the hard boiled noir-style detectives appearing in contemporary American fiction. The stories followed Captain Hugh "Bulldog" Drummond, D.S.O., M.C., a wealthy former WWI officer of the Loamshire Regiment, who, after the war, spends his new-found leisure time as a private detective.

Drummond is a proto-James Bond figure and a crudely debased version of the imperial adventurers depicted by the likes of John Buchan. McNeile's jingoism, racism and anti-Semitism (in The Black Gang, for example, Drummond and his chums intern villainous Jewish Bolsheviks in a kind of private concentration camp) make the books hard to appreciate today even at the level of kitsch.^{[citation needed]}

The character first appeared in the novel Bulldog Drummond (1920), and was adapted into a number of films and radio serials.

After McNeile's death in 1938, his friend Gerard Fairlie continued to write stories based on the character.

Contents 1 Influences 2 Stories 2.1 Novels 2.2 Short stories by McNeile 3 In film and radio 3.1 Silent films 3.2 Talkies 3.3 Radio 4 Later incarnations 5 Pop culture 6 External links

Influences

Bulldog Drummond undoubtedly had influences on the pulp heroes, notably Doc Savage. Like Savage, Drummond was a muscular man with a group of followers who helped him in his adventures. They rounded up crooks and took them to a place only they knew and reformed them. Doc Savage had a clinic upstate and used brain surgery to do the job. Drummond and his men, the "Black Gang", beat the bejabbers out of the men till they learned their lesson and renounced crime.

On the cover of The Black Gang novel were mystery men wearing black cloaks and "slouch" hats, a guise that would be adopted by The Shadow nine years later.

Stories

Novels

• Bulldog Drummond (1920, by McNeile)
• The Black Gang (1922, by McNeile)
• The Third Round (1924, by McNeile)
• Bulldog Drummond (1925, by Gerald du Maurier and McNeile)
• The Final Count (1926, by McNeile)
• The Female of the Species (1928, by McNeile)
• Temple Tower (1929, by McNeile)
• The Return of Bulldog Drummond (1932, by McNeile)
• Knock-Out (1933, by McNeile)
• Bulldog Drummond at Bay (1935, by McNeile)
• The Challenge (1937, by McNeile)
• Bulldog Drummond on Dartmoor (1938, by Gerard Fairlie)
• Bulldog Drummond Attacks (1939, by Fairlie)
• Captain Bulldog Drummond (1945, by Fairlie)
• Bulldog Drummond Stands Fast (1947, by Fairlie)
• Hands Off Bulldog Drummond (1949, by Fairlie)
• Calling Bulldog Drummond (1951, by Fairlie)
• The Return of the Black Gang (1954, by Fairlie)
• Deadlier Than the Male (1966, by Henry Reymond) - from an original story by Jimmy Sangster
• Some Girls Do (1969, by Henry Reymond) - based on the film script by David Osborn & Liz Charles-Williams

Short stories by McNeile

• "Lonely Inn"
• "The Mystery Tour"
• "The Oriental Mind"
• "Thirteen Lead Soldiers"
• "Wheels Within Wheels"

In film and radio

Silent films

• Bulldog Drummond (1923)
• Bulldog Drummond's Third Round (1925)

Talkies

• Bulldog Drummond (1929)
• Temple Tower (1930)
• The Return of Bulldog Drummond (1934)
• Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back (1934)
• Bulldog Jack (1935)
• Bulldog Drummond's Revenge (1937)
• Bulldog Drummond at Bay (1937)
• Bulldog Drummond Comes Back (1937)
• Bulldog Drummond Escapes (1937)
• Bulldog Drummond in Africa (1938)
• Bulldog Drummond's Peril (1938)
• Bulldog Drummond's Secret Police (1939)
• Arrest Bulldog Drummond (1939)
• Bulldog Drummond's Bride (1939)
• Bulldog Sees It Through (1940)
• Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back (1947)
• Bulldog Drummond at Bay (1947)
• The Challenge (1948)
• 13 Lead Soldiers (1948)
• Calling Bulldog Drummond (1951)
• Deadlier Than the Male (1966)
• Some Girls Do (1969)

Radio

A Bulldog Drummond radio serial ran from 1941 to 1954; Bulldog was voiced by George Coulouris.

Later incarnations

• The 1973 BBC documentary Omnibus: The British Hero featured Christopher Cazenove playing Drummond, as well as a number of other such heroic characters, including Richard Hannay, Beau Geste and James Bond.

• Bulldog Drummond was one of many characters featured in the anthology Combined Forces (1983) by Jack Smithers.

• Another parody, Bullshot Crummond, was originally staged as a play and subsequently made into a 1983 motion picture.

• Kim Newman's short story "Pitbull Brittan", published in 1991, was a savage parody both of Bulldog Drummond and of the state of England under Margaret Thatcher, and featured the eponymous adventurer's battle against an international conspiracy responsible for the 1984 Miners' Strike. Newman also used the character for a brief cameo appearance in his novel The Bloody Red Baron.

• In 2004, Moonstone Books released a Bulldog Drummond comic book written by William Messner-Loebs and illustrated by Brett Barkley.

Pop culture

Despite his questionable attitudes, Bulldog Drummond can still appear as a popular culture reference. He is one of the heroes mentioned in The Coasters' 1957 hit "Searchin'":

No matter where she's a-hidin', she's gonna hear me a-comin'

Gonna walk right down that street like Bulldog Drummond!

Bulldog (Drummond) is also one of the nicknames proposed by Jumbo for former British spy turned teacher Jim Prideaux in John Le Carre's Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. This reflects his jingoistic spirit and determined attitude towards life, although Jim is not wealthy.

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