John Howard came to an end in the Bulldog Drummond series with Bulldog Drummond's Secret Police. A misnomer of a title if there ever was one because the police are Scotland Yard and they're quite out in the open in this film.Will Drummond finally get married to his long suffering sweetheart Heather Angel? Only Tess Trueheart from Dick Tracy and Adelaide from Guys And Dolls have been waiting longer to get their intended before a preacher. In this film he's returned to Rockingham Hall, the Drummond family estate to just prepare for the wedding with Angel with her aunt Elizabeth Patterson doubting as usual it will ever come off.It might not yet because a funny looking professor played by Forrester Harvey comes by with a tale that says there's a royal treasure left by the Cavaliers in the English civil war buried some place in the stately home. Like all English homes belonging to the gentry it has its secret passages, secret even from the current occupants. But when Harvey is murdered everybody is scrambling to find the culprit and the treasure.With the lack of cast and the short running time the suspect is rather obvious. The film is also padded with scenes from previous Bulldog Drummond films in a dream sequence. A rather inferior note for the series to come to a close.

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"!

While preparing to marry his fiancee (for the umpteenth time!), Drummond discovers that there is a treasure buried somewhere in the secret passageways beneath his ancient British estate.When England's most-noted history professor reveals this to Drummond, he is invited to stay at the manor house. He is murdered before he can figure out the meaning of the ancient cypher, and Drummond & Co. have to discover it AND the murderer.A VERY interesting story, with secret passageways, ancient torture devices, and all sorts of "death-dealing devices".Great fun!