This is one of 8 Bulldog Drummond adventures produced by Paramount in the late 1930s, and sold to Congress Films (II) in mid-1954 for re-release; Congress redesigned the opening and closing credits, in order to eliminate all evidence of Paramount's ownership, going so far as to even alter the copyright claimant statements on the title cards; Congress, in turn, sold the films to Governor Films for television syndication. Along the way, Paramount, having disowned the films, never bothered to renew the copyrights, and they fell into public domain, with the result that inferior VHS and DVD copies have been in distribution for many years, from a variety of sub-distributors who specialize in public domain material.
In this third film of the series and second starring Barrymore, the actor had so many memory problems from his drinking that he couldn't play his scenes without cue cards.
The train ferry where a lot of this film takes place was a real service of the French National Railway and Britain's Southern Railway. The service began in 1936, was interrupted by World War II, resumed in 1947 and ended in 1980. The trip took 12 hours, leaving Victoria Station in London at 9 p.m. and arriving at the North Station in Paris at 9 a.m. Simultaneous service in the opposite direction left Paris at 9:45 p.m. and arrived in London at 9:10 a.m.
John Howard, who plays the title character here, appeared in a total of seven Bulldog Drummond movies for Paramount, but is best remembered today for playing pivotal supporting roles in two all-time classics. In Frank Capra's 1937 version of Lost Horizon, he was Ronald Colman's younger brother who left Shangri La with Margo (then watched her age 90 years in 60 seconds). And in The Philadelphia Story, he was the groom-to-be, who competed with Cary Grant and James Stewart for Katharine Hepburn's affections.
This film received its initial television presentation in New York City Friday 5 November 1954 on WCBS (Channel 2); it first aired in Cleveland 3 December 1954 on WNBK (Channel 3).