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From: Robert Carnegie <rja.carnegie@gmail.com>
Newsgroups: rec.arts.sf.written
Subject: Re: Bulldog Drummond Strikes Back
Date: Sat, 21 Jun 2025 11:40:00 +0100
Organization: A noiseless patient Spider
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On 17/06/2025 05:07, Ted Nolan <tednolan> wrote:
> In article <gmj15k9flfpblsan654v8geukcno0eumo8@4ax.com>,
> Joy Beeson  <jbeeson@invalid.net.invalid> wrote:
>>
>> Sunday, 15 June 2025
>>
>> At times I think I may have read this book as a teenager.
>>
>> The decision to go to Farthington instead of telephoning was
>> all doylist, with no watsonian explanation.  Also, a
>> concussion that keeps one (or two) out of action for days is
>> not as trivial as I expect it to turn out to be.
>>
>> Monday, 16 June 2025
>>
>> Mr. McNeil goes out of his way to portray Bulldog as not too
>> swift in the head, but you'd think that at least one of the
>> gang would suspect that "died in agony" would cast some
>> slight doubt on the suicide theory.
>>
>> And yes, Bulldog woke up, leaped out of bed, and beat up six
>> goons.
>>
>> But he did portray, in the coda, the two concussed patients
>> convalescing in bath chairs.
>>
>> -- 
> 
> I'm a little confused.  Are you talking about the 1934 film?
> I don't see a McNeil book by that title.

I've got 
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulldog_Drummond_Strikes_Back_%281947_film%29>
(1947) said to be "loosely based on the
H. C. McNeile ['Sapper'] novel _Knock-Out_" (1932).
Appropriate title.

Each work has a "stub" Wikipedia article, i.e.
not comprehensive.  For instance, no plot
information is included.  But there are
external links.

I speculate that _Knock-Out_ has an American
book edition with the other title, either around
1932 or 1947 or in-between.

I might be pressed to reproduce remarks in
Dorothy L. Sayers's _Murder Must Advertise_ (1933)
- if I've actually got a copy - about the robust
constitution of thriller heroes, specifically
Sexton Blake - Sayers had enjoyed Blake's
adventures much earlier, and there are reports
that her detective Lord Peter Wimsey first
occurred in a Sexton Blake story that she wrote
by and possibly for herself.  I don't think this
is canon.  In _Murder Must Advertise_,
Lord Peter recruits an assistant who also is
a Blake fan, and who lends Lord Peter one of
these thrilling novels.