Konterr Brilliant and touching

TrueHello Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Philippa All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

Cristal The movie really just wants to entertain people.

nylaandrew Totally implausible/ridiculous but good fun. A pre-Charlie Chan Warner Oland, a Swede, is Russian this time. He's bent on revenge and hams it up all the way.Neither Oland or the other Russian characters utter a word of Russian. The fleeing royals reach New York and bump into an ingenue and her peppery aunt who, of course, shelter the strangers in their country house. Wouldn't you?The lights go out more than once. The phone is dead. A claw-like hand jumps out of the curtain to grab the girl. Stuff used a thousand times. The plot creaks and the print used for the DVD is battered, but you could do worse for an early talkie.Mischa Auer lurks around in a pre-screwball role.

MartinHafer This movie is very curious when it comes to the name of the villain. Warner Oland stars as 'Boris Karlov'--and I am sure the real life Boris Karloff (famous for his horror films) took notice. Why they changed his name from Gregor in the 1923 version to Boris is curious. While the real Karloff was quite prolific in films by the time the 1931 remake debuted, he was not yet a star--and his iconic role in "Frankenstein" was still six months in the future. Perhaps it's just an odd coincidence.Now I mentioned that the film starred Warner Oland. If you aren't familiar with him, he popularized the character Charlie Chan and played him in a ton of films during the 1930s. He was a very prolific actor and starred in a lot of films other than the Chan series--though today he's known mostly as 'that Swedish guy who played Charlie Chan'. You might also notice Mischa Auer in a supporting role--a role totally unlike his usual comic ones.The film begins with Karlov's daughter on the brink of death. Boris blames her condition on a noble Russian family and he devotes his entire life to wiping them out--on-by-one. The drums, by the way, refer to a necklace. Karlov takes it apart and sends a piece of it to the victims before exacting his revenge.So is the film any good? Well, it's not "Gone Withe the Wind"! However, compared to other B suspense films, it's pretty good--with decent production values, a fast-paced script and plenty of suspense. But the film has its deficits as well--in particular, some really bad acting in some of the minor roles (it's like they are reading from cue cards) and a few of these scenes should have been re-shot (but for economy's sake, B movies did this as seldom as possible). But some of the acting was quite good--I liked Clara Blandick as the grouchy aunt and Oland seemed to have a lot of fun dispatching his victims! For example, I loved the wonderful poison gas scene at the 52 minute mark. Overall, you should not expect high art--just a decent and entertaining murder mystery/suspense picture-especially if you like this genre.By the way, this film is available through Alpha Video. And while I have mentioned this in many of my reviews, viewers should note that Alpha's DVDs have no restoration of any sort done to them. Like most of the rest I have seen, this one is in rough shape--though not so bad that you shouldn't watch. Unfortunately, many of Alpha's films just aren't available anywhere else, so if you are a fan of these sorts of films you have to just take what you can get.

madcinephile I like the movie, for what it is. I would like to see the earlier version, and compare. I've always thought of Warner Oland as kind of a ham. But it's impossible to judge by 1931 standards in 2007, so what do I know? The Karlov question had me curious. This is what Wikipedia had to say (yeah, I know-- it's Wikipedia, so who knows if it's true?): "In 1922 the book was made into a Broadway play and the following year a motion picture. A second film version appeared in 1931. It is said that a young Boris Karloff, who previously had a few uncredited film roles, chose his stage name for his first screen credit in 1920 from a Russian mad scientist character named "Boris Karlov" in this novel. The name 'Boris Karlov' was used from MacGrath's book for the 1922 Broadway play, but by 1923 with actor Boris Karloff using the similar sounding variation, the film version renamed the character, played by Wallace Beery, 'Gregor Karlov'. In the 1931 film version, however, with Warner Oland playing the character, the mad scientist's name is restored to 'Boris Karlov', less than a year before Frankenstein would make Boris Karloff a household word for generations. Ironically, Boris Karloff would play many mad scientists on screen, but never 'Boris Karlov'."As a side note for those interested in original sources, the Harold MacGrath novel "Drums of Jeopardy" is available as a free e-text download at Project Gutenberg.

Chuck Straub Warner Oland stars as Dr Boris Karloff, a man out to avenge his daughter's suicide by killing off a Russian noble family that he holds responsible for her death. Warner Oland soon after this movie became famous in his portrayal of Charlie Chan in a series of movies about a famous Chinese detective and the mysteries he solves. Clara Blandick, the future Auntie Em in the Wizard of Oz plays a great character in a supporting role and is excellent in bringing comic relief to this little known drama from 1931. I saw this movie on a DVD by Alpha video. The film does have some scratches and the sound has some problems during the opening credits. It's a short movie at 66 minutes but seems to be right for the pace of the movie. The Drums of Jeopardy is a decent movie. I would call it a murder drama. It's definitely dated though. You can sure tell you're in the 30s both by the dialogue, and situations. You really have to be a fan of older movies to get the most out of this film.