for a screen test. The film was a huge success and really established Howard, who later said "without Lost Horizon I doubt very much whether I would have survived in Hollywood". Howard was borrowed by Universal for the lead in Let Them Live (1937). Back at Paramount, he supported Bob Burns and Martha Raye in Mountain Music (1937). At RKO, Howard did Hitting a New High (1937) with Lily Pons and Jack Oakie. Columbia used him in Penitentiary (1938) with Walter Connolly. He and Lew Ayres were in a buddy comedy, Hold 'Em Navy (1937), then Howard supported Lloyd Nolan and Shirley Ross in Prison Farm (1938) and starred in Touchdown, Army (1938) and Grand Jury Secrets (1939). Bulldog Drummond Since 1937, Paramount had made a series of "B" movies about daring adventurer Bulldog Drummond. The first of the actors to play the role, Ray Milland, was in Bulldog Drummond Escapes (1937). Milland was being groomed for more important pictures, so the studio offered the role of the British hero, Captain Hugh Drummond, to John Howard. Howard was himself not British, so he chose not to attempt a British accent, relying instead on diction to get the idea across. In his first performance as Drummond, Bulldog Drummond Comes Back (1937), Howard took second billing to John Barrymore, who played Inspector Nielson of Scotland Yard. According to Shipman, Howard "proved himself a resourceful, debonair, and witty player, his double-breasted suits and trilbies an admirable choice." Howard continued opposite Barrymore in Bulldog Drummond's Revenge (1937), and Bulldog Drummond's Peril (1938). H. B. Warner replaced Barrymore in Bulldog Drummond in Africa (1938), Arrest Bulldog Drummond (1939), Bulldog Drummond's Secret Police (1939), and Bulldog Drummond's Bride (1939), the last in the series. As Shipman said, about the Drummond films, "[The] titles, splendidly, had nothing to do with the plots (since Drummond was never captured, there was nowhere to escape from) and the inconsequence was pleasing... All the while the spider's-web plots (of death threats, disguises, ambushes, sobbing women and booby-trapped motor-cars) hurtled to the screen – under various directors – with superior production values. They are more enjoyable than competitors featuring the Falcon, Charlie Chan, the Lone Wolf, Sexton Blake et al. due in part to Howard's insouciant playing". The Philadelphia Story Howard made What a Life (1939) with Betty Grable and Disputed Passage (1940) with Dorothy Lamour. The latter was a flop at