Nancy Drew: Detective

First in the short series of Nancy Drew movies made in 1938/39. The mystery here has Nancy (Bonita Granville) searching for a missing wealthy dowager and tangling with crooks. Granville is dynamite in probably her most famous role. John Litel is good as Nancy's encouraging but protective father. Frankie Thomas plays her sidekick, best friend, and would-be boyfriend. Great female role model for young girls, way ahead of its time. I never read the books so I can't say how close to the source material these movies are, but I enjoy them. Fun script, likable characters,and short runtime make for an entertaining B detective movie. Not the best in the series but good.

Bonita Granville plays smart, courageous, spunky Nancy Drew in this programmer based on the novels by Caroline Keene. It's been a long time since I read any Nancy Drews, or since my mother read the books, but one remembers every detail. The roadster, her friend named George, her boyfriend named Ned, and the Drew housekeeper named Hannah. For reasons known only to the studio, Ned is now Ted (guess they didn't like the alliteration), there's no George (guess they didn't want a girl with a boy's name) and the housekeeper is named Effie (you tell me why). Nancy still has her roadster.

The Nancy Drew mysteries are wonderful reads, and this film was fun to watch, even with the little changes. Bonita Granville, who, as Bonita Granville Wrather became the producer of the "Lassie" TV series, certainly looks like Nancy (who in the books was always having "luncheon"). I had always envisioned while reading the books a more sophisticated, less madcap Nancy, but Granville's energetic (almost hyper) characterization fits a film portrayal well. Ned is a little bit of a goof, but a smart one. John Litel was right casting as Carson Drew, Nancy's father, a widower who didn't date.

The plot can be figured out in the first ten seconds, but these movies were for the teen-aged audience who knew the books. Very enjoyable, and a slice of '30s life which is no more.

In my opinion, the two best series of movie murder-mysteries adapted from books featuring an amateur female sleuth were the 'Miss Marple' treats of the early 1960s (with the unforgettable Margaret Rutherford) and the Nancy Drew comedy-thrillers of the late 1930s (with vivacious, lovely Bonita Granville as the constantly imperilled teenaged heroine). Unfortunately, only four entries were made in each series, and each and every one are to be cherished.

"Nancy Drew--Detective," the first of its quartet, is an unalloyed delight. A wealthy elderly woman donates her fortune to Nancy's highschool (to build a swimming pool) and then promptly disappears. Nancy, spurred to action by the beating of the woman's physician, enlists the reluctant aid of her athletic boyfriend (the extremely appealing and good-humored Frankie Thomas) to find out what happened to the missing lady. Clues are provided by a carrier pigeon, a breathtaking airplane expedition, an ominous gunman who breaks into the Drews' residence threatening them to keep quiet--or else!

Undeterred, Nancy drags Ted on a hair-raising adventure where they eventually track down the missing benefactor to a bogus nursing home on Larkspur Lane (password to anyone trying to enter the front gate is "blueberries"). What makes the film (and its successors) such delectable diversions is, besides the intricate plots, fast-paced direction, and splendid production design and cinematography, is the definitive performances by Ms. Granville, Thomas, John Litel (as Nancy's attorney father), Rene Riano (as the Drews' hyperventilating housekeeper), and a host of first-rate supporting actors.

The Nancy Drew films are as beguiling today as they were over 60 years ago (and, incidentally, depict family life in that era with a sassy sweetness that is truly enchanting).

Don't miss "Nancy Drew--Detective" or any of its three sequels, which TCM has been showing with regularity. These four treasures of yesteryear sparkle with wit, suspense, expert plotting and performances today's movies couldn't recapture if they tried to. The talent so abundant in the studio films of years gone by no longer exists.

Back in the 1930s and 40s, Hollywood made a ton of mystery films. Big studios, small studios and mircoscopic studios...they all churned out these pictures by the dozens. And, the Holy Grail of all these studios was finding a series that took off and resulted in an extended series...such as The Lone Wolf, The Falcon or Charlie Chan. Well, in the case of Warner Brothers, they tried something a bit different--to create two series in which the protagonists were women! Torchy Blaine and Nancy Drew were given the Warner Brothers gloss and when seen today they seem better than the average mystery films. "Nancy Drew: Detective" was the first of four films starring Bonita Granville. And, they all are worth your time.

The story begins with a nice rich lady promising to give Nancy's school a large endowment. However, before she can arrange this, she disappears...and her financial manager keeps making excuses as to where she went. Nancy smells a rat and decides to investigate. And, with the help of Ted (in drag), they take a huge risk by sneaking into an old mansion out in the country.

This film features good writing, an unusual story and nice acting....and like all four films is worth your time. Fortunately, they're often shown on Turner Classic Movies and they are currently on YouTube as well.

This was the first of the 4 Warner Brothers attempts at filming a Nancy Drew mystery in the '30's, all of them pretty much revolved around this standard and all taking liberties with the characters and original stories, where used. The series of books began to be published in 1930 following on from the success of the Hardy Boys and ghosted mostly by Mildred Wirt under the name of Carolyn Keene, until 1953 when other ghosts completely took over. Therefore it's always amused me that the first book chosen to (liberally) adapt for the big screen, The Password To Larkspur Lane from 1933 was one written by a man, Walter Karig. There weren't as many astounding plot co-incidences in his 3 books as with Wirt's and it shows in the screenplay here.

Nancy ably played by Bonita Granville is intuitively sure a nice rich old lady has been kidnapped for her money, her Dad's not too sure, but her beau Ted grumblingly followed her lead. This involves letting a message-bearing homing pigeon free and improbably following it by car to the nest of gangsters improbably led by otherwise sophisticated James Stephenson. It doesn't matter but it grates a little bit with Ned the confident proto-man changed to Ted the juvenile radio ham, Nancy is played slightly more immature than the stories at the time leading to the cops continually calling her a little girl, Effie was supposed to be 17 not middle aged, and Carson Drew although well played by John Litel never lost his temper like he did in here! But overall it's an engrossing pleasant mystery - good photography got the atmosphere of River Heights just right too.

Not recommended for the serious! Obviously they couldn't be as good as the books but they were all good efforts and solid family entertainment and imho miles better than the 1970's TV series. I wish Warners had made 14 of them not 4!