Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase

Fourth and final entry in the wonderful Nancy Drew series starring the ever-adorable Bonita Granville. This time out Nancy's trying to help a couple of elderly sisters. They want to donate their mansion for a children's hospital but their father's will stipulates the ladies must live in the house every night for twenty years before it's theirs. With two weeks to go before the twenty year deadline, someone is trying to scare the old ladies out of the house. So Nancy investigates, dragging best friend Ted (Frankie Thomas) into trouble along the way.

As in the other films in the all-too-short series, pretty Bonita Granville is extremely likable. John Litel as her dad and Frankie Thomas as her sidekick are also great. Frank Orth's Captain Tweedy is amusing. The culprit behind the mystery is pretty obvious but it's still fun. Seems odd nobody suggested someone stay with the two old ladies to keep them safe, but I guess we wouldn't have had much of a movie then. Exciting finish, as the Drew series was usually good at providing. Wish there had been more of these movies.

Wills like this one are usually only found in mystery novels. Two spinster sisters were left property by their father on the condition that at least one of them remain there every night for twenty years at which time they can sell out. Otherwise it reverts to the city. That certainly must have cramped their social life, no wonder they remained spinsters.

But when the family chauffeur is murdered and other strange things happen our teenage heroine goes to work. As usual Bonita is helped by Frankie who it seems she can talk into just about anything in these films including having all American football player Thomas lose his clothes and have to get into drag which was an offense back in the day.

In three of the four films law enforcement is represented by Frank Orth as the local police captain. Seeing Orth in what was his career role as the bumbling Captain Tweedy, no wonder they need Granville's help whenever a serious crime occurs.

There would be no more Nancy Drew films after this as Granville left Warner Brothers. It was a nice series and I'm sure the kids in the Saturday matinée crowd enjoyed it. Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler were not threatened by Carolyn Keene though.

I stumbled upon this series, courtesy of TCM, and was pleasantly surprised by their almost effortless charm. Bonita Granville was especially well cast as Drew, and cohort Frankie Thomas shared a good onscreen chemistry with her. I too wish there were more episodes in this underrated series; one can still appreciate its breezily innocent yet often witty qualities--all too rare to find let alone do nowadays. It remains a homage to the skills of workaday backlot Hollywood, circa 1939, showcasing plenty of talent for an otherwise unassuming footnote in the Warner Bros. vault. Thanks again, TCM.

From 1938 to 1939, Warner Bros. produced four entries in its "Nancy Drew" series. Each is a perfect delight; why didn't the studio continue making more of them? Perky, blonde, vivacious Bonita Granville is perfection as the feisty teenaged sleuth. John Litel is equally solid and dependable as her tolerant dad. Rene Riano is a joy as the Drews' long-suffering but devoted housekeeper. And the underrated Frankie Thomas outshines them all with his droll, engaging, All-American-Boy niceness as Nancy's would-be boyfriend Ted, whom Nancy drags reluctantly into each of her outlandish crime-solving schemes. This final entry packs more fun, suspense, and twisty plot turns into a mere 60 minutes than most of today's bloated bombs manage to squeeze into two hours. The Drew's home, nestled on a cozy small-town American street, complete with picket fences and old-fashioned street lights, could be a block away from the Hardy family's domain. Although done on a B-budget, the production values of the entire Nancy Drew series are first-rate (craftily utilizing the sets of Warners' big-budget films of the era). Watch "Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase" (and spend the night in a "haunted" house, shivering along with Nancy and Ted) and I guarantee you'll be hooked--and searching TCM's listings for showings of the other three entries in the series. Mystery, wry comedy, spine-chilling suspense, first-rate writing, crisp direction, and endearing performances by actors with charisma to spare--movies of any generation don't get any better than this! The Drew series quartet is a fascinating forerunner of the teenagers-in-jeopardy genre revived in 1978 by "Halloween" (and a thousand imitators) for a more blood-thirsty generation. There's not one single drop of blood to be seen in the entire Nancy Drew series, but the suspense and chills are no less palpable. Catch these unsung classics as soon as possible. After 60-some years, they are still fresh as if newly minted, and thoroughly irresistible.

This is the fourth of four Nancy Drew films by Warner Brothers starring Bonita Granville. It was based on the Drew story "The Hidden Staircase", though I've never read the book and have no idea how close it is to the original tale. But, knowing Hollywood, many liberties were taken with the story.

The story begins by learning that two elderly sisters, the Turnbulls, stand to inherit the home they've been living in many years. However, the will has an odd proviso--that they MUST remain in it every night until some goal is met. Well, they've abided by the will so far, but when their servant is murdered and all sorts of mayhem follows, the sisters' resolve begins to wane. Naturally, the pushy Nancy Drew has decided to make the case her business and naturally the cops investigating are all idiots!

This film is one of about 600,000 B-mysteries made by Hollywood...and they were churned out like mad by both the big studios and the tiny ones. Why? Well, they were pretty cheap to make and made plenty of money! And, compared to the rest of them, this one is a bit better due mostly to better and more competent direction. Too many of them simply looked rushed but this one seemed more polished and complete. Well worth seeing.