Nancy Drew... Detective
Mystery Monday takes us back to the first of four movies released in the late 1930s starring Bonita Granville as teenage detective Nancy Drew. Based on The Password to Larkspur Lane, Nancy looks into the unexpected disappearance of Mary Eldredge (Helena Phillips Evans) shortly after she announced plans to donate $250,000 to the local school.
After Nancy and her father are tailed by who they suspect are the kidnappers, who also beat up a local doctor and later threaten the family, Carson Drew (John Litel) orders Nancy to stay away from the case.
With the help of a carrier pigeon, a rented airplane, and her neighbor Ted Nickerson (Frankie Thomas), all while fighting the disapproval of her father and the incompetence of a disparaging policeman (Frank Orth) belittling Nancy's abilities at every turn, Nancy and Ted are able to uncover the truth.
The movie makes several changes to the book including substituting the initially uncooperative Ted for Nancy's friend Helen. and, unlike the book, Nancy's attempt at a rescue fails leading to a bizarre sequence of an out-of-control Nancy loosing her head firing one of the kidnappers guns blindly (which I can't believe went over all that well with Nancy Drew fans).
The film certainly feels of its time, with the sort of over-the-top child acting that can make you groan occasionally. Despite the changes to the original story, and being a bit put-out at times by Ted, the police, or her father, Granville is a perfectly fine Nancy Drew for the time, and she would go in to star in three more films over the next two years.
- Title: Nancy Drew... Detective
- IMDb: link
