Given the thesis of the article, I am obliged to note that there were 4 Nancy Drew movies released in the 1930s, and then an apparent drought until a spate of made-for-TV movies appeared in the late 1970s. The 1930s movies were:
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (1939) (6.8 out of 10) Nancy Drew: Trouble Shooter (1939) (6.8 out of 10) Nancy Drew: Reporter (1938) (6.7 out of 10) Nancy Drew: Detective (1938) (6.8 out of 10) All starred Bonita Granville as Nancy and were directed by William Clemens. The numbers in parentheses are the viewer ratings on IMDB. They were all a little less than 70 minutes long. All appear to be available on DVD.
Granvill had a lengthy, if unspectacular career, appearing in 81 movies. She was 15/16 when the Nancy Drew movies were made. On TV, she both appeared in and served as executive producer of one of the Lassie series; her final acting credit was in 1981 (when she was 58). She died in 1988.
Clemens directed 35 movies between 1936 (when he was 31) and 1947; he died in 1980, shortly before his 75th birthday. A number of them (The Case of the Velvet Claws, The Case of the Stuttering Bishop, Calling Philo Vance, and 4 "Falcon" movies, in addition to the Nancy Drew movies) were at least nominally mysteries. (He worked on 31 movies as an editor between 1931 and 1936.) I can find nothing that indicates what he did between 1947 and his death in 1980.
I saw several, maybe all, those movies some years ago on cable. I was entertained by all of them, and they were considerably closer to the spirit of the books than the TV version, or so I thought at the time.
2 comments:
Given the thesis of the article, I am obliged to note that there were 4 Nancy Drew movies released in the 1930s, and then an apparent drought until a spate of made-for-TV movies appeared in the late 1970s. The 1930s movies were:
Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (1939) (6.8 out of 10)
Nancy Drew: Trouble Shooter (1939) (6.8 out of 10)
Nancy Drew: Reporter (1938) (6.7 out of 10)
Nancy Drew: Detective (1938) (6.8 out of 10)
All starred Bonita Granville as Nancy and were directed by William Clemens.
The numbers in parentheses are the viewer ratings on IMDB. They were all a little less than 70 minutes long. All appear to be available on DVD.
Granvill had a lengthy, if unspectacular career, appearing in 81 movies. She was 15/16 when the Nancy Drew movies were made. On TV, she both appeared in and served as executive producer of one of the Lassie series; her final acting credit was in 1981 (when she was 58). She died in 1988.
Clemens directed 35 movies between 1936 (when he was 31) and 1947; he died in 1980, shortly before his 75th birthday. A number of them (The Case of the Velvet Claws, The Case of the Stuttering Bishop, Calling Philo Vance, and 4 "Falcon" movies, in addition to the Nancy Drew movies) were at least nominally mysteries. (He worked on 31 movies as an editor between 1931 and 1936.) I can find nothing that indicates what he did between 1947 and his death in 1980.
(All of the information here is from IMDB.)
I saw several, maybe all, those movies some years ago on cable. I was entertained by all of them, and they were considerably closer to the spirit of the books than the TV version, or so I thought at the time.
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