Nancy Drew… Detective (1938)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Don't listen to the negative reviews

If you like to be scared, if you like to laugh, and if you like to learn a thing or two at the movies, this absolutely cannot be missed.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

Nancy Drew--Detective (1938) ** 1/2 (out of 4) The first of four films in Warner's Nancy Drew series has Bonita Granville playing the teenage detective. In this film the wannabe detective tangles with gangsters over a missing old woman who was about to donate money to Nancy's school. The only other one in the series that I've seen is the second one and I really enjoyed it more than this one. The 66-minute running time goes by fairly slowly due to the middle section that really drags. The story really isn't all that interesting and none of the supporting characters have any flair. Granville is terrific in the lead and the main reason for watching this.

I've tried looking it up but can't seem to find any reference to the importance or usage of that particular number: 2380 - twenty-three eighty.They'd use it like, "I'll bet you twenty-three eighty that..." or "It was twenty three eighty million miles away" or something of that sort, but always as twenty-three eighty.Does anyone know what that term refers to?As for the movie itself, it was just OK.I always pictured Nancy Drew as more sure of herself and less bungling and helpless girlie-like.

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.