Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase

Carolyn Keene's series of juvenile mystery novels debuted in 1930 and immediately captured the fancy of young readers.  In 1938 Warner Bros. purchased the screen rights, and found the perfect actress to bring Nancy to life:  Bonita Granville.  Her Nancy is brainy, feisty, resourceful, and full of energy - boundless energy.  Frankie Thomas, Jr. plays her boyfriend and crime-solving cohort, and John Litel is (type)cast as her attorney father.  Other characters and incidents were combined or compressed from Keene's books, but only one script was actually adapted from a novel:  Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase, the best in the series and ironically the last.  All four films were directed by William Clemens with typical Warner Bros. zip and pace; they're more densely plotted than one might expect for B-pictures, and though they're aimed at a younger audience, they seldom skirt the grim realities of crime and murder.  The four films are very much of a piece, and hew to a Hollywood formula; if they're not quite as good as the books, they're still fun to watch.

Year

1939

Length

1 hour

Director

William Clemens

Cast

Bonita Granville, Frankie Thomas, John Litel, Frank Orth, Renie Riano, Vera Lewis, Louise Carter, John Ridgely.

Review

Nancy comes to the aid of two aging sisters plagued by mysterious occurrences in their old mansion; this was the best of the short-lived series, and the only one actually based on a Carolyn Keene novel, The Hidden Staircase.  ** 1/2

(Leonard Maltin's Movie and Video Guide 1997 Edition)

Frankie Thomas and Bonita Granville (scanned by webmaster).

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