31 Days of Nancy Drew Topic #14 Nancy Drew at the Movies

31 Days of Nancy Drew Topic #14

Nancy Drew at the Movies

Nancy Drew has hit the big screen twice and will debut for a third time this year - all productions from Warner Brothers who licensed the rights to the books in the 1930s. This isn't a blog to go into the contracts or legalities--as it's a brief overview, so in this blog, I'll highlight the Nancy Drew movies out there you can see and a blurb about the one coming out this year.

There are collectibles for the movies and the ones from the 1930s can be quite pricey and seldom come up for sale or auction. They include posters, lobby cards, press kits, photos. There are a lot of promo items and a little bit of merchandise from the 2007 movie as well. These items will be a focus of tomorrow's posting.

1930s Nancy Drew Movies

There were 4 movies that were produced and released from 1938 to 1939. More movies were planned but were never put into production. They were, in order:

Nancy Drew...Detective 1938

Nancy Drew, Reporter 1939

Nancy Drew, Troubleshooter 1939

Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase 1939

The movies are quite campy and humorous--very unlike serious-minded Nancy from the stories we have come to know. Frankie Thomas' "Ted" (no, not Ned!) is the straight man to Bonita Granville's Nancy. Two of the movies are based on the Nancy Drew books - Detective is based on The Password to Larkspur Lane and The Hidden Staircase is based on the book of the same name. I wrote a brief article about these during the 75th anniversary of Nancy Drew.

They are a classic for any Nancy Drew fan and collector! You can get them on DVD and some of the channels like TCM used to run them in the past on TV - so you can sometimes catch them on TV on various channels from time to time. I like them, and enjoyed them, I thought Bonita looked very much the part.

Fun Fact - a popular expression from the movie is "I'll bet you 23.80..." It's slang from the 1930s--23.80 was the weekly paycheck amount given to WPA workers during the Depression. It became an amount used when betting someone or an expression of joking or emphasizing a large amount.

At my website - link above - you can read more about the movies, see links to sites that focus on them or the IMDB sites, and even see the neat lobby cards from the movies plus a few collectibles - more collectibles can be found at my Pinterest which I'll focus on tomorrow.

2007 Nancy Drew Movie

After 68 years and no more Nancy Drew movies, Warner Brothers decided to try again and the movie had some potential but it just overall didn't work well and box office returns didn't allow for a sequel. The movie starred Emma Roberts as Nancy Drew and the premise was more of a fish out of water and mean girls vs. Nancy concept than a good take on the classic books and a good mystery. Nancy's out in California at age 16 and still in school and investigating the murder of an actress even though she's not supposed to be sleuthing. Yeah right! Director Andy Fleming had his own vision as I worked with him as he revised the script. He was a fan of the classics, so you'll see those classic nods in the movie - spooky houses, secret passageways, villain foibles, threats to stay off the case or else and so forth. But the mystery itself got lost in the backdrop of the mean girls and the annoying sidekick Corky and the fish out of water characterization of Nancy Drew, who was never a fish out of water in the books. At times it did border on parody in making fun of Nancy's perfection and talents. It's a cute movie, but it's just not how it should have been done overall - it was a missed opportunity. Try explaining things to Hollywood. And fickle fans. But it was a really neat experience to see how a movie is made behind the scenes and I enjoyed my consulting a lot. I just wish they'd utilized me a little more. I wrote a blog post that goes into how I ended up consulting and my behind the scenes experience and some insider fun you might enjoy reading. Our 2007 Nancy Drew Convention was held out in Pasadena and members who attended go to to see the movie as it debuted right about then, tour Warner Brothers, see costumes from the movie and got a special copy of the newspaper from the beginning of the movie where Nancy nabs the villain.

 

2019 Nancy Drew Hidden Staircase Movie

Not a lot is known about this movie - even when it will be released, but it's supposed to come out this year. Whether it will have limited theater release or go direct to DVD is another curiosity and I've heard it both ways. It stars Sophia Lillis as Nancy and appears to be a bit like the 2007 in that Nancy is young and in school and isn't her usual self - she's an outsider in this one too and so the concept has been changed a bit from the book. It appears the revision was used, which isn't surprising since it's the book currently in print but they've clearly taken some liberties. For instance, motherly housekeeper Hannah Gruen is now Aunt Hannah. I've not seen the script, so I'm not sure just how much it differs, but I do look forward to seeing it and hope it does better than the 2007 movie did so perhaps WB will consider more of these or other incarnations in the future.

 

In the comments, tell us what you thought of the 1930s movies? The 2007 movie? Are you looking forward to the new Hidden Staircase movie starring Trixie Belden...er...I mean Sophia Lillis ;) Yes, I'm being funny-ha-ha-irreverent!