I have got to tell you, I am so happy I did this month’s Upcoming Television Mystery list! I wonder if I would have watched the 1938 movie called Nancy Drew… Detective if we hadn’t had the comments about how good these movies are!
Thank you, Patti S and Pamela, for telling us how much you enjoyed these Nancy Drew movies with Bonita Granville. I was in the same boat as Sheila, who told us she hadn’t watched these particular movies. Sheila mentioned that she was looking forward to seeing them, and after reading the comments, so was I!
On July 5th, they aired the first of these movies Nancy Drew, Detective. This week, on a day when I didn’t feel like doing much, I decided to watch it. I had read my older sister’s Nancy Drew mysteries when I was little, so wasn’t quite sure how they would hold up for me now that I’m “not so little”!
Let me just say déjà vu (!), and I loved it! I immediately loved Bonita Granville’s depiction of Nancy, and I thought Ted (Frankie Thomas) and her dad (John Litel) were perfect, as well.
I want to hurry up and get this entry posted, since I see that tomorrow morning, at 9:45 (Central time zone) they will be airing the 1939 Nancy Drew, Reporter. Then, next week (Saturday, July 19) they will be airing the 1939 Nancy Drew… Trouble Shooter at 9:45 AM (Central time zone). The following Saturday (July 26) they’ll be airing the 1939 Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase at the same time.
I just looked Bonita Granville up, and it looks like TCM is going to be showing all of the Nancy Drew movies in which she starred. There are only four.
Well, if you decide to watch these movies, you may find yourself going back, some of us going back farther than others! Enjoy!
Bookwoman says
Last time TCM ran all these movies I watched them all too. They are a lot a fun and I feel capture Nancy better than some of the newer movies.
Enjoy
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Bookwoman, I just couldn’t get over how much I enjoyed that movie. You’re right about them capturing what Nancy Drew is all about. And to see her “hot-rodding” in that old car of hers! It took me back!
Pat says
Enjoy Ms Fisher on PBS too.
Australian and excellent.
Set in the 20s.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Pat, our PBS station doesn’t show the Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries. You’re lucky that your station does!
karen says
I saw these were going to be playing and watch last week and I agree with both of you I fell in love with them and it brought me back to a few years ago 🙂 when I read the books and loved them. I will be watching it tomorrow too God willing..
Thanks for all the heads ups
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Karen, I taped the second one yesterday, and am really looking forward to watching it. I am so glad you ALL are telling us how much they enjoy these movies.
Ann says
Nancy Drew wasn’t as popular in England as the Enid Blyton “Five” books, but I expect these will bring back a lot of memories of the era.
Ann
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Ann, I just checked to make sure Enid Blyton is on my Mystery Books for Pre Teens list. Sure enough, she is!
These movies are so reminiscent of the movies from back then, like the earliest Andy Hardy type of era. The one I watched was great fun! (I love those old black and white films!)
Marja says
Yep, I remember the Nancy Drew books with great fondness. How her hair was always described as “titian,” how she raced around in her coupe, how Ned was always around to help out, how she always caught the bad ‘uns.
I remember the bright butter yellow spines and blue covers of the books, and the older ones came in covers that looked sort of dark green/gray linen, with the same print and types of illustrations I saw in the many Albert Payson Terhune collie books. Lad and the other collies were pretty good at spotting bad guys, too!
The Nancy Drew books also drew me to connect bits of information, terminology and teen-aged slang to get a better picture of life for teens in the ’30s and ’40s.
Jackie J. Griffey says
Marja: Good to hear from you again, Marja. I loved the Nancy Drew books too and still have some of my daughters batch of books of her and the Hardy Boys. I’m going to have to make some more room somewhere too for my more current treasures (all eight of Anne Gorge’s adventures. ) Loved them all.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Marja, I keep expecting them to say something like “Twenty three skidoo”! (Which I just looked up and see is from the 20s, so the original Nancy probably didn’t ever use it.)
Susan* says
The original Nancy Drew books were written in the 1930’s so these would be just about right! Lol!
They were much more faithful to the books back then, I’ve found, too.
I grew up with the much later 1970’s / 80’s versions, with Nancy as a redhead (In the originals she was a blonde!) her best friends Bess and George, and their various boyfriends.
The 1980’s (?) TV series, really didn’t do it for me, but I’ll have to see if I can find these somewhere! Thankyou for mentioning them!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Susan*, I sort of remember that during the 1980s, when they had the Nancy Drew TV show there was also a Hardy Boys show.
Stash Empress says
Wasn’t that sometime in the mid to late ’70’s? There was a combined Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys series — Shaun Cassidy was one of the Hardy Boys. (Had to be ’70s cuz I got married in 1979 & this was when I was still a teen living at home LOL!)
(OK, just looked it up — other brother was Parker Stevenson & Nancy Drew was Pamela Sue Martin).
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Stash Empress, you could be right about when those shows aired.
Weird how we sometimes remember television shows because of the events in our lives at the time, isn’t it? I remember The Simpsons (early 1990s) because my son and daughter were little, itty-bitty back then, and I remember some of their little, itty-bitty friends were allowed to watch (what I consider) an adult cartoon show.
Stash Empress says
Well, given the fact that once I got married I didn’t have a TV — so by definition it HAD to be something I watched before 1979 LOL! (I just looked it up — it aired for 3 years, 1977 – 1979 — so I guess once I wasn’t watching it didn’t pay for them to air it anymore LOL!)
Btw, Netflix has the Bonita Granville series (4 episodes on 2 disks), if anyone is looking. (W/o a TV, I get my fix on dvd 😉 )
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Stash Empress, I didn’t even think to look on Netflix, since TCM is showing the movies. Thanks!
Felipe Adan Lerma says
My wife Sheila and I loved the first movie, second one recording this morning 🙂
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Felipe, I’m glad you had your recorder all set up. Hope you and your wife enjoy the second one, also.
Libby Dodd says
If her hair is described as “titian”, why is she portrayed as a blonde? Titian is red.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Libby, I just looked up “titian” and found that one of the descriptions is: “a reddish-brown or golden-brown color”. (from Dictionary . com)
Sierrapen says
I read Nancy Drew in the 50’s. We girls used to share books, and try to read a book a night. It took me longer. The books I read were a bluish color. I could buy a book for .99. I ended up with quite a collection, and wonder to this day whatever happened to those books. Bonita Granville makes a good Nancy Drew. We are enjoying the movies on TCM.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Sierrapen, what a shame that you no longer have those Nancy Drew books. Those are the things that provide us with the best memories!
Patti S. says
These are some of my favorite movies. I watch and re watch them and never get tired of them. Nice so many readers are enjoying them. They are awesome!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Patti S, I think they’re terrific movies and am so glad you and Pamela told us how much you enjoy them. Thanks!
Tessa~ says
know what i love best, about these kind-of-period films?????
the sets!!!!!! the sets!!!!!! the sets!!!!!!!
and the period clothes! no need for fancy ball gowns. just the day to day clothing, of those times.
love both!!!!!!!!!!!!
ok, i will now be “drummed out of” the “readers group”… -giggggles- but i do… love that stuff…… :-)))))))
thank you for reminding us!
tessa~
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Tessa, I hope you were able to either watch the movie, or tape it. Enjoy the sets!
Rachel A Hyde says
As a child in the UK I had not even heard of Nancy Drew or the Hardy Boys until the late 70s TV series which was set in then modern times. I wish they had been available to me, as apart from the Famous Five by Enid Blyton there were no other mystery novels for children. I discovered Sherlock Holmes and Agatha Christie when I was ten and had just moved to an area where the local library had very little for my age and never looked back!
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Rachel, one of the nice thing about Conan Doyle’s and Agatha Christie’s mysteries is that they can be enjoyed by all ages. Sounds like you started with the very best!
Donna Mc says
I still have my Nancy Drew books with the yellow covers, and now collect the earlier versions that are bluish-gray. Does anyone know if those were the very first ones? I find them at yard sales and antique shops. And I still have my Trixie Belden collection, too! Still great books to read on a rainy day.
Stash Empress says
My 13yo daughter is currently working her way through the Nancy Drew series — I’m buying them used, off of Amazon, & they seem to be almost all yellow covered hardbacks — very rarely do you find one with the older blue covers. (Actually I think the current yellow covered hardbacks are reprints of the earlier yellow hardbacks I had as a child in the early 70’s). She did ask me to get her one of the later ones (the newer paperbacks) & I did get her one & she agreed that the older books are SO much better! (Yes, raising another budding cozy reader 😉 )
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Stash Empress, you must be having fun watching your daughter make her way through the Nancy Drew series. Years ago, someone commented that the newer Nancy Drew books have been changed quite a bit. I think we were talking about some publishers feeling the need to update/”modernize” their older series.
Donna Mc says
Wonder why no one has ever (to my knowledge) done a TV series of Nancy Drew books that are set in the 1930’s, like the Miss Marple shows? That would be very cozy, and I’ll bet it would be very popular, too! Maybe Carolyn Keene isn’t considered “literary” like Agatha Christie.
Stash Empress says
Probably because the Nancy Drew series is made for and marketed to teens. But no teens today would watch a “cozy” series set in the ’30’s. The series they did in the late ’70s had teen heart throb Shaun Cassidy as one of the Hardy Boys — and you bet we (I was 17 at the time) watched the show just to see him!
Whereas Miss Marple… well… you know …. all us senior citizens love watching other seniors solve crimes…. 😉
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Stash Empress, speak for yourself! 🙂 I’m not yet a “senior citizen” and obviously I wasn’t when the Miss Marple shows were on in the 1980s, but I loved them then and I still love them now.
Donna Mc says
I started reading Agatha Christie at age 14, although Nancy Drew and Trixie Belden started my interest in mysteries. And being a young person who is also a huge fan of classic films, I always sneak in an old movie or two when babysitting the nieces and nephews. They love Bringing Up Baby and always ask to see it! So it’s really a misconception that young people only watch or read what is set in their own era. Some people are like that, but most of them can and do enjoy a truly good story if it is well written or beautifully filmed. If someone produced the Nancy Drew stories with lovely costumes and settings like the Miss Marple series, I’ll bet it would be a hit with young people and their parents, even grandparents! Imagine that, a series an entire family could watch together – that never happens these days.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Donna Mc, it’s great that you’re “sneaking in” old movies when you’re with your nieces and nephews. And, what a delight that it has turned out so well, and that they now ask you to play them.
I’m trying to think of a television series that is actually made for the entire family, and I am coming up blank. Years ago there were period pieces like The Waltons and Little House on the Prairie, but I can’t think of one today.
Donna Mc says
Little House on the Prairie and The Waltons were two of the shows I was thinking about while reading this post! And it seems like there were a few shows made in the ’90s, like Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman, that appealed to young and old alike (and those of us in-between young and old!). I can’t think of one being filmed today, either. The old movies are great choices because they were intelligent enough for adults, but were also clean enough for the youngsters. Hitchcock films are another great choice for getting teens interested in something that is of excellent quality but without the questionable stuff that is the focus of most of today’s movies. Suspense, in my opinion, is much more frightening than gore and violence.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Donna Mc, it’s interesting that the family show you mentioned (Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman) is also a period piece. I wonder why today’s television executives don’t think it’s important to have those types of shows/movies.
When we buy DVDs, my husband and I usually end up talking about how the Disney movies don’t lower their movie prices. There must be a reason for that. People still want movies that the entire family can watch together but there don’t seem to be that many being made.
Enter, old movies!
Stash Empress says
Bottom line is — its all driven by the bottom line. The people who want to watch “family movies” are generally the “older” members of said family. Generally (with very few exceptions) today’s teens are shelling out their (not inconsiderable) $$$ to see things that practically x-rated by my standards. Miley Cyrus didn’t arise out of a vacuum. (I doubt she’d know what to do with a vacuum, but I digress 😉 ) The movie industry panders to the audience with the bucks & unfortunately those aren’t the ones who appreciate good old “family” (ie. “clean”) viewing material.
You realize all of this ties in with the discussion in the other post on romance (and sometimes soft core porn) taking over cozy mysteries. Same thing. The publishers think (whether correctly or not) that more sex will sell more books. Even the movie remakes of the old Miss Marple books — they had to change the plots — and sometimes even changed who the murderer was! — to add sex to the plot… Nuff said… Tell the 1950’s they’ll have to buy a new soap box, I think I still need this one.
😉
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Stash Empress, I was going to write an entry (and probably still will) about a very popular new-to-me Cozy Mystery series that I started last week. Well before I got to the 50th page, the author casually mentioned a rather intimate thing… not at all anything that Agatha Christie would have written in one of her mysteries. I didn’t think anything could shock me, but this certainly did! Needless to say, I stopped reading the book and annotated my (now very familiar) *****YUCK next to the author’s name.
P.S. I guess they’re going to have to let you keep this one!
Stash Empress says
Just curious, is there anyway (even privately) we could get a copy of your “YUCK” list — to avoid having to deal with just that scenario???
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Stash Empress, my *****YUCK list is always changing. I have taken authors off of it that I re-tried, and I have added a lot of my favorite authors to it that I thought were getting “tired”. Since I have a policy about not saying negative things about authors, it would sort of defeat that if I made it public.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Donna Mc, I think my daughter would have enjoyed these old Nancy Drew movies as a young teen. I just didn’t know about them. Since I love the old black and white movies, she was introduced to a lot of them. They sure beat a lot of the television lack-luster shows.
Mel says
If anything inspired my love of reading,it was Nancy Drew.I used to get them from the library,and when I was lucky enough to find one I had not read,you’d have thought I won the lottery!! She was my escape from a less than stellar childhood and taught me life lessons that I carry through until this day.
(I still want a Roadster!!!!!!!LOL)
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Mel, until I watched these two Nancy Drew movies, I think I had forgotten about how truly good the books were. They were like one of life’s stages that a lot of us went through.
If you get a Roadster, make sure you let us know! Weren’t they something?!?
Billie says
My first mysteries were Nancy Drew, Trixie Belden and then the entire Perry Mason series. I’ll have to Netlix the Nancy Drew movies. Thanks for the recommendations.
Danna - cozy mystery list says
Billie, I hope you enjoy them as much as some of the rest of us Cozy Mystery readers have enjoyed them. They sure have taken me back to my days of reading the books.