Here She Is

Nancy Drew -- Detective (1938)

This is definitely not Nancy Drew text messaging while wearing a mini-skirt. No, that's the new upcoming Nancy Drew movie. When that opens in theaters, Nancy, in a manner of speaking, will be 69 years old. At least that's how many years it's been since she was first on the silver screen way back before World War II. In 1938 everything was simpler, prim & proper, but still kids could have fun and Bonita Granville as Nancy Drew played the part well.

Having never once read a single sentence of a Nancy Drew book, there's no point in trying to compare the film on the screen to the words in the book. One shouldn't ever do that anyway, for each is its very own entity; there is no law of cinematography that says a movie must be similar to a book. In any case, in Nancy Drew -- Detective, the teen sleuth is busy with her friend Ned solving a case involving a missing benefactor. There isn't a whole lot of substance to the movie which is the case with practically all B-movie serials of the time. That's not to say it's bad but when a film is so short (only about 65 minutes) it should move along faster. This kind of drags a little. Most kids now would find this wicked boring so I'm hoping that kids in 1938 were able to appreciate the time they spent in front of their TV while this played in the old DVD machine, oh wait, ummm, while this was shown on the screen down at the local movie house . . . which probably cost 15¢ for a ticket and 5¢ for popcorn!