Stubs - Nancy Drew. . . Trouble Shooter

Nancy Drew... Trouble Shooter (1939) Starring Bonita Granville, Frankie Thomas, John Litel. Directed by William Clemens. Screenplay by Kenneth Gamet. No Producer Credited. Based on the character "Nancy Drew" created by Carolyn Keene. Run time: 70 minutes. Black and White. USA. Drama, Mystery, Comedy

Nancy Drew first appeared in the book The Secret of the Old Clock (1930) and was created by publisher Edward Stratemeyer as a female counterpart to the Hardy Boys series of books. The Nancy Drew books were written by a series of writers using the same pseudonym, Carolyn Keene. Nancy Drew would appear in 175 novels from first publication to 2003.

The book series was so popular that Warner Bros. bought the rights to make “B” pictures. Fifteen-year-old child star Bonita Granville, who had already been nominated for an Academy Award for her role in These Three (1936), was picked to play the lead in a series of films. Warner Bros. wanted the series to resemble the popular Torchy Blane films starring Glenda Farrell, which mixed comedy and crime.

There were four films in all: Nancy Drew... Detective (1938), Nancy Drew... Reporter (1939), Nancy Drew... Trouble Shooter (1939), and Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (1939).

Shot during February 1939, this, the third film, was released on June 17, 1939.

The film opens with Matt Brandon (Aldrich Bowker) being accused of killing Henry Clark, a neighbor whom he had been seen threatening the same day Clark disappeared. Sheriff Riggs (Roger Imhof) is trying to get Matt to confess to the crime and Clark’s partner, Clinton Griffith (Erville Alderson), is a witness against him, but Matt insists on his innocence and refuses to talk.

He sends for his old friend, lawyer Carson Drew (John Litel). Carson doesn’t want his sixteen-year-old daughter Nancy (Bonita Granville) involved with a murder, so he tells the housekeeper Effie Schneider (Renie Riano) to help with his story to her, that instead of a criminal case that they are going to Silver Lake to visit “Uncle Matt” for the summer.

However, Nancy quickly gets the truth out of Effie and gladly packs so that she can help.

Housekeeper Effie Schneider (Renie Riano), Nancy Drew (Bonita Granville)
 and Carson Drew (John Litel) are not impressed by the accommodations. 

When they arrive in Silver Lake, they go straight to Matt’s house. There, they encounter handyman Apollo Johnson (Willie Best), who is in the process of trying to catch a chicken for his dinner.

The arrival of Edna Gregory (Charlotte Wynters) changes Carson's outlook.

The house is a mess and the three of them decide to seek lodging in town. That is until Matt’s neighbor Edna Gregory (Charlotte Wynters) arrives. Carson is immediately smitten and he decides to stay in the house.

Shortly after their arrival, Carson obtains Matt's release from jail on the grounds that no body has been recovered.

To celebrate his release, they decide to have a dinner party. Carson tells Nancy to invite her friend, Ted Nickerson (Frankie Thomas), who is also vacationing in Silver Lake.

Nancy drives over to the lake where he’s working on his own boat. She asks him to come to the house to help her figure out how to break them up. He doesn’t want to, but she had just given him a slightly malfunctioning men’s watch, so he feels bribed.

When Nancy returns to the house, she learns that Effie had gotten a bad case of poison ivy and is sent to bed. Matt volunteers Edna to help with the meal.

Nancy, who doesn’t want Edna around her father, insists on making the dinner herself but is quickly in over her head. When Ted arrives, she tries to enlist him to help, though he’d rather not. However, when Edna arrives with a cake she’d made, Ted is immediately taken by her and offers to help with dinner.

When Carson finds out Edna is in the kitchen, he shoos the children away. Edna asks them to pick some watercress for the salad.

On the way back, Nancy notices a tropical plant, Arbensis, growing in a field. They interrupt Apollo’s chicken dinner to ask him to dig up the plant for Nancy. He agrees, however, when he does dig up the plant, he finds Clark’s body underneath. He doesn’t wait around to make the identification, but rather runs into town to tell the sheriff.

With that discovery, Matt is arrested again.

Nancy ropes Ted Nickerson (Frankie Thomas) into her investigation.

Because she feels responsible for his arrest, Nancy decides to solve the mystery herself, with Ted’s assistance, of course. She is sure that the rare plant grew from a seed that was dropped at the time Clark was buried. She asks around and learns that the late Clark's partner, Clinton Griffith (Erville Alderson), has a nursery on his property. Clark and Griffith’s business was crop dusting and when Nancy and Ted arrive there, no one is around. However, their pilot Chuck Marley (Edgar Edwards) flies in and lets them look around Griffith's greenhouse.

While there is an Arbensis plant clearly marked in the greenhouse, neither Nancy or Ted have found it before their search is disrupted by Griffith’s return. He chases them out and makes an effort to destroy the plant and any evidence. However, he notices that a seed catalog has been taken by Nancy on their way out. He tells Marley to follow them.

She wires the seed company to see if any such seeds have been sold in Silver Lake. Her inquiry is answered and there were sales made to a local nursery.

With father in tow, they go to the Nursery. The clerk (John Harron) is unaware of any such orders. He relates that the ownership has changed recently and that the former owner’s sales receipts are in a wooden box. He tells them that he thinks the new owner, who is away on business, should approve opening the box and Carson agrees to wait until the next morning.

Chuck Marley (Edgar Edwards) follows Nancy and Ted.

However, Marley is still tailing them and overhears. He reports back to Griffith and they plan to make sure that doesn’t happen.

While attending an ice cream social, Marley sets the nursery on fire with the wood box inside. The town shows up at the fire, but the sheriff stops anyone from trying to go inside. Using a distraction, Ted manages to sneak into the building. He finds the box and is trying to pull it out when Marley comes in to “rescue” him, leaving the box behind to burn.

Based on Apollo’s story that he witnessed two ghosts at the Griffith’s barn and heard two explosions, Nancy figures that perhaps there were two men and two gunshots. Since only one bullet struck and killed Clark, she talks Ted into searching Griffith's barn.

While Nancy watches, Ted pretends to be a deputy and calls Griffith.

However, pretending to be a deputy, Ted calls and tells Griffith that the sheriff wants to see him and Marley. Even though Marley is still flying, he tells Griffith to come in. When he gets there, the sheriff tells him that he was pranked.

Ted manages to find the first errant shot in a wall in the barn. Believing they have time, per Ted’s malfunctioning watch, they decide to search for the missing murder weapon, which they find almost by accident. But before they can leave, Griffith comes back. Ted manages to hide the gun by throwing it up and catching it on a nail.

Griffith locks them in the barn, and conspires with Marley to kill them in a fake accident.

The pair manages to escape by waving Nancy’s red scarf out the window, hoping someone will see it. No human does, but the scarf  does get the attention of a bull who rams the barn, creating a wall. They attempt to drive away, but Marley blocks their path with his airplane.

At gunpoint, Clinton Griffith (Erville Alderson) forces Nancy and Ted aboard the plane.

Nancy and Ted, at gunpoint, are put aboard the plane that Marley is flying. When the plane reaches the appropriate height, he stalls it and then bails out with a parachute, leaving the two to die.

Ted and Nancy are left to fly the plane after Marley jumps out.

Ted, who has not flown a plane but has read about them, climbs into the cockpit to try to fly it. Griffith fetches Marley and the two watch and anticipate the plane's crash. So convinced are they that they drive to the sheriff’s office to report Nancy and Ted’s deaths.

Meanwhile, Apollo has informed Edna of Nancy's plans, as instructed by Ted. She fetches Carson at the sheriff’s office and is there when Griffith and Marley come to report the sad news, claiming that the kids had stolen the plane and crashed.

However, no sooner are the words out of his mouth than they hear the airplane flying overhead. The sheriff detains Griffith and Marley while Carson and Edna take chase.

After some loop-de-loops and nosedives, Ted manages to get control of the plane and manages to crash land it in front of a pile of hay. Ted is still in the plane, but Nancy is thrown into the hay. Both kids are fine. Nancy even takes comfort in Edna’s arms.

Later, on the way to the lake, Carson explains that Griffith and Marley were robbing Clark and killed him when he discovered their duplicity.

They are at the lake for the launching of Ted’s boat, which he has called “Nancy.” When she christens the boat, Nancy manages to put a hole in the hull, which causes it to sink with Ted and Nancy onboard.

The original film supposedly ended with a segment in which Bonita Granville and Frankie Thomas appeared as themselves asking the audience to send letters to the studio before they introduced the next (and last) film of the series, Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (1939). But that was missing from the version I watched.

Being a “B” picture, it was not necessarily reviewed by The New York Times. Variety's review of Nancy Drew... Troubleshooter called it "another in the comedy girl detective series with Bonita Granville as the juvenile Nancy Drew, who takes things in her own hands and almost entirely by accident solves thing that would make Scotland Yard look sick...Bowker is excellent as the small-towner who gets involved in a murder on his farm. Roger Imhof plays the sheriff but without lending it much comedy relief. One of the unintentional laughs is the wild plane ride the two kids (Granville - Thomas) have in the air when their pilot bails out, leaving them to almost certain disaster. The way the ship spirals and loops in the air without losing the two unskilled passengers, finally coming down safely against a haystack is one of those things."

Despite the above sequence, which I put down to its “B” movie low-budget special effects, along with the over use of rear projections during driving sequences, the film was quite enjoyable.

I will admit to low expectations going in, but the film was quite involving and funny. There was definitely a Scooby-Doo “ Mystery Incorporated” vibe as those meddling kids ruined the villains’ plans, which I think was handled very well. Oh, there is a certain amount of luck involved to progress the plot, but you don’t seem to mind.

Bonita Granville’s Nancy Drew shows a certain amount of moxie and determination. Granville, despite being only 16, the same age as Nancy Drew in the story when the film went into production, has a lot of presence. She was an old-hand at films by this time, having made her film debut at the age of nine in Westward Passage (1932) and having been nominated at the age of 14 for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress.

She would manage the transition from child star to adult, moving from Warner Bros. to RKO in the process, appearing in supporting roles in The Glass Key (1942) and Now, Voyager (1942), on loan outs to Paramount and Warner Bros. She would also appear, on loan out to MGM, in two Mickey Rooney Andy Hardy films, Andy Hardy's Blonde Trouble (1944) and Love Laughs at Andy Hardy (1946).

When her film career ended, she moved into producing with husband Jack Wrather, producing the long-running Lassie series, starting in 1954. The two of them would also own and operate the Disneyland Hotel and the Queen Mary in Long Beach.

Frankie Thomas, who played Ted (Ned in the books), comes across as both attracted to Nancy and a little put off by the shenanigans she puts him through. He gives a good performance as the side-kick. Again, a modern equivalent might be Ron Stoppable in the Kim Possible animated series.

Thomas had a much shorter film career, appearing in such films as Boy’s Town (1938), Invisible Stripes (1939) and The Major and the Minor (1942). Following service in World War II, Thomas worked in radio and eventually television. He was the star of Tom Corbett, Space Cadet on both radio and on the short-lived DuMont television network. He would also appear in soap operas. He would return to Nancy Drew in 1957, playing Carson Drew in a pilot for CBS.

Being a film made in 1939, this is not one to point to for equitable treatment of minorities. Case in point, Apollo Johnson played by Willie Best. Best was a popular character actor in Hollywood who had been previously billed as "Sleep 'N Eat" in his earlier films. Best was one of the first African-American film actors and comedians to become well known.

Although he was called "one of the finest talents I'd ever worked with" by none other than Bob Hope, Best found himself cast in stereotypical "Negro" roles; lazy, illiterate, and/or simple-minded characters.

Add to that, in this film, Apollo is shown as stealing chickens. He also believes in ghosts and, perhaps in the worst example, runs scared at the sight of Henry Clark’s body, all the way into town.

While Best didn’t really like all the roles he had to play, he may have felt like he had no choice. In a 1934 interview he explained the difficulties faced by an African-American actor then, "I often think about these roles I have to play. Most of them are pretty broad. Sometimes I tell the director and he cuts out the real bad parts... But what's an actor going to do? Either you do it or get out."

Overall, I would say that I enjoyed the film. It may have been a “B” picture but it was a lot of fun and surprisingly engaging. The humor holds up as well, which is always a sign of good writing. Both Bonita Granville and Frankie Thomas are fun to watch, her for her over-the-top enthusiasm and him for his sarcastic humor. I would look forward to seeing more films in this series.