Watch Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase For Free

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Excellent but underrated film

It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (1939) ** 1/2 (out of 4) Fourth and final film in Warner's detective series has Bonita Granville returning as Nancy Drew. In this film, two old women are about to turn over their property to charity but someone is trying to haunt them out of it. You see, the women must stay there day and night for two weeks or the will is no good and the property is turned over to the city. This final film is the shortest of the four (only running 60 minutes) but it's also the weakest. There isn't any comedy to speak of and none of the mystery aspects are fully recognized. Granville is good in her role as usual but the supporting characters are weak this time out.

Long before Harry Potter arrived to slake the thirst of voracious young readers, the factory minted Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew mystery series were getting regular readers.While straight forward and relatively uncomplicated in their mystery plotting, they were basically solid "B" level templates, and at the height of the 30's Hollywood mystery vogue, Warner Brothers jumped on the bandwagon with a creditable four film series of Nancy Drew's - this final effort arguably the best (and the only one to share a title and a couple plot elements with an actual Nancy Drew book).Bonita Granville makes a borderline silly Nancy, with a mad energy level approaching Betty Hutton levels and (plot-wise) causing as many problems as she solves, but once accepted, her chemistry with John Litel's warm Carson Drew (the father figure) and Frankie Thomas' guileless comic foil/boyfriend Ted Nickerson is outstanding. Had the series tried for more, these solid supporting performances might well have kept it around for a longer run, but Granville's frequently charming caricature and Frank Orth's even sillier Police Captain Tweedy (who never listens to ANYONE once he hears half a clue) firmly place it in limited audience "B" territory - above the cartoonish "Dick Tracy" series, but several steps below the longer running "adult" Charlie Chan's, Mr. Moto's, Sherlock Holmes', Thin Man's or even the solid Saint's, Falcon's or Lone Wolf's.The best thing about the series 70 years after it was first shown (and which should still hold the attention of the serious film lover) is its beautifully observed picture of life in small town America just before World War II, when icemen actually did deliver blocks of ice to the actual ice boxes which adorned most kitchens (and the standard system for calling for delivery) both of which form interesting plot points.We're not talking great art here. Consider the drop in quality of the still decent 3rd and 4th Harry Potter films - as the books got better, "movie-movie" directors made the films less faithful and less effective. At least the Nancy Drew series ended on a high note as they edged closer to the source material.

In the last of the Nancy Drew film series, another volume is adapted for the big screen, but mostly in title and character only. Again depicted as giddy, the film takes plot elements from the book of the same title, and adds much comic relief, and much nonsense, plus darkens the entire plot with murder. In the novel, Nancy helps the acquaintances of a person involved in her first case in investigating their "haunted" mansion. Her father turns up missing, and Nancy must investigate thoroughly before she discovers the two cases are connected, by illegally entering another home and discovering a secret passageway, connected to the haunted house by several flights of a "Hidden Staircase." In the 1930 novel, Nancy carries a revolver in addition to her trusty electric torch.The film keeps a passageway between two homes, under a city street, no less, and involves much mayhem as Nancy tries to find out who killed a servant in the home of the Turnball sisters. Nancy is involved as she arranged for the ladies to donate the house to River Heights following completion of the terms of a will, requiring one of the sisters to occupy the home daily for twenty years. Ted is there for comic relief, now as an iceman. The series stoops to ridiculous comic levels, with Ted losing his pants once in public and then having his clothes stolen while he sleeps, leaving him with the choice of another public underwear appearance, or wearing "drag," turn of the century gowns, complete with a bonnet.The story resolves with silly conclusions, and not much of a staircase, and, despite drawing on the novel, is far worse than the two films not drawing on texts. Entertaining for the very young (although the appropriateness of murder is questionable) but not much fun and too much Three-Stooges humor.

From 1938 to 1939, Warner Bros. produced four entries in its "Nancy Drew" series. Each is a perfect delight; why didn't the studio continue making more of them? Perky, blonde, vivacious Bonita Granville is perfection as the feisty teenaged sleuth. John Litel is equally solid and dependable as her tolerant dad. Rene Riano is a joy as the Drews' long-suffering but devoted housekeeper. And the underrated Frankie Thomas outshines them all with his droll, engaging, All-American-Boy niceness as Nancy's would-be boyfriend Ted, whom Nancy drags reluctantly into each of her outlandish crime-solving schemes. This final entry packs more fun, suspense, and twisty plot turns into a mere 60 minutes than most of today's bloated bombs manage to squeeze into two hours. The Drew's home, nestled on a cozy small-town American street, complete with picket fences and old-fashioned street lights, could be a block away from the Hardy family's domain. Although done on a B-budget, the production values of the entire Nancy Drew series are first-rate (craftily utilizing the sets of Warners' big-budget films of the era). Watch "Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase" (and spend the night in a "haunted" house, shivering along with Nancy and Ted) and I guarantee you'll be hooked--and searching TCM's listings for showings of the other three entries in the series. Mystery, wry comedy, spine-chilling suspense, first-rate writing, crisp direction, and endearing performances by actors with charisma to spare--movies of any generation don't get any better than this! The Drew series quartet is a fascinating forerunner of the teenagers-in-jeopardy genre revived in 1978 by "Halloween" (and a thousand imitators) for a more blood-thirsty generation. There's not one single drop of blood to be seen in the entire Nancy Drew series, but the suspense and chills are no less palpable. Catch these unsung classics as soon as possible. After 60-some years, they are still fresh as if newly minted, and thoroughly irresistible.