Círculo de señoritas

I saw this film a few years ago on television and loved it. Having been a member of a fraternity in high school, I was quite impressed with its topic: Life on a college campus and pledging to enter a sorority. The best roles (and I find these the closest to real life characters) go to Jeffrey Hunter, as the fraternity snake, and Jean Peters, as the fashion conscious snob that demands "perfection" from rookie Jeanne Crain. The acting in general is superb (an impressive cast was assembled that includes Mitzi Gaynor, Helen Wescott and Nataly Shaeffer of Gilligan's Island, among them), but Peters and Hunter do the greatest job. You could see their potential as actors that early in their careers (no wonder they went on to become top stars in the 50s). Jean Negulesco's direction is nimble. It moves from comedy to drama with ease and allows us a peek into sorority life (which, I agree, has not changed much since those years). The movie is in glorious Technicolor and very well photographed. PLEASE, get it into DVD. This is a true classic!

When I went through sorority rush just two years after this movie came out, one of the faculty sponsors made it a point to tell us that the sororities at our college were nothing like those in "Take Care of My Little Girl". I'm sure I wasn't the only one to feel mightily relieved. But I see, in more recent TV series and movies, the stereotypes still prevail. The fraternity men are still referred to as "frat" boys, and it's always assumed that Greeks do nothing with their time but drink and have toga parties. I'm so happy my own Greek experience, and that of my husband, were nothing at all like that, and in fact, were the most valuable experiences of our college lives.

"Take Care of My Little Girl" is a tale of college and sorority life in the 1950s. Jeanne Crain is charming as the young woman who finds out that being in a sorority is not exactly as her mother described.

Not that Crain has it all that rough - how bad can things be when you've got Jeffrey Hunter and Dale Robertson making eyes at you? Despite the prettiness of the outward package of young stars, the film has a serious message about snobbery, shallowness, and hazing (which still hits the news today).

There are very good performances here from Crain, who is perfect for her role as a college freshman, Robertson, a student on the GI bill, Hunter, a big man on campus, and Jean Peters does a great job as the uberbitch. It's a film rich in college atmosphere.

Jeanne Crain is accepted in her mother's sorority house, when she goes off to college. And, she finds that life there is not that simple. I went into this film, not expecting much and thinking it would be some lightweight fluff with good looking people. But I was pleasantly surprised to find much depth and reality in the girls' quest to fit in the mix and be accepted by the other girls. The film manages to get the viewer past the feeling of why should I care? with a good performances especially by Jeanne Crain, Jean Peters and Dale Robertson, who was quite good looking in a real way. He actually looks like down-home people, rather than a model with to-die-for looks, like Jeffrey Hunter does, who is here in a small role. The repercussions of actions and hurt feelings make the viewer understand the reality of sorority life and Jeanne Crain must make a decision of what is important to her. This may feel like a b-picture with small production values, but that attribute also helps with its simple and direct effect on the viewer. Watch "Take Care of My Little Girl" and enter the world of young girls trying to fit in, as they mature into young women.

Released in l95l and not often revived, this well-made blend of comedy and social criticism attacks the American sorority-fraternity system that once prevailed in our colleges and dictated the values of former generations. The heroine, beautifully acted by Jeanne Crain, is the "little Girl" sent to a fashionable college where her mother had once reigned as a sorority queen. Slowly, and abetted by a gently cynical former soldier, Crain sees that the snobbery fostered by trendy sorority "girls" and "boys" can disturb and even destroy pledgees too weak or insecure to fight the system. Fine performances are given by Dale Robertson, as Crain's ally and boyfriend, Jeffrey Hunter in one of his earliest triumphs as a frat-boy narcissist, and the late Jean Peters, who is alluring and a trifle menacing as a sorority girl who measures people by the cut of their clothes. Atmospheric in its delineation of campus life and rituals and graced by first-class production values, "Take Care of My Little Girl" should be available to new audiences on videotape (and theater revivals). It's a film that Martin Scorsese appreciated before making his own films.