That Hagen Girl

I must admit that this movie was the sort that you can't stop watching after it starts. Shirley Temple plays a 17-year-old (Mary Hagen) that has mystery surrounding her birth and who her parents are - and as a result is mercilessly discriminated against by the entire "town elite". Temple is splendid in this role as I believe is the best performance of her career. Solid performance by co-star Ronald Reagen as he played the man who everyone suspected was Mary Hagen's father. The entire cast puts in solid performances as well.

Give "That Hagen Girl" movie a chance, I don't care what the average rating is!

I really liked this movie. It's not one of the greats, but a great example of the many ordinary feature films of the 1940's.

If you think of Shirley Temple as just a child actor, or Ronald Reagan as a third rate actor who's popularity quickly waned, this film will disabuse you of these ideas.

The story is about a girl (Shirley Temple) growing up in a small town who is victimized by rumors of her being the illegitimate child of Ronald Reagan. This character study has strong characters and a thin story line, but the fine acting holds the movie together. The plot line, while not compelling in and of itself, still allows for a story that is interesting and keeps you wondering just what will happen and how things will turn out in the end. The supporting cast also does a fine job. The antagonists of the film are not so vile that you hate them, they are just unlikable, arrogant and pretentious.

The film is a good rendition of "the way things were" in an age when tongues wagged over sexual scandals, and where you came from predisposed people to think of other people in very stereotypical ways. Mary Hagen having been born out of wedlock (or so it is rumored), is presumed to be a "bad girl" whose every act is viewed with suspicion and seen in the worst possible light. The class structure of small American towns in the 1940's is accurately depicted. All in all, this is a good film, well worth watching. I recommend it highly. Not all movies can be great, but this film is well worth watching as a quality movie, an example of what Hollywood can do when it merely doing a good job. See it.

I have heard about this film for years and finally saw it on Turner Classic Movies this month. I had always read that the movie was a stinker, the performances were awful, and the subject matter odd. I found the film to be very suspenseful with a sense of mystery. I was incredibly surprised that the acting was like that in many other films of the day, and that the subject matter added to the bizarre creative twist of the plot. My only complaint with the movie is that the ending is somewhat quick and a disappointment after so much of a build up. The story has a good start and keeps you interested and then wraps everything up far too quickly without much explanation or reason. I am glad to finally get to see this film as it is one of those oldies that rarely ever makes it to television. Much less VHS or DVD.

I disagree with the person who said the story line of "That Hagen Girl" is "totally improbable." Scandals involving premarital and extramarital sex and illegitimate children were prevalent in small towns in the 1940s and still are. Also, in the 1940-1960s many small towns (including the one where I grew up) still had an influential white collar class of people who acted and dressed exactly like the characters in "That Hagen Girl." As for the Ken Freneau character being a spineless Mama's boy, there are people of this sort in every generation and in every community. I grew up in a small town in Indiana where my ancestors were the founders, and I moved back here after living in a big city for a few years. "That Hagen Girl" does an excellent job of depicting the nature and the populace of small towns in the Midwest.

I believe the film was not appreciated initially because it was ahead of its time, for all that it presented social issues in a very tasteful and diplomatic way. No one has mentioned the mental illness of Grace (the high school girl friend of Tom Bates) or the reason for her condition. I believe the film implied that Grace's parents had pressured her to avoid scandal by having an abortion in Chicago and that afterward Grace was treated for a mental and emotional breakdown during the months she was absent from home. The Tom Bates character also hinted to Mary Hagen that Grace's "going away" and subsequent months in a psychiatric facility were the "reason" Mary could not be the illegitimate child he and Grace were suspected of conceiving.

"That Hagen Girl" is very much like "Peyton Place," another film that shows the dark side of a small town. I believe "That Hagen Girl" is an equally well-written and well-acted film that deals with serious social problems. The film's tasteful approach to moral problems is what I would like to see in today's films. -- Mrs. Barney Beers

Why wouldn't the moviegoing public accept Shirley Temple as a grown-up after being a child star? As a 19-year-old in this film she is as beautiful as she was cute as a child; and if she hadn't yet proved herself to be a great actress, her more mature screen persona beats her insufferably cute act as a child any day as far as this viewer is concerned.

Actually this movie's bad reputation is not hard to understand. Amazingly, Ms. Temple plays a high school student widely believed by the residents of her small town to be (gasp) illegitimate! to use an unfortunate term. Although she's as clean-cut and moral a young woman as you'll ever see, the small-minded townspeople think the worst of her in any slightly suspicious situation. Even though the movie is rather light-heated in tone, and never uses words like "illegitimate" or "pregnant," it's obvious the American public could not accept Temple in such a role.

The few dark moments that intrude into this overall lightweight movie don't mesh very well, and the film is really a rather prosaic soap opera, but it does hold some interest for latter-day viewers because of its stars. Ronald Reagan plays the man assumed to be Temple's father. It's become a cliche of Reagan's political opponents to say he's a bad actor, but the truth is he doesn't show much range in this film and it doesn't appear to be the kind of role he's suited for. Still, I find the older Shirley Temple interesting to watch and for this reason I'd recommend it to any of her fans, or movie fans in general.