Nancy Drew... Trouble Shooter

Nancy Drew... Trouble Shooter (1939) was the third in the series of four films about the teenage heroine. All starred Bonita Granville as the title character. But Granville's "Nancy" owes more to the heroines of 1930's screwball comedies than to her literary counterpart. This Nancy alternates between master of deductive reasoning and teenage airhead, causing as many problems as she solves; with nice guy neighbor Ted Nickerson (Frankie Thomas) her comic foil. Granville was extremely expressive and did not seem to mind being shown in unflattering situations (much like Zasu Pitts back then and Miley Cyrus today).

In "Trouble Shooter", Nancy and her attorney father head to the country with their housekeeper to defend old family friend Matt Brandon (Nancy calls him Uncle Matt) from a murder charge. Their escapades include poison ivy, an enraged bull, crop-dusting, a rare flower, Ted's new boat, and a rival for Mr. Drew's affections. Nancy is still crushing on poor Ted-who wanders around with a dazed expression on his face for most of the film.

Willie Best appears as his standard stereotype character, this time named Apollo Johnson. Also known as "Sleep 'n' Eat", in almost all of his films this early black actor encounters a ghost and gives the audience a wide-eyed look of terror. I don't know why people found this repeated gag so funny back then, maybe Hollywood just thought they did and kept using it. At least in "Trouble Shooter" Nancy has the good grace to exhibit the same exaggerated reaction when the ghost appears.

All four films in the Nancy Drew series are surprisingly entertaining and have a lot of charm. "Trouble Shooter" has Nancy at her daffiest. There is more silliness than characterization so I suggest watching at least one of the others first.

Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.

Though I've enjoyed the four Warner Bros. Nancy Drew films for their fast pace, snappy dialog and light touch, Bonita Granville doesn't bear much resemblance to the hyper-perfect Nancy of the long-running series of novels. The main drawback to the literary Nancy is that she's too perfect, even winning a golf tournament against a superior, more experienced player in THE HAUNTED BRIDGE. In TROUBLESHOOTER, (which bears the least resemblance to the books of any of the four films), Nancy's perfection is taken down a few notches: she can't drive (rear-ending several parked cars, constantly taking her hands off the wheel in her excitement), she can't cook (making a veritable Lucy of the kitchen), she allows the bad guys to destroy evidence -- why, she's as scared of ghosts as Willie Best and she can't even fly an airplane! NANCY DREW, TROUBLESHOOTER, with its general lack of mystery and constant slapstick, is essentially a parody of Nancy Drew. Fun, and satisfying in a slightly sadistic way, but nothing like the books.

Bonita Granville and Frankie Thomas make this little mystery a lot of fun for the family to watch. This and the Nancy Drew films in general made with Granville are little gems that sadly do not get shown as much as they should. My big question is, why were there not more. These Drew movies are more entertaining than the Monogram Charlie Chans and Mr. Wong movies-yet those lasted longer than the Drew series did at Warners. If you have a chance to see the Nancy Drew/Bonita Granville series-please do so. MM

Nancy Drew--Trouble Shooter (1939)

*** (out of 4)

Third film in Warner's teenage detective series has Bonita Granville returning as Nancy Drew. This time out she's trying to save her uncle farmer whose been accused of killing a man. This is probably my favorite of the first three films because it takes on a lot more than just the actual mystery behind the killing. There's an entire subplot where Nancy gets jealous that her father is dating a woman and you'd expect something like this to come off silly but it actually works pretty well. There are plenty of laughs as well especially one sequence where Nancy tries to cook dinner. The mystery in the film doesn't actually get too much attention but it leads to a nice, if unbelievable, ending.

By far, this was one of the better Nancy Drew's, with Ms. Granville. When her Uncle Matt is accused of murder, the best lawyer Carson must take the case, and naturally Nancy goes with him.

Since Carson is not a townie, he comes in under scrutiny but gets Matt out of prison for a little while. During this time, he meets a beautiful woman who catches his fancy, much to Nancy's dismay. Since Ted is also in town, she enlists him to dissuade her father. Naturally Ted falls for the loveliness of the woman and Nancy's troubles amount.

The whole resolution was done masterfully. It showed a maturation of Nancy and dealing with another woman in Carson's life.

The mystery of the killer was rather simple, but interesting with Ted along. Frankie and Bonita were great with each other. I wish they had done more together.

A great movie to watch - so pop your corn, grab a soda and don;t miss a minute of this very cute endeavor of a movie.