Take Care of My Little Girl

"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.

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!

Mom. Apple pie. Americana. This looked like it was going to be cliché ridden but I was pleasantly surprised.

Of course, it seems in this film that college was meant for total partying, rushes and everything else associated with a non-academic life.

The film succeeds because it deals with human values, rejection and ultimate redemption.

It is also successful because it dealt with the snobbishness of some of these sororities. Lord knows the various religious and racial biases that were practiced as well.

I felt that Dale Robertson was miscast here. Can you really fathom him as a World War 11 veteran, now a college senior bucking for pre-med?

Interesting to see Jeanne Crain as our heroine here in some scenes with Helen Westcott. You remember Westcott? She was the one (Jane Marsh) who changed seats with Susan Hayward (Jane Froman) in the hit "With A Song in My Heart," the following year. Crain was all set to play Froman until Hayward wisely got the part. The ironies of movie making.

Some real moral dilemmas are depicted here. Cheating as one. Can you imagine getting away with this? Jeff Hunter, our young college stud, actually does. He gives a nice performance here.

This is certainly one movie that should be shown more often.

Saw the movie as a kid. Later it was a play and my senior HS class put it on. I got the Dale Robertson role and a girl I had a crush on got the Jeanne Crain role. We rehearsed a few times, loved it, but then the teacher, Mrs. Spencer, dropped it. Son of a gun, would have loved to have done it. Soon after, I learned that it was dropped because the girl I had a crush on did not want to do it. Life goes on.

The movie is running right now on TCM and this is the first time I've seen it since then. As an adult, became a working actor for several years and am doing it again now that I'm a retiree. Am in the movie "Fighting" now in theaters and "The Rebound" coming out soon.

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.