Product Details

• Actors: Bonita Granville, Frankie Thomas, Jack Perry, Shelia Bromley
• Directors: William Clemens
• Format: Full Screen, NTSC
• Region: All Regions
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Digiview
• DVD Release Date: April 4, 2004
• Run Time: 68 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000807GN6
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #156,125 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

To win a newspaper reporting contest, Nancy Drew attempts to reveal the facts behind a murder and clear a wrongly imprisoned woman.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Bonita Granville: the ultimate screen Nancy Drew, May 13, 2009

By 

Byron Kolln (the corner where Broadway meets Hollywood) - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Nancy Drew . . . Reporter [Slim Case] (DVD)

Take a trip back to a simpler time, when an unassuming teenage girl could track down the missing evidence in a messy murder trial. Carolyn Keene's "Nancy Drew" series received definitive screen versions in the late 1930s thanks to the Warner Brothers films franchise starring Bonita Granville as teen sleuth Nancy Drew.

In NANCY DREW...REPORTER (filmed in 1939), we follow Nancy while she works as a student reporter at the city newsdesk. Enterprising young lady that she is, Nancy secretly swaps her assigned story for a hot murder trial, where pretty chemical lab assistant Eula Denning (Betty Amann) will surely go to the gas chamber unless Nancy uncovers the vital evidence that will clear her name. Nancy teams with her next-door-neighbour Ted Nickerson (Frankie Thomas) as they set off on a dangerous, thrill-packed race against time...

Bonita Granville remains the definitive screen Nancy; the perfect embodiment of the enterprising, go-gettum spirit of the books. Frankie Thomas (best-remembered as TV's "Tom Corbett: Space Cadet") is also very fine as the reluctant stooge to Nancy's crime capers.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cute, fun film, October 24, 2008

By 

Sonny L (New Mexico) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Nancy Drew . . . Reporter [Slim Case] (DVD)

I picked up this film for a dollar, not knowing if it would be any good. It was cute, fun, and clean in a thirties sort of way. It was much in the same style as the books by Carolyne Keene, with Nancy and her convertable roadster. If a viewer is or was a fan of the original Nancy Drew series, or is a fan of thirties film efforts, this is worth having.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "A reporter has the right to do things an ordinary person shouldn't!", September 10, 2008

By 

Andrew McCaffrey "The Grumpy Young Man" (Satellite of Love, Maryland) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Nancy Drew . . . Reporter [Slim Case] (DVD)

The only reason I'm viewing and reviewing NANCY DREW... REPORTER is because I set up a Livejournal poll to determine which one dollar DVD I should select next. The results were counted and the loser was me.

Before firing up the DVD player, I knew I would have a bit of a problem in my encounter with this work. Mostly because I am not in the demographic that this film was initially aimed at. In short, I am not a 13-year-old girl living in the late 1930s. I mean, I'll try anything once, but I just doubt my ability to physically manage this one.

Prior to viewing, I did some basic research to determine if there were any familiar touchstones in connection with this film that I could cling to (translation: I wheeled around the Internet Movie Database for a couple of minutes, looking for names I recognized). The director was not someone familiar to me. William Clemens seems to have directed virtually the same film multiple times, with many of his movies having a similar plot summary to that which is described in his 1942 feature, SWEATER GIRL (the title sounds filthy, but the content probably isn't): "College students attempt to solve a series of murders on campus while also trying to put together the school's big show." I didn't get much of a sense of Clemens' body of work, but I did get the impression that he was good at picking appealing titles for his movies: LADY BODYGUARD, THE CASE OF THE STUTTERING BISHOP, SHE COULDN'T SAY NO and THE FALCON AND THE CO-EDS, to name a few.

The information for the screenwriter was similarly unilluminating. So turning to the actors, I looked up Bonita Granville who plays the eponymous character. I was initially disheartened to see that her final filmed performance was as the uncredited role of 'Woman' in 1981's THE LEGEND OF THE LONE RANGER. But further investigation revealed that she'd been nominated for a Best Supporting Actress Oscar just two years before NANCY DREW... REPORTER.

Slightly cheered by this information, I placed the DVD into the player, settled down on the loveseat and pressed 'play'.

It was only a few minutes in this movie featuring teenagers of an indeterminate age when I realized that this was indeed going to be silly enough to be enjoyable. During a high speed chase sequence in front of an obvious rear-projection, Nancy spends as much time concentrating on the road as she does holding onto her hat.

The story concerns Nancy Drew becoming a reporter, as you no doubt have already guessed from the title. The editor of the local newspaper has been talked into allowing a group of young people (each one with a massive floppy hat) to work for an unpaid stint of three days. Whoever has written the best story at the end of the time will get a fifty dollar prize and a gold medal (although no promise is made of the article actually getting published). Nancy doesn't have the biggest or the floppiest 1930s hat, but she's a young and plucky determined kid. So she ditches her cheesy human interest assignment and shows up at an inquest.

After the results of the autopsy are broadcast, Nancy is the victim of a seemingly unconnected hit-and-run accident. The conclusion of the subsequent chase sequence is the film's most shocking moment, in which it is revealed that fixing a broken bumper will set Nancy back three dollars and fifty cents.

At this point, we meet the three other main-ish characters: Ted Nickerson, her amiable, but dopey platonic boyfriend; Mary Nickerson, Ted's kid sister; and a child allegedly named Killer Parkins who is Mary's partner-in-crime (presumably his parents named him during Prohibition when they thought a henchman's life would be something positive that their baby could grow into). I should admit now that I'm not extremely well versed in the Nancy Drew mythos so I'm not sure if these characters are from the books or are original to the film. Further, I'm not sure if it really matters.

Also, I should take the opportunity to mention that because of the era's hair and clothing styles, all the kids look like they're in their early thirties including the children who are clearing counting their years in the single digits. (This can be simultaneously humorous and creepy -- case in point, the scene where Nancy's father joyfully wrestles his daughter into bed.) The hairstyles are so full that in one scene Nancy Drew successfully smuggles a 1930s camera into a jail in her hair.

The rest of the movie is full of the pleasant silliness one would expect from a teen-oriented mystery movie of the era. There are dumb police officers, slow-talking heavies, blond molls and clueless adults. At one point Nancy accidentally sends her hapless boyfriend into the ring with a professional boxer. Later, Nancy, Ted and the two troublemaking kids are forced to sing for their dinner when they run short of funds (for some reason, a Chinese restaurant cheerfully accepts the customers singing jazzed-up nursery rhymes in lieu of cash). There's even a police officer in drag, which had me scrambling back to the Internet Movie Database to fruitlessly search for a young Ed Wood in the credits.

If you're in a frivolous enough mood, then this is a decent, enjoyable film. The thing to keep in mind is that it's very much of its time. I'd recommend it if you enjoy eager, non-mentally taxing movies of this style and from this era. On the other hand, if this description has you rolling your eyes in annoyance, then just stay away.