Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase(Warner Bros.) (1939)

PUBLICITY —"NANCY DREW AND THE HIDDEN STAIRCASE” Bonita Granville ponita Granv Envious of Small Town Kids Life There are millions of girls in thousands of small towns in the United States who would give a lot to be in Bonita Granville’s shoes. A film star in her own juvenile right, a big car, a fine home, hundreds of admiring and envious fans writing letters to her every day, Bonita should be the happiest girl in the world. But Bonita, for just one year of her life, would like to be a small town girl and have small town friends and share the good times that only small town youngsters can enjoy. “You know, I’ve never been on a real picnic,” she admitted one day on the set of “Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase,” which comes to the Strand Theatre next Friday as the latest of the series of Warner Bros.’ pictures in which she plays the young heroine. “And I’ve never been to a real small town Saturday night dance where everyone knows everybody else and the atmosphere is free and friendly and not so darn dressed up and formal. “T’d like to drop in at the corner drug store and have a chocolate soda with a gang of girls, and talk about boy friends, and get a terrific thrill out of a new dress or a date with the local banker’s son, just back from college. “I know, you’ll be thinking, ‘Well, if she wants those things, why doesn’t she just quit Hollywood and go to Lompoc Corners to live?’ But it’s not that easy. It’s just unlucky, in a way, that the big opportunity of my life came when I wasn’t yet even in my ’teens, and now I’ve got to keep on working so that I can take it easy and have my fun when the studios and the fans get tired of me. Gee, I may be an old lady then. Twenty-five or maybe even thirty.” Jumping Rope Not For Sissy Frankie Thomas_ scornfully declined to be a “sissy” one day when Bonita Granville invited him to try her jumping rope between scenes of Warner Bros.’ “Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase,” which opens at the Strand Theatre next Friday. But he changed his mind a few minutes later when Mushy Callahan, once junior welterweight champion fighter of the world but now a studio property man, began to skip the rope. In New The courage of the intrepid and clever Nancy Drew is sorely tested in the latest picture—entitled ““Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase’—in the Warner Bros. series based upon the popular Carolyn Keene books, which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. This is the fourth picture in the series. Bonita Granville is again the girl detective, Frankie Thomas her boy friend and John Litel is Nancy’s father. William Clemens directed. To help him make a huge profit on a deal involving his own property, Talbert wants to get two old maids out of their home for a night or two. After the murder of the sisters’ chauffeur, Nancy and her boy friend, Ted Nickerson, put their talents to work on the case. Ted constitutes himself a guard for the old ladies and he is asleep in the basement of their home when Talbert enters through a secret door and leaves a note warning Ted he’ll meet the same fate as the chauffeur. Neither he nor Nancy is frightened off, however, and pursuing their investigations they discover the secret door and follow an underground passage which leads them into Talbert’s house. Here they come upon a document which explains why Talbert wishes the old maid sisters to lose their property. Talbert discovers the kids are in the house. He traps them in the tunnel and enters with the intention of killing them. They knock him unconscious but are unable to escape from the tun (Lead Story) ille Risks Dangers ‘Nancy Drew” Picture a Regular Mat 203—30c BONITA GRANVILLE has a lot of explaining to do to John Litel, who plays her Dad in Warner Bros.’ "Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase,"' the latest of the Nancy Drew adventures, coming to the Strand Friday. nel because the doors at either end are fastened with spring locks. It is Ted’s idea to break a water pipe so that it will sluice a hole through the roof of the tunnel, but the idea doesn’t work any too well, as the water in the tunnel keeps rising, and it is with difficulty that they keep themselves and the unconscious Tal Nancy Drew’s Clothes Are Styled for Action Designed for action are the clothes Bonita Granville wears in her latest Warner Bros. film, “Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase,” which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. The first thing a motion picture costume designer considers when he begins to sketch clothes for the screen is how much action there will be in each scene. Milo Anderson, being aware of the adventurous character of Nancy Drew, (played by Bonita Granville) always gives her ensembles built for speed and activity. Although distinctly feminine, there is nothing to hinder treeclimbing in a peasant dress of wool challis which Bonita wears in the picture. Screen-checked in Official Billing WARNER BROS. 40%, “NANCY DREW AND THE HIDDEN STAIRCASE” BONITA GRANVILLE 60% FRANKIE THOMAS + JOHN LITEL 20% Directed by William Clemens 15%, Original Screen Play by Kenneth Gamet 3°/, Based on the Nancy Drew Stories by Carolyn Keene 2% A Warner Bros. Picture 3% Page Four pale blue, the dress is fashioned with smocked yoke, smocked waistline, short puffy sleeves and plenty of fullness above and below the waist. A pair of gray gabardine slacks is neatly pleated and is Mat 101—15c BONITA GRANVILLE, the youthful sleuth, in "Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase," coming to the Strand Friday. combined with a pink and blue wool sweater and a loose collarless jacket detailed with oblong pockets, cobler-stitched in black. A print silk dress is styled with flared skirt and bloused bodice and is coupled with a beige wool coat having buttoned-back lapels and circular skirt. A sheer pink wool dress is accompanied by brief bolero. Both sections of the outfit are trimmed in wide navy braid while stitched bands of navy fabric serve as belt and hat trim for this outfit, bert above the water level. Meanwhile Nancy’s dad has told Captain Tweedy of her discoveries and the subsequent disappearance, and the police reach the scene just as the youngsters have succeeded in breaking a hole through the roof of the tunnel. They are rescued and Talbert is arrested for the murder of the chauffeur. Iceman’s Life Not the One For Frankie Thomas Red Grange carried ice during the summer to get in shape for college football but this records the first time that a film player has had to do the same to get in training for a picture. The unwilling Hollywood iceman was young Frankie Thomas, featured with Bonita Granville in “Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase,” the Warner Bros.’ picture opening next Friday at the Strand Theatre. In the picture he drives an ice delivery route and, to give a creditable performance, he spent a week with a real Hollywood iceman learning the tricks of the trade. Frankie learned that it takes far more than a strong back to pack a one-hundred-pound cake of ice from the truck in the street, through a yard, up the back porch and into the ice box. At the end of the first day, his muscles were so lame that he could hardly get out of bed the next morning. But by the end of the week he was doing all of the toting, with the iceman just sitting pretty and watching Frankie do all the work. But the Warner Bros. player said he didn’t intend to keep up ice carrying either as a profession or a form of exercise after the picture was finished. Tennis, polo and sailing are his favorite pastimes. “It’s one thing to be willing to study and be prepared for a part,” said Frankie, “but it’s something else entirely to go looking for trouble.” And one needn’t wonder what started the young actor grumbling. Any one would do the same after a week of carrying an hundredpound cake of ice around. Nancy Drew Set Mailing Address Motion picture sets are popularly supposed to be as impermanent as fashions in feminine millinery. Homes, hotels, railway stations, Mexican villages, boxing arenas, stables and Eskimo igloos built for current pictures are generally torn down and replaced as soon as each picture is completed. Yet there is one set in a major studio that has a United States mailing address, so well is it known, and its residents are as permanent as residents of any home can be. It is the home of Nancy Drew (Bonita Granville) and _ her father, Carson Drew (John Litel), featured in all the Warner Bros.’ pictures written around the famous Carolyn Keene characters. The rooms of this home are used over and over again, each time a Nancy Drew picture is made. They were recently photographed and lived in again for scenes of “Nancy Drew and the Hidden Stairease,” which opens next Friday at the Strand Theatre. — Address of this house, the only really permanent set in the motion picture center, is 4000 South Olive St., Burbank, Calif. There is a mail box on the porch and the mailman makes twice daily deliveries there of all mail sent to Nancy and her dad. ‘‘Nancy Drew” At Strand—Friday “Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase,” coming to the Strand next Friday, is the fourth in the Warner Bros. series presenting Bonita Granville as the juvenile heroine of Carolyn Keene’s stories of a girl detective, books cherished by the young of this generation just as much as they were by the boys and the girls of the past. The cast, as in all the other of the adventure series, remains the same. Frankie Thomas is Nancy’s boy-friend, John Litel is her father and Frank Orth is the police captain. CAST Nancy Drew BONITA GRANVILLE Ted Nickerson Frankie Thomas Carson Drew John Litel Frank Orth Renie Riano Captain Tweedy ... Effie Schneider _.. Floretta Turnbull Rosemary Turnbull Louise Carter Daniel Talbert ... William Gould Vera Lewis cee a Oe ls George Guhl Reporter ............... John Ridgely Reporter .. ..... De Wolf Hopper Reporter ............ Creighton Hale Photographer ...... Frank Mayo D. A. Investigator... Fred Tozere PRAUIBG 5.5 Soeids cece: Don Rowan McKeever ............... Dick Elliott PRODUCTION STAFF Directed by......William Clemens Original Screen Play by Kenneth Gamet Based on the Nancy Drew Stories Dye 42S ee Carolyn Keene Photography by L. Wm. O’Connell, A.S.C. Art Director................ Ted Smith Dialogue Director Hugh Cummings Film Editor.............. Louis Hesse Gowns by............. Milo Anderson Sound by................. E. A. Brown