Nancy Drew And The Hidden Staircase (1939)

Two elderly sisters (Vera Lewis, Louise Carter) are about to inherit a mansion that they plan on donating for a children's hospital. But someone is trying to stop them from inheriting the mansion and will stop at nothing including murder! Enter Nancy Drew (Bonita Granville), teenage amateur detective to solve the mystery! Loosely based on the Nancy Drew book of the same name (the book is much better) by Carolyn Keene (a pseudonym for Mildred Wirt Benson) and directed by William Clemens. Bonita Granville isn't quite the Nancy Drew of the Keene books but she's so plucky and eager that you don't mind. She has a nice rapport with Frankie Thomas who plays her put upon boyfriend for lack of a better word, there's no obvious romantic relationship. I wish the four Granville Nancy Drew movies had stuck closer to the books as their mystery elements are shoved aside in the films for more comedic situations. But this is still a fun piece of nostalgia. With John Litel, Frank Orth and William Gould.