Tuner Classic Movies

I've been trying to watch some old movies from the 30's, 40's, and 50's on TCM. Some are great, some not so much. Here are a few comments....

Nancy Drew and the Secret Stairs
There is a whole series of Nancy Drew movies with a cute little 15 year old spitfire playing Nancy Drew. I never read Nancy Drew, but I was a bit shocked by this G rated movie. Nancy, with a heart of gold, convinces the two old ladies to donate their mansion to the local hospital. However, they don't officially own the mansion for another two weeks, during which time one of them must remain in the home every night (as per the family will). If they move out before this time, they won't be able to donate the house. Well the neighbor next door wants them to leave the house so a race track will be built on the property, thus making his property more valuable.

Sooo, the neighbor murders the old ladies butler and threatens that they are next if they don't move out. But Nancy, with her heart of gold, tries to convince them that the butler really committed suicide, and there's no reason for them to be affraid and to move out. So she has her friend write a fake suicide note and drops it where the police can findi it.

Call me new-fashioned, but isn't that a bit creepy for a sweet innocent girl to be a) convincing old ladies that a murder was a suicide, and b) planing false evidence for the police.

Similar weird stuff goes on through the whole movie, where sweet little Nancy Drew does ridiculously illegal things that should get her thrown in prison. She also abuses the heck out of her boy friend (well, friend who is a boy... no real romance) and gets him arrested 4 times during the movie. Again, I think it's odd that their is virtually no romance or anything hinted at sexual overtones, but the kids are involved in really evil stuff... and this is all looked at as sweet innocent fun.

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There was a short made entirely of dogs dressed up in human clothes. They use cut frames, probably w/ food or gum in the dog's mouth, and voice overs... sort of like a dog's version of Lance Link Secret Chimp. It was a spoof on the old hard boiled detective genera. They had a flashback to a dog wedding, where a dog was dressed in a wedding gown, a dog was a priest, and dogs were in tuxedoes. They had a series of shots where the detective dog was interviewing witnesses, and each witness was a stereotype... they had a chinese dog, a football player dog, a british dog, and a really effeminate artsy dog... and then the detective dog says "I DON'T BELIEVE IT... A PANSEY !!!" Finally the detective had to rescue a dog who was hooked up to a Rube-Goldberg device that was gonna eventually drop a 2 ton weight on the victim. Unfortunately, the detective dog arives just too late and the victim dog is squashed. The detective just says "Awe... too bad." and they cut to the credits.

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There was a cool Marijuana movie where the one girl is jealous of her older sister who is more beautiful and who marries a sucessful man. She begins to hang with a bad crowd, starts to smoke marijuana, and eventaully becomes the drug kingpin... and is a heroine addict. She gets herself knocked up, and her dealer mobster boss convinces her to sell her baby on the black market. Later, for revenge against her older sister, she kidnapps her sister's daughter asking for a big ransom. Eventually she finds out that it was really her own daughter who her sister bought on the black market. So she kills herself.