Fridays in January | 13 Movies
Determined, working women were the vogue of 1930s and 1940s films, especially when it came to solving a crime. In mystery and crime films of this era, female reporters and detectives kept up with their male counterparts, often outwitting them rather than being a damsel in distress.
Sometimes, they were the reason a case was cracked. And while several had romantic interests, love was on the peripheral until the case was solved. Sleuths like reporter Torchy Blane always picked solving a crime over her boyfriend, Steve McBride.
Featured in 13 movies in January, here are fast-talking, hardworking female detectives who cracked the case in silver screen mysteries.
Teenage sleuth Nancy Drew
Nancy Drew, the teenage detective from River Heights, was introduced to young readers in 1930 with her first book, The Secret of the Old Clock. The character was created by Edward Stratemeyer, who ran the Stratemeyer Syndicate, a company that wrote a host of children’s series. The books were written by a series of ghost writers who were assigned story outlines. The first and most consistent of the Nancy Drew writers was Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson under the name Carolyn Keene.
For years the Stratemeyer Syndicate protected the use and image of its girl detective, according to Nancy Drew historian, Melanie Rehak. But in the late 1930s, the Syndicate, now run by Edward’s daughter Harriet Stratemeyer Adams, sold film rights to Warner Bros. for $6,000, according to Rehak.
By the time Warner Bros. put the character on the silver screen, Nancy Drew had appeared in 15 books. With 15-year-old actress Bonita Granville starring as Nancy Drew, Warner Bros. produced four films: Nancy Drew…Detective (1938), Nancy Drew, Reporter (1939), Nancy Drew…Trouble Shooter (1939) and Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase (1939). Of the films produced about the teenage sleuth, only one of them was based on a book—Nancy Drew and the Hidden Staircase, which was published in 1930.
The films are each brisk 65-minute comedies where Nancy Drew solves a mystery, aided by her friend Ted Nickerson (rather than Ned Nickerson), played by Frankie Thomas. John Litel played Nancy’s lawyer father, Carson Drew, who disapproves of her sleuthing rather than encouraging it like in the book.
The film character differed from the Nancy Drew on the written page, but she matched female reporters and sleuths popular in film at the time, such as Torchy Blane. The film mysteries are solved in a more comedic and zany fashion, rather than the methodical and refined style of the mystery books.
Nancy Drew-writer Mildred Augustine Wirt Benson and syndicate owner Harriett Adams were pleased with the film adaptations. When the films were released, Benson wrote to Adams saying she saw the first Nancy Drew film and enjoyed it, according to Rehak. There was only one thing that didn’t please Adams about the film series. “Up to date we have not found that having Nancy Drew on the screen has increased the sale of the books any, but perhaps it takes awhile to get those things started,” Adams wrote in a letter to Benson.
A fifth film was set to be made, but never was fulfilled. Nancy Drew historian Rehak suspected that film audiences didn’t like that the film interpretation was too different than the beloved literary character.
Part reporter, part detective: Torchy Blane
She was a “lady bloodhound with a nose for news.” Portrayed originally by actress Glenda Farrell, Torchy Blane was a fast-talking reporter. By trade, Torchy Blane wasn’t a detective, who was always one step ahead of law enforcement when it came to crime solving. Her sleuthing often put her at odds with her police officer boyfriend, Lieutenant Steve McBride, originally portrayed by Barton MacLane. You may find Torchy hiding in a trashcan to eavesdrop or sneaking on to a murder scene so she could get her story and scoop the other reporters.
“This rathole is no place for a woman,” Steve McBride would tell her. To which Torchy would reply: “But I’m a newspaper woman.”
Farrell was no stranger to playing fast-talking, wisecracking characters in other films, but for the Torchy Blane series, she wanted to do her homework.
“They (other reporters she played) were caricatures of newspaper women as I knew them. So before I undertook to do the first Torchy, I determined to create a real human being — not an exaggerated comedy type,” Farrell said in a 1969 interview. “I met those newswomen who visited Hollywood and watched them work visits in New York City. They were generally young, intelligent, refined and attractive.”
In each film, Torchy plays a large role in helping solve the crime — often before law enforcement — but she also always promises her boyfriend, Steve, that she will give up reporting and amateur detective work to get married. However, when the next film rolls around, Torchy is still unmarried and independently sleuthing.
“By making Torchy true life, I tried to create a character practically unique in movies,” Farrell said.
Between 1937 and 1939, nine Torchy Blane films were released. Seven of those films starred Glenda Farrell: Smart Blonde (1937), Fly Away Baby (1937), The Adventurous Blonde (1937), Blondes at Work (1938), Torchy Gets Her Man (1938), Torchy Blane in Chinatown (1939) and Torchy Runs for Mayor (1939).
Lola Lane and Jane Wyman filled in for Farrell in two of the films: Torchy Blane in Panama (1938) and Torchy Blane ... Playing with Dynamite (1939).
The character of Torchy Blane also inspired another famous fictional reporter: Lois Lane, who first appeared in the Superman comic books in 1938, according to Lois Lane historian, Tim Hanley.
In 1988, Superman creators Joe Schuster and Jerry Siegel, wrote a letter to Time magazine about Lois Lane, crediting both Glenda Farrell and Lola Lane as inspirations.
“Our heroine was, of course, a working girl whose priority was grabbing scoops,” Siegel wrote. “What inspired me in the creation was Glenda Farrell, the movie star who portrayed Torchy Blane in a series of exciting motion pictures. Because the name of the actress Lola Lane appealed to me, I called my character Lois Lane.”
Taking it into their own hands
While Nancy Drew’s sleuthing was more of a hobby, and Torchy Blane was working to get the scoop, some women film characters became detectives out of necessity — often to clear someone who is wrongly accused of a crime.
Sometimes, the detective comes from an unlikely source, like in Deadline at Dawn (1946). June (played by Susan Hayward) works in a dance hall and meets a young, confused sailor, Alex (played by Bill Williams). June’s moody, tough exterior contrasts with innocent Alex. “Call me June. It rhymes with moon,” she tells him flippantly.
On a hot New York City night, he spills out his trouble and asks her for help: Alex drank too much and blacked out. When he woke up, he had a large sum of money that doesn’t belong to him. When Alex goes to return the money to its owner, Edna, she’s dead. Alex doesn’t believe he murdered Edna and looks to June for help.
“It’s your problem, son, not mine,” June first tells him, encouraging him to “cut and run.” But eventually she softens and helps Alex follow clues to see who really killed Edna. They only have until dawn to find the killer, when Alex is supposed to catch a bus to return to his naval base.
Other times, someone closer to the source helps look for clues, particularly in the name of love. In Stranger on the Third Floor (1940), Mike (John McGuire) is a reporter who is the only witness in a murder trial, and he is responsible for sending a man to his death when the suspect is found guilty. When Mike finds someone else murdered — both victims had their throats cut —police start to wonder if he’s the murderer. No one believes Mike when he mentions seeing a “stranger” before finding the second murder victim.
When Mike is arrested, his girlfriend, Jane (Margaret Tallichet), sets out to find this stranger and determine if it’s a real person or in Mike’s imagination. Much of the film leading up to this point is a fever dream had by Mike, who feels guilty for being responsible for a conviction in the trial. This leaves both Jane and the audience wondering if Mike is more than just a key witness.
Stranger on the Third Floor was one of the first films referred to as a “film noir” upon its release, in part because it differed from other mystery-comedies of the era. The cinematography and storytelling were both darker than what was generally depicted in films during this time, according to “Detecting Women: Gender and the Hollywood Detective Film” by Philippa Gates.
The storytelling effect of Stranger on the Third Floor was called “utterly wild,” by New York Times critic Bosley Crowther, calling it a “bold experiment.”
Other times, the female detectives are working in a professional capacity and not on their own accord. In Wanted: Jane Turner (1936), Tom (Lee Tracy) and Doris (Gloria Stuart) are solving a different type of crime — mail fraud. Both employed as postal workers, the two are trying to uncover a group of crooks mailing money around the United States, and at one point, a mail truck driver is killed. The film is based on a real-life 1926 crime when a postal worker was killed in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The postal worker’s vehicle was hijacked by seven criminals, including “Killer” Cunniffe.
In the film, money is sent to a person named Jane Turner, but is there really a Jane Turner? Doris and Lee are neck-and-neck both trying to solve the crime.
The loss of a friend is what drives Lucille Ball’s character to detective work in the Douglas Sirk-directed film, Lured (1947).
A remake of a 1939 French film, Pièges (or Personal Column), Lured follows a dance hall worker, Sandra Carpenter (Ball). When her friend is missing and suspected to be dead, Sandra goes straight to the police to find out what happened to her friend. She doesn’t do her detective work independently — Sandra is hired by none other than Scotland Yard as a female detective.
It has been determined that young women are being killed after answering personal ads in the newspaper. To catch the suspect, Sandra answers newspaper ads that are looking for attractive young women. She puts herself in awkward and dangerous situations. One ad is a soldier looking for a companion — his little brother meets her instead because his brother is shipped out — and another is for an unattached young woman, where she’s hired as a maid.
Sandra does find love along the way, but in the end, she’s instrumental in capturing the killer, even if it means risking her own life. Love has to be put on hold until the killer is caught.
While there is some dark humor in Lured, this is a different Ball than audiences would be used to seeing on “I Love Lucy.” Sandra is a smart and no-nonsense woman, hardened by her time as a taxi dancer. Though a police officer is trailing her for her safety, she can take care of herself.
