THE HARDY BOYS: THE MYSTERY OF THE APPLEGATE TREASURE -- Serial Review by Porfle

 

Originally posted on 8/26/21

 

Currently watching: THE HARDY BOYS: THE MYSTERY OF THE APPLEGATE TREASURE (1956), a 19-part serial produced by Disney to be shown in daily installments (approx. 11 minutes each) during consecutive episodes of "The Mickey Mouse Club."

This adaptation of Leslie McFarlane's book "The Hardy Boys: The Tower Treasure" should appeal to fans of the Hardy Boys detective stories by Franklin W. Dixon (a pen name for a stable of largely uncredited writers hired by the Stratemeyer Syndicate publishing company), which debuted in 1927 and remained popular for several decades.

Those who are nostalgic for the kind of clean, wholesome family entertainment created by Disney in the 50s and 60s should also derive great satisfaction from this modest but appealing preteen-oriented serial, filmed mostly on elaborately-rendered soundstage sets depicting the Hardys' entire neighborhood, the Applegate estate, and other Bayport locations.

 

It's just the sort of thing to feed into the adventure fantasies of young boys of the era: Frank and Joe Hardy, sons of famous private detective Fenton Hardy, live in the picket-fence suburbs of the small, mostly quiet town of Bayport, but yearn to be detectives like their father and join him in solving mysteries.

But their father, who's often away from home because of his job, doesn't approve of such dangerous doings, and neither does their spinster Aunt Gertrude, who lives with them and keeps a tight rein on the boys.

Despite this, however, Frank and Joe manage to sneak away from the house often enough to get involved in the mystery of eccentric old Silas Applegate and the fortune in pirate gold that's said to be hidden somewhere on his property, perhaps even behind the wall of a crumbling old tower that looms over his estate, and is sought after by a range of unsavory types.

 

 

In order to appeal to young viewers of "The Mickey Mouse Club", Frank and Joe are a year or so younger here than in the books, their ages ranging from about 12-14. The older Frank is played by Tim Considine, already popular from Disney's "Spin and Marty" series, and the role of younger, more impetuous Joe is the official debut of new Disney star Tommy Kirk, whose considerable acting skills are apparent in his often intense and frenetic performance.

Frank and Joe are typical, identifiable boys for that era, with their flattop haircuts, T-shirts, jeans with the cuffs rolled up, and sneakers--ideal role models to stimulate the vivid imaginations and wish fulfillment fantasies of Disney's young audience.

For female viewers, there's the Hardys' friend Iola Morton, who has a desperate crush on the girl-hating Joe and manages to get herself involved in all the boys' adventures.  Iola is brought to vivid life by the cute-as-a-button Carole Ann Campbell, who had a regrettably brief film and TV career before losing interest in Hollywood and moving on. 

 

Fenton Hardy's character is somewhat changed from the books. To me, he was always a distinguished, quietly dependable and capable Hugh Beaumont type. Here, Russ Conway brings him to the screen as a rather frumpy, almost seedy private detective who lacks empathy with his boys and fails to realize their potential as his successors until it is demonstrated to him.

Oddly, the TV show omits Mrs. Hardy and gives us their Aunt Gertrude (Sarah Selby) as a sort of surrogate mother, considerably softening her literary image as a nagging harridan (I always pictured her as a stern Edna Mae Oliver type). This was done with the belief that it was more acceptable for the boys to disobey their aunt than their mother when sneaking out to pursue their detective work.

The story itself takes its own sweet time unfolding over the series' 19 chapters, as the Hardys deal with crotchety old Mr. Applegate (Florenz Ames), his burly caretaker and plumber Jackley (Robert Foulk), wrongly-accused reform school refugee Perry Robinson (Donald McDonald), and slippery, mischievous ex-convict Boles (Arthur Shields, brother of actor Barry Fitzgerald who appeared with him in John Ford's THE QUIET MAN).

 

Boles may have knowledge of the treasure's whereabouts, Jackley may be crookeder than he seems, cutlass-wielding old Applegate is possibly quite mad, and the whole affair stretches out in unremarkable but quite pleasant fashion until finally Frank and Joe cut through the murky mystery with their burgeoning detective skills and solve the whole thing in a moodily-photographed final chapter that puts them in a modest amount of actual danger.

I don't know if today's kids would have the patience, the desire, or even the ability to get carried along by this kind of low-key, unsensationalistic entertainment. I hope they do, lest they miss something that's actually quite rare and wonderful in its own way. For me, "The Hardy Boys: The Mystery of the Applegate Treasure" is sweet, soulful nostalgia in its purest and most potent form.