"Take Care of My Little Girl" (1951)
 

Stumbled onto this on TCM tonight while channel-surfing -- a melodramatic cautionary tale from the early '50s about the evils of sorority life.

Nice girl Liz (Jeanne Crain, forgotten today but a big star at the time) pledges her legacy chapter, the nasty but top-tier Tri-U's. The fashion-conscious rush chair looks down on her for wearing the same outfit more than once because her suitcase got lost on the train, but she still gets a bid. Sadly, her best friend gets cut and leaves school. Another legacy, a homely, socially awkward nerd, gets blackballed. Worst of all, poor Liz is pressured into dating the biggest frat douchebag on campus instead of the GDI she really likes!

Natalie Schafer (Lovey Howell from Gilligan's Island) plays alumna house mom Mother Cookie, who's an even bigger snob than the actives.

The opening credits are a scream: a montage of immediately recognizable NPC badges with just the letters changed.

Won't link to it here since that's not kosher, but the whole movie is up on YouTube.

I thought that this was going to be about a different movie from that era, but the one that I was thinking about was called 'Mr. Belvedere Goes to College' (1949) and was pretty positive about Greek life. Mr. Belvedere (Clifton Webb) is a middle aged hasher in a sorority house and it is pretty good movie.

There was a thread some time ago on GC with a photo spread from a magazine (Life maybe) from that era about a very nice sorority house (Tri Delta maybe), who employed student hashers. What I thought was interesting was that the hashers, when they were not working, were considered 'date-able' by the sisters. And this became a story line in the TV show 'Greeks'.

Thanks for posting! I watched it, and it is great.

Just googled the Mr. Belvedere movie.

I swear they used the same set as the fraternity house in "Take Care of My Little Girl".

This is a great movie. I really enjoyed it. Thanks for sharing!:)

Worth noting that the two brothers, Julius and Phillip Epstein, who adapted the screenplay from the novel - were better known for their writing on another film - Casablanca.

I had the amazing experience of meeting Julius Epstein in college - he came to speak to my screenwriting class, then Turner Classic Movies sponsored a screening of Casablanca at the Student Union movie theater with Mr. Epstein holding Q&A after. He was 84 years old at the time, but sharp as a tack and had some great, amazing stories.

Fascinating man and very nice to a bunch of college kids. My husband and I were in the class together - though we weren't dating at the time - and he likes to tell this story about me.

Mr. Epstein remarked to our professor (they'd been friends for years), "Your kids are very dressed up. In my day, we wore a jacket and tie to class."

Dr. Burke replied, "Julius, I'm lucky if they're wearing underwear."

To which I piped up, "Well, nothing like a cool breeze."

My now husband remembers thinking, "This man wrote one of the most famous love stories of all time, and she just said 'Nothing like a cool breeze' to him."

LOL, good for you! That sounds like something I'd say then immediately think to myself, "Did I really just say that???" What a wonderful opportunity having Julius Epstein speaking to your class; I would have loved to hear that!

"Take Care of My Little Girl", featuring:
Chi Alpha Chi as ZTA
Sigma Delta as DG
Upsilon Upsilon Upsilon as KD
Upsilon Beta as G Phi B
Delta Mu as Kappa Alpha Theta
Something Phi Pi as Sigma Kappa
Theta Lambda = Phi Mu

and also featuring
Zeta Zeta Pi as an approximation of AST
Chi Omega as itself
Alpha Chi Omega as itself

From a 1951 women's fraternity magazine:
A Coming Movie
20th Century-Fox has in preparation for early release a movie to be entitled "Take Care of My Little Girl." It is a story of campus and sorority house life. IRAC and NPC officers have been in contact with Spyros P. Skouras, president of the film company, in an effort to solicit his interest in seeing to it that the picture presents a true and not distorted impression of sorority life, In a letter written on October 13th, Mr. Skouras said: "Once more I want to assure you that the picture we propose is not intended to be an attack against fraternities or sororities. If you will stop to reflect, you will see that there is no reason why we should make an attack against fraternities or sororities as such, since all of us recognize them as a part of our American pattern and many of us have strong ties with them in our own personal lives."

But in her newspaper column for October 20th, Louella Parsons said: " If the various sororities don't have a few thousand words to say when 20th·Century-Fox's picture, 'Take Care of My Little Girl', reaches the screen, I'll be surprised."-From IRAC Bulletin (IRAC = Interfraternity Research and Advisory Council)

Wow. That was awesome.

interesting little movie. had to laugh at the "pref" party and the girls dancing with each other. loved the song the Lambdas sang "the lambs are coming, "baa, baa"

I just found it and watched it. So, so over-acted.

I just watched the film. Of course it's cheesy and dated but it actually did bring back a lot of memories. Wouldn't it have been nice to conduct MS casually, in our nightgowns?

What I'm wondering about is KillarneyRose's list. Is that the way it was in the book? Now I'm going to have to read that too.

Thank you to LXA SE285 for bringing the film to my attention. It was fun.

ETA: I see that KillarneyRose's list is of the pins shown. Nothing to do with the book.

Which badge looks like ASTs? I must have missed something..

I think she meant Zeta Sigma Pi looks a bit like AST's. It's the second pin that shows up during the opening credits. Personally, I don't see it as AST's.

Upsilon Upsilon Upsilon was put with KD but that's not the shape of KD's pin at all. I'm fairly certain they used Phi Omega Pi's pin with Phi Mu's pledge pin (with and E) attached.

Did anyone catch that the Tri U "rush captain" was Thelma Lou?

Love this! Thanks for posting it ...great find!

To me it looks more like a ripoff of ASA's.

I was wondering when somebody was gonna notice Betty Lynn. She was definitely 180 degrees away from Thelma Lou here. :)

Or maybe they thought that Sigma Tau Gamma is an NPC sorority. It looks a lot like their badge.

http://sphotos-a-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hp...11948712_n.jpg

http://sphotos-g.ak.fbcdn.net/hphoto...08305205_n.jpg

http://sphotos-a-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hp...82715610_n.jpg

http://sphotos-b.ak.fbcdn.net/hphoto...53104046_n.jpg

That was a fun movie to watch. I love old college movies of all kinds.

I noticed that when the woman was running her finger down the list that there were a couple of DDDs on there. I wondered if they purposely did that to demonstrate that Tri U was not supposed to be a sub for Tri Delta.

And I'm so thankful that I pledged when Hell Weeks were no longer around. I would not have put up with that garbage.

Is it wrong that I identify with Adelaide and Casey?

What, you didn't? Right after we finished the last party, we had 15 minutes to run to our rooms, change into PJs-sweats-etc. Couldn't have made it without that!
But that smoking...wow. I forget how common it was.
We did sing like that...it was one of my favorite parts of sorority life. *sigh*

And it's now missing! They are over programmed and have no time for song.

We used to have the formal seated dinners every night with the houseboys clearing plates and bringing dessert. We'd sing while they were clearing, and that's how the pledges learned the songs and we'd get our daily practice. Two- and three-part harmony!
Now the food is served buffet style and is casual - when you're finished you get up whenever you want and take your plate to the window. No having to excuse yourself to the housemother at the head table if you wanted to leave early.
Our yankee pledges were quite amazed at this at first. Heck, many of us were amazed. Good training, though.
Those were the days!

^^^ We did too! Singing was big on our campus. During rush, actives would burst into song during parties. Serenades, candle passings, etc. were all big time events and all focused on songs. We always serenaded before our formal parties and when we were partnered with fraternities for homecoming, spring sing, etc.

Formal dinner was on Monday evening and Sunday noon. Pin attire required. Week night dinners were also served by houseboys and were sit down events, but attire was casual. Our Housemother was always escorted into the dining room first by the head house boy and the expectation was that her table would fill first. There was a head of every table (changed every night depending on who sat at the head place) Pres and VP had their own tables on either side of the house mother's.

We sang grace and when desert was over, the song leader would initiate two or three songs to close which included both Kappa Delta songs and fraternity songs--it's how we learned the fraternity songs for serenades--we knew a song for every chapter on campus.

My son was freaked out when he pledged Lambda Chi Alpha and I sang one of their songs... he said, we don't even know them--how do you?!

Our girls now eat buffet style at random times within a two hour window. they grab plates, go through an industrial style buffet line, scarf it down and leave. I know they have busy schedules, and this type of meal service appeals to the times, but I don't think I am clutching my pearls too much to think that they miss out on a lot. We got to know each other at meal time, brushed up on manners, it didn't last that long--most meals were done in 30-40 minutes and it made for a nice oasis in a busy day. But eating together is something most of the current college students didn't have in their own families.

Being a house boy was one of the prized jobs on campus. They tended to be passed down among friends and relatives. They ate the great food the sorority cooks prepared, were paid fairly well, and got to look at pretty girls. We treated them well too.

We had one houseboy who was with us from the time he was a Freshman til he graduated.

He is now married to one of my sisters!

We had a sit down meal every night, and every night we sang the blessing. It's probably the first sorority song I learned.

And if you wanted to be excused, you had to ask the housemother.

I know some people hated it, but I always enjoyed dinner at the house.

Notes from TCM
 

The TCM article is pretty interesting to me

http://www.tcm.com/this-month/articl...My-Little-Girl

It sounds like the book it was based on was even more anti-sorority than the movie does (and that appears to be saying something) with the book specifically dealing with the fact that the sororities having racial and religious prejudices.

A comment on the book is at
http://books.google.com/books?id=fDG...A159&lpg=PA159

And then there is
http://www.jeffreyhunter.net/NewSite...tories0751.pdf

Which seems to be related to the movie, but mentions jews/catholics in a way I'm not sure the movie did...

I'm a sucker for an old movie. Watched it while I was at work today (slow time for us). I loved all the singing! (Side-bar: All the songs were so high! Does any sorority take account us ladies who are altos?! I'm so happy that I can harmonize or I'd never make it up there to soprano land! :D) As someone who writes a lot of scripts, it was VERY dramatized, but to be honest, I give a pass on old movies. It's interesting how that sorority was structured. It seemed like only a couple of overwhelming opinions mattered. Casey being the only one who spoke out (I would have loved to gotten her backstory to what made her so defiant.)

I going to try to duplicate Jeanne Crain's hair for a function I have coming up. I adore the styles back then; it was so polished! Reminds me of both my Grandmothers.

Of course - alto parts! Our official songbook even has them.
As a veteran of the teased bubble in the 1960s, good luck with that. (Yes, I slept on rollers.) My mom said she tried and tried to wear that perfect "roll" of hair in the 1940s but it always fell out.

I imagine that smooth, shiny hair in the movies was, like them, an illusion!

It's just every song I've heard have strong Soprano parts, or maybe I just hear them better? But beautiful songs nevertheless, I just drink my tea and get in where I fit in :)! (I am also a very deep alto, like an alto 2/contralto, so even an average soprano sounds EXTRA high to me!)

Sleeping in rollers was normal to me as a child! Most of the Black women/girls I grew up around (during the 80's/90's) wore rollers. I'd considerer doing it now, but my hair doesn't hold much of a curl with rollers. Most it does is a deep wave.

I did execute a roll for a campus function a few years ago, and it didn't turn out too badly. (The ball had a theme around that decade so I went all out!) I was rushing, but I had practiced the style a few days prior to see how long it would take me. My hair was also shorter, so now that it's to my midback I'll have a bit more to work with! I'll just need millions of bobby pins! :rolleyes:

Of course - alto parts! Our official songbook even has them.
As a veteran of the teased bubble in the 1960s, good luck with that. (Yes, I slept on rollers.) My mom said she tried and tried to wear that perfect "roll" of hair in the 1940s but it always fell out.

I imagine that smooth, shiny hair in the movies was, like them, an illusion!

Yes they were! That is how we did it at FSU. Don't forget some of the houseboys were come around with iced tea pitchers and water pitchers to refill glasses during the meal. We sang the blessing(in harmony) before we were seated and we waited to sit until the house mother had taken her seat. There was the house mother's table and the president's table and then the others were not designated. Food was served family style with the head of the table starting the food around the table. No one ate until the entire table was served AND the house mother had lifted her fork, then the table heads would lift their forks and everyone would eat.

The pledges served door/phone duty from 5 pm to 7 pm on a rotation basis fall quarter and took phone messages during the meal which she left in the appropriate person's mail cubby-out of house girls messages were pinned to a bulletin board in the phone room. AFter initiation, the out of house girls would be assigned 5-7 door/phone duty, and in house girls who were not executive officers would rotate phone/door duty from 7-10.

If anyone came around to make an announcement during the meal, the pledge would escort the person/persons to the dining room entrance, whisper in the house mothers ear that ABC fraternity had an announcement they would like to make, wait for her to grant permission and then the president would tap her glass with her spoon to get the dining rooms attention, the pledge would introduce the visitor(s), step aside and wait to escort the messengers out after their announcement had been made. We politely clapped after each outside announcement. During dessert, the president would stand and ask if anyone had any announcements and any sister who did would raise her hand and wait to be called on before speaking. Dinner guests were welcome any night, but fancier meals were served on Monday and Thursday nights, so most sisters invited their guests for those nights. Fun times!

Aside:
SisterGreek, you may like this thread Black Sorority Musical Traditions
in the DST forum

I'm there!!! This will take up my afternoon! Thank you SisterGreek!!!

YW:)

One question about the movie that I do not understand. Since the Tri Upilsons did not want to take the girl in the first place why did they prevent her from joining another house that did want her? She seemed to have many cards.

What do you think is the reason? This is a movie! Fiction!!!!! Did you read naraht's post?

this thread brought up memories for me. lots of details i had forgotten. the velvet rope across the stairs was a gentle reminder of "no men" and curfew. yeah, curfew - we'd be locked out!

She was a legacy. Yes, it's fiction, but at the time, it was true that some groups would take another vote at the end of the pledge period. That system only makes sense if sometimes pledges didn't make it.

Many, maybe even most, groups outside the NPC still do.