"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.