"Take Care of My Little Girl" (1951)

[KillarneyRose]

Originally Posted by LXA SE285

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

"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

[nyapbp]

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)

[amanda6035]

Wow. That was awesome.

[Leslie Anne]

Originally Posted by KillarneyRose

"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

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.

[ASTalumna06]

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

[Leslie Anne]

Originally Posted by ASTalumna06

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.

[Katmandu]

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

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

[LXA SE285]

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.

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

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

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

[ASTalumna06]

Originally Posted by LXA SE285

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

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

[AnchorAlumna]

Originally Posted by Leslie Anne

Wouldn't it have been nice to conduct MS casually, in our nightgowns?

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*

[MaryPoppins]

Originally Posted by AnchorAlumna

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.

[AnchorAlumna]

Originally Posted by MaryPoppins

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!

[Katmandu]

^^^ 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.

[BraveMaroon]

Originally Posted by Katmandu

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.

[FSUZeta]

Originally Posted by AnchorAlumna

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!

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!