MORE FILM–THAT HAGAN GIRL: YOU THINK YOU’VE GOT PROBLEMS. BE GLAD YOU’RE NOT MARY!
Bastardette is short on time today, but we need to plow through Adoption NaBloPoMo, so we’re cobbling together another film clip. This time, That Hagan Girl, (1947) one of Bastardette’s all-time favorite bastard films. The film is hard to find. As far as I know it has never been released on video or DVD, but it shows up on TCM occasionally. Several years ago I was given a bootleg copy as a Christmas present. Due to its scarcity, and my inability to watch it, I previously wrote about the film secondhand, based on what critics had said at the time of release. I also used comments by its stars Shirley Temple and Ronald Reagan who found the movie, at best, career-humiliating. Yet, when I finally watched That Hagan Girl, I was blown away by Shirley’s first rate performance (despite the silly plot) of a teenager who endures years of vague small town gossip, learns that she is adopted despite 18 years of family denial, and her whole life has been a lie. I have never seen any film that addresses adoption lies, bastard anger, isolation, and identity dislocation as this film does–even if it doesn’t mean to. In it’s clumsy Continue Reading →