Harriet the Spy (film)

Last updated
Harriet the Spy
Harriet the Spy (1996 film) poster.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Bronwen Hughes
Screenplay by
Adaptation by
Based on Harriet the Spy
by Louise Fitzhugh
Produced by
  • Marykay Powell
  • Nava Levin
Starring
Cinematography Francis Kenny
Edited byDebra Chiate
Music by Jamshied Sharifi
Production
companies
Distributed by Paramount Pictures
Release date
  • July 10, 1996 (1996-07-10) [1]
Running time
102 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$12 million
Box office$26.6 million

Harriet the Spy is a 1996 American coming-of-age comedy film directed by Bronwen Hughes in her feature film directorial debut, and starring Michelle Trachtenberg in her major film acting debut. It co-stars Rosie O'Donnell, J. Smith-Cameron, Gregory Smith, and Vanessa Lee Chester. Based on the 1964 novel of the same name by Louise Fitzhugh, the film follows a sixth-grade student who aspires to become a writer and spy.

Contents

Filming began in the fall of 1994 in Toronto and was completed by the end of 1995. Produced by Paramount Pictures, Nickelodeon Movies and Rastar, it was the first film produced under the Nickelodeon Movies banner and the first of two film adaptations of the Harriet the Spy books. In theaters, the pilot episode of Hey Arnold! called Arnold was shown before the film.

The film was released in theaters on July 10, 1996, to mixed reviews from critics. It made $26.6 million worldwide on a production budget of $12 million. [2] The film was released on home video on February 25, 1997.

Plot

Eleven-year-old aspiring spy and writer Harriet M. Welsch lives a privileged life in New York City with her parents, Violetta and Ben, and her nanny, Catherine "Ole Golly," in whom she confides. Harriet and her best friends, Simon "Sport" Rocque and Janie Gibbs, are enemies with a snobby classmate, editor of the sixth-grade newspaper, bully, and class president Marion Hawthorne.

One night, as Harriet's parents are out, Golly invites her friend George to dinner, which she burns; the three instead go out for dinner and a movie. Upon returning home late at night, Violetta becomes enraged at Golly for having Harriet stay out past her curfew and fires her. Golly concedes that it is time Harriet was "on her own." Before leaving, Golly encourages Harriet not to give up on her love of "spying" and observing people, promising to be the first to buy a signed copy of Harriet's first novel. Depressed and withdrawn, Harriet breaks into the mansion of Agatha Plummer and is caught hiding in her dumbwaiter.

After school, Marion discovers Harriet's private spy notebook. She begins reading aloud Harriet's comments about her friends and peers, such as how she suspects Janie will grow up to be "a total nutcase" and criticizing Sport's father's low earnings. Sport and Janie shun Harriet, and her classmates create a "spy-catcher" club to torment her.

When Harriet begins neglecting her schoolwork, her parents confiscate her notebooks and ask her teacher, Miss Elson, to search her for new notebooks daily. During art class, Marion and company pour blue paint over Harriet as revenge for writing things about them in her notebook. Harriet responds, slapping Marion in the face, and flees from the school. She exacts revenge in several ways: by exposing that Marion's father left their family for his secretary, by cutting off a chunk of Laura's hair, by sabotaging Janie's science experiment, and by humiliating Sport with a picture of him in a maid's outfit. This causes her classmates to alienate her further.

Harriet's parents send her for a psychological evaluation; the doctor assures them that Harriet is fine. Harriet gets her notebook back, and, in a surprise visit, Golly tells her that to make things right again, she must do two things that she will not like: apologize and lie. Harriet says it is not worth it, to which Golly disagrees, saying Harriet is worth it as an individual, and her individuality will make others nervous. She adds: "Good friends are one of life's blessings. Don't give them up without a fight."

Harriet tries apologizing to Sport and Janie, who initially rejected her before accepting her apology after finally coming to their senses and consequently quitting Marion's bully group due to being mistreated by her, much to Marion's dismay. Harriet opines to Miss Elson that Marion's appointment as editor was done unfairly, and Miss Elson opens it up for a vote. Harriet is voted in to replace Marion as editor. She writes an article apologizing to the class, all of whom (except Marion) accept her apology. At the opening of the 6th-grade pageant, Janie, Sport, and Harriet set off a stink bomb as all the students, teachers, and audience dance to James Brown's "Get Up Offa That Thing."

Cast

Production

Screenplay

The screenplay was adapted from Louise Fitzhugh's 1964 novel of the same name. [3] Director Bronwen Hughes commented on the adaptation: "Certain things about the '60s story, especially the relationship between kids and their parents, had to be adjusted to make sense because you don't have that same kind of formality that you had in the book in the '60s between parents and kids. So those things needed to be made more natural for the 1990s kids audience. But it was very important to me that the things that really affected Harriet in the book would be the things that really affected Harriet in the movie." [3] The result mixed elements from various decades, but Hughes aspired to create a "timeless" film that featured little technology. [3]

Filming

Harriet the Spy was filmed in Toronto during the fall of 1994 and winter of 1995. [4] Director Bronwen Hughes recalled: "It was Paramount's financial decision to make Toronto look like New York, although to tell you the truth, nothing looks like a row of brownstones and stoops like New York, so we just started choosing great locations to create a visual experience." [4]

Michelle Trachtenberg recalled the shoot beginning on October 11, 1994, her ninth birthday. [3] She and co-star Vanessa Lee Chester had known each other prior, having filmed a commercial together in New York City when they were five years old. [3] Charlotte Sullivan recalled of the shoot: "When [Bronwen] would direct us, if we were walking she's like, 'Okay, you'll go bop-bop this way then bop-bop this way', she was always dancing. I don't remember her not dancing on set. And music was always playing. It was very cool and in terms of performance art she was pretty ahead of her time. It was a great way also to direct children. It was a way to keep things alive." [3]

Release

Box office

The film was released in U.S. theaters on July 10, 1996, and the film grossed $6,601,651 on its opening weekend, averaging about $3,615 per each of the 1,826 screens it was shown on. [2] The film went on to gross a total of $26,570,048 by November 10, 1996, and is considered a modest box office success, earning back more than double its $12 million budget.

Home media

Harriet the Spy was released on VHS by Paramount Home Video on February 25, 1997. The cassette also contained two Rugrats music videos, and customers were able to receive $5 rebate if they bought the movie in an orange clamshell case plus two eligible Rugrats videos.

The film was later released on DVD on May 27, 2003.

Reception

Critical response

The film received mixed reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes it has an approval rating of 48% based on reviews from 31 critics. The site's consensus: "Harriet the Spy is a rapid-fire mystery movie that doesn't have much to offer beyond the two decent lead performances." [5] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave it a grade B+. [6]

Rita Kempley of The Washington Post was critical of the film, deeming it a "tedious" adaptation of the source novel, adding: "Harriet the Spy isn't really a story, but a dark slice of this ruminative child's inner life. Like the more clearly comic Welcome to the Dollhouse , this film finds more wrong than wonder in these terrible, tenderfoot years." [7] Roger Ebert praised the performance of Trachtenberg, but conceded: "It is not a very technically accomplished movie--the pacing is slow and there are scenes that seem amateurish--but since Harriet doesn't intend to inspire anyone to become a movie critic, perhaps it will work a certain charm for its target audience." [8] Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly , a self-proclaimed fan of the novel, wrote that the film "has its sticky, Afterschool Special side (the ending is way too pat), but at its best it’s like a Welcome to the Dollhouse for preadolescents. What Fitzhugh’s book had, and what the movie gets, is the glee and neurotic terror of a kid lurching into adult consciousness, learning just how dangerous that notebook we all carry around in our heads really is." [9]

John Anderson of the Los Angeles Times also commented on the film's darker elements, writing that it is "fun, yes, but [it] isn't afraid to expose the nastiness of youth or the offhanded cruelty of one girl's ego. This is not a happy little movie about the sweetness of childhood." [10] Barbara Shulgasser of The San Francisco Examiner dismissed the film, describing the protagonist as "the kind of kid I'm not looking forward to meeting as a grownup...  While the well-loved novel was apparently about the admirable battle a kid must wage in order to become an artist in the face of peer disapproval, the movie seems to be about a mean-spirited tyke who has no scruples. If that kind of person wants to become an artist, it's OK by me, but I don't have to root for her." [11]

Accolades

YearAwardCategoryRecipientsResultRef.
1997 Kids' Choice Awards Favorite Movie Actress Rosie O'Donnell Won [12]
Young Artist Awards Best Performance in a Feature Film – Leading Young Actress Michelle Trachtenberg Won [13]
Best Performance in a Feature Film – Supporting Young Actress Vanessa Lee Chester Won
Best Family Feature – DramaHarriet the SpyNominated
Best Performance in a Feature Film – Supporting Young Actor Gregory Smith Nominated

Remake

Another adaptation of Harriet the Spy was released as a television movie in 2010 titled Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars , with Jennifer Stone in the title role. In 2021, an animated TV series based on the novel, with Beanie Feldstein as the titular character, was released on Apple TV+. In April 2023, it was announced that Trachtenberg would make a guest appearance in the series.

Related Research Articles

<i>Harriet the Spy</i> 1964 childrens novel by Louise Fitzhugh

Harriet the Spy is a children's novel written and illustrated by Louise Fitzhugh that was published in 1964. It has been called "a milestone in children's literature" and a "classic". In the U.S., it ranked number 12 in the 50 Best Books for Kids and number 17 in the Top 100 Children's Novels on two lists generated in 2012.

<i>Clueless</i> 1995 film by Amy Heckerling

Clueless is a 1995 American coming-of-age teen comedy film written and directed by Amy Heckerling. It stars Alicia Silverstone with supporting roles by Stacey Dash, Brittany Murphy, and Paul Rudd. It was produced by Scott Rudin and Robert Lawrence.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Michelle Trachtenberg</span> American actress (born 1985)

Michelle Christine Trachtenberg is an American actress. Trachtenberg began her career at age three, appearing in a number of commercials, films, and television series as a child. Her starring role on the Nickelodeon television series The Adventures of Pete & Pete (1994–1996) as Nona Mecklenberg was her first credited role. She starred in the Nickelodeon Movies comedy film Harriet the Spy (1996) as the film's eponymous character and in the CBS sitcom Meego (1997) as Maggie, for both of which she won Young Artist Awards.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Louise Fitzhugh</span> American novelist

Louise Perkins Fitzhugh was an American writer and illustrator of children's books. Fitzhugh is best known for her 1964 novel Harriet the Spy, a fiction work about an adolescent girl's predisposition with a journal covering the foibles of her friends, her classmates, and the strangers she is captivated by. The novel was later adapted into a live action film in 1996. The sequel novel, The Long Secret, was published in 1965, and its follow-up book, Sport, was published posthumously in 1979. Fitzhugh also wrote Nobody's Family Is Going to Change, which was later adapted into a short film and a play.

<i>The Face on the Milk Carton</i> 1990 book by Caroline B. Cooney

The Face on the Milk Carton is a young adult mystery novel written by author Caroline B. Cooney that was first published in 1990. The first in the five-book Janie Johnson series, it was later adapted into a film for television. The book is about a 15-year-old girl named Janie Johnson, who starts to suspect that her parents may have kidnapped her and that her biological parents are somewhere in New Jersey. These suspicions come after Janie recognizes a picture of herself on a milk carton under the heading "Missing Child." Janie's life gets more stressful as she tries to find the truth while hiding the secret from her parents.

The Dive from Clausen's Pier is a 2005 Lifetime original film based on an Ann Packer novel directed by Harry Winer and starring Will Estes, Michelle Trachtenberg, and Sean Maher. It premiered on July 25, 2005, on Lifetime.

Andrea Hope Elson is an American retired child model and actress, best known for her science fiction television roles as Alice Tyler on the CBS adventure series Whiz Kids and as Lynn Tanner on the NBC comedy series ALF, which garnered her two Youth in Film Award nominations in 1986 and 1989.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Vanessa Lee Chester</span> American television and film actress

Vanessa Lee Chester is an American actress. She began her career as a child actor in the films A Little Princess (1995) and Harriet the Spy (1996), before her breakthrough role in Steven Spielberg's The Lost World: Jurassic Park (1997).

The Jennifer "Jennie" Spring/Janie Johnson series is a series of young adult novels written by Caroline B. Cooney. The series focuses on a young woman's attempts to discover the truth about her background after seeing her own image on a milk carton.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jennifer Stone</span> American nurse and former actress (born 1993)

Jennifer Stone is an American nurse and former actress. As a child actor, she became known for playing Harper Finkle on the Disney Channel sitcom Wizards of Waverly Place (2007–2012). She also had roles in the comedy films Secondhand Lions (2003) and Mean Girls 2 (2011).

<i>I See a Dark Stranger</i> 1946 British film by Frank Launder

I See a Dark Stranger is a 1946 British World War II spy comedy film directed by Frank Launder and Sidney Gilliat and starred Deborah Kerr and Trevor Howard.

<i>The Notebook</i> 2004 American romantic drama film by Nick Cassavetes

The Notebook is a 2004 American romantic drama film directed by Nick Cassavetes, from a screenplay by Jeremy Leven and Jan Sardi, and based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Nicholas Sparks. The film stars Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams as a young couple who fall in love in the 1940s. Their story is read from a notebook in the present day by an elderly man, telling the tale to a fellow nursing home resident.

<i>Dustbin Baby</i> (film) 2008 television film directed by Juliet May

Dustbin Baby is a BBC television film directed by Juliet May, based on Jacqueline Wilson's 2001 novel of the same name. It was first broadcast on BBC One on 21 December 2008. The film stars Dakota Blue Richards as April, a troubled teenager who was abandoned in a dustbin as an infant, and Juliet Stevenson as Marion Bean, April's adoptive mother. David Haig stars as Elliot, Marion's friend and colleague. The screenplay was written by Helen Blakeman, and the film was produced by Kindle Entertainment. Dustbin Baby deals with themes including maternal bonding, bullying, and youth crime. The story revolves around April running away on her fourteenth birthday, while Marion searches for her. April's life is recounted in flashbacks as she meets people and visits places that are significant to her.

<i>Janie</i> (1944 film) 1944 film by Michael Curtiz

Janie is a 1944 film directed by Michael Curtiz, based on a 1942 Broadway play by Josephine Bentham and Herschel V. Williams Jr. The play was adapted from Bentham's 1940 novel by the same name.

<i>The Face on the Milk Carton</i> (film) 1995 American made for television film

The Face on the Milk Carton is a 1995 American made for television drama film based on Caroline B. Cooney’s 1990 novel of the same name. The movie stars Kellie Martin as Janie Jessmon, born Jennifer Sands, a sixteen-year-old girl who finds her face on the back of a milk carton and puts the pieces of her past together.

<i>Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars</i> 2010 multi-national TV series or program

Harriet the Spy: Blog Wars is a 2010 television film starring Jennifer Stone that premiered on March 19, 2010, on Movie Central and The Movie Network in Canada, and on March 26, 2010, on Disney Channel in the United States. It is an adaptation of the book Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh, the second after the 1996 Harriet the Spy film that starred Michelle Trachtenberg as Harriet. The film was produced by 9 Story Entertainment. Vanessa Morgan, who starred as Marion in the movie, went on to star in My Babysitter's a Vampire and its subsequent television series, which also aired on Disney Channel.

Kindle Entertainment is an independent television production company based in London, England. Kindle Entertainment was formed by Anne Brogan, the former controller of ITV Kids, and former head of development at ITV Kids, Melanie Stokes after ITV Kids was closed. The company is currently owned by Banijay Entertainment, via its Banijay Kids & Family division.

<i>The Long Secret</i> Book by Louise Fitzhugh

The Long Secret is a children's novel written and illustrated by Louise Fitzhugh that was released by Harper & Row on October 27, 1965. It is a sequel or "companion" to Harriet the Spy (1964), the only one published during Fitzhugh's lifetime.

Girl detective is a genre of detective fiction featuring a young, often teen-aged, female protagonist who solves crimes as a hobby.

Harriet the Spy is an American animated television series for Apple TV+, loosely based on the book of the same name by Louise Fitzhugh. The series premiered on November 19, 2021. Season 2 premiered on May 5, 2023.

References

  1. ↑ "Harriet the Spy". AFI Catalog of Feature Films . Los Angeles: American Film Institute. Archived from the original on April 26, 2019.
  2. 1 2 "Harriet the Spy (1996) - Box Office Mojo". www.boxofficemojo.com. Archived from the original on 17 October 2018. Retrieved 23 March 2019.
  3. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Schildhause, Chloe (11 May 2016). "Which Is Why I Am A Spy: An Oral History Of 'Harriet The Spy'". Uproxx . Archived from the original on August 8, 2016.
  4. 1 2 Brody, Caitlin (November 15, 2016). "Harriet the Spy 20th anniversary: Blue paint scene gets an oral history". Entertainment Weekly . Archived from the original on August 4, 2018.
  5. ↑ "Harriet the Spy (1996)". Archived from the original on 1 December 2017. Retrieved 23 March 2019– via www.rottentomatoes.com.
  6. ↑ "CinemaScore". CinemaScore. Archived from the original on April 13, 2022. Retrieved April 16, 2022.
  7. ↑ Kempley, Rita (July 10, 1996). "'Harriet the Spy': A Growing Pain". The Washington Post . Archived from the original on August 10, 1997.
  8. ↑ Ebert, Roger (July 12, 1996). "Harriet the Spy". Chicago Sun-Times . Archived from the original on December 11, 2017.
  9. ↑ Gleiberman, Owen (July 19, 1996). "Harriet the Spy review: Read EW's original 1996 take". Entertainment Weekly . Archived from the original on July 7, 2018.
  10. ↑ "'Harriet': A Smart-Kid Film with Some Tough Lessons". Los Angeles Times . Los Angeles, California. July 10, 1996. pp. F4–F5 – via Newspapers.com. Open Access logo PLoS transparent.svg
  11. ↑ Shulgasser, Barbara (July 10, 1996). "Harriet the nosy". The San Francisco Examiner . San Francisco, California. Archived from the original on February 1, 2014.
  12. ↑ Shaw, Jessica (May 2, 1997). "Celebrities turn out for the Kid's Choice Awards". Entertainment Weekly . Archived from the original on April 26, 2019.
  13. ↑ "Eighteenth Annual Youth in Film Awards". Young Artist Awards . Archived from the original on August 18, 2000.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.