"That Hagen Girl" is a fairly formulaic condemnation of small-town values. Mary Hagen is a young woman whose questionable parentage has caused her to be the subject of gossip and discrimination by the town elite. Her teacher, Miss Lane, tries to encourage her personal growth, the rest of the town conspires to keep her in her place as a second-class citizen, and her presumed real father returns to town to complicate things.
I watched this mainly to see Shirley Temple as an adult rather than a tyke and Lois Maxwell play something other than Miss Moneypenny. Temple is surprisingly pretty and her acting is at least as good as everyone else's in the picture. I found the romantic turnarounds a bit confusing, though -- young Ken turns into a spineless mama's boy, Miss Lane and Tom Bates decide they are just "good friends", and Bates (who for most of the movie is suspected to be Mary's father) is now in love with her! That was a little creepy and not terribly convincing. It's not a movie I would recommend exactly, but it was certainly watchable and of archival interest, if nothing else.
I watched this mainly to see Shirley Temple as an adult rather than a tyke and Lois Maxwell play something other than Miss Moneypenny. Temple is surprisingly pretty and her acting is at least as good as everyone else's in the picture. I found the romantic turnarounds a bit confusing, though -- young Ken turns into a spineless mama's boy, Miss Lane and Tom Bates decide they are just "good friends", and Bates (who for most of the movie is suspected to be Mary's father) is now in love with her! That was a little creepy and not terribly convincing. It's not a movie I would recommend exactly, but it was certainly watchable and of archival interest, if nothing else.