That Hagen Girl

That Hagen Girl is a 1947 American drama film directed by Peter Godfrey. The screenplay by Charles Hoffman was based on the novel by Edith Kneipple Roberts. The film focuses on small town teenage girl Mary Hagen Shirley Temple who gossips believe is the illegitimate daughter of former resident and lawyer Tom Bates Ronald Reagan. Lois Maxwell received a Golden Globe award for her performance.

Almost all prints of the film mysteriously disappeared from various film storage facilities and television stations as Ronald Reagan was becoming a prominent political figure. The film resurfaced in the 1990s with showings on Turner Classic Movies. Reagan considered it his least liked role. In her autobiography, Temple confirms that Reagan apparently detested his role and that it was a very difficult period in his life. After multiple retakes of a scene in which Reagans character rescues Temples from a suicide attempt by jumping into a river during a storm, Reagan collapsed. He was hospitalized in Cedars of Lebanon Hospital with viral pneumonia.The New York Times thought the script amateurish and of Reagan and Temple wrote, Ronald Reagan keeps as straight a face as he can while doing what must have struck him as the silliest job of his career ... but it is poor, little putupon Shirley who looks most ridiculous through it all. She acts with the mopish dejection of a schoolchild who has just been robbed of a twoscoop ice cream cone. ........

Source: Wikipedia