Before leaving, Golly encourages Harriet not to give up on her love of observing people and promises to be the first to buy an autographed copy of Harriet's first novel. But Golly concedes that it is time Harriet were on her own. But when the three return home late in the evening, Violetta becomes enraged at Golly that she had let Harriet stay out past her curfew and she fires her. One night when Harriet's parents are out, Golly invites her friend George to dinner which she burns, so the three go out for dinner and a movie. Harriet and her best friends Simon 'Sport' Rocque and Janie Gibbs are enemies with elitist rich girl, editor of the sixth-grade newspaper, and class president Marion Hawthorne. Welsch lives a privileged life in New York City with her parents, Violetta and Ben, and her nanny, Catherine 'Ole Golly', in whom Harriet confides. The film was released on home video on February 25, 1997, with an orange clamshell packaging.Įleven-year-old aspiring spy and writer Harriet M.

It made $26.6 million worldwide on a production budget of $12 million. The film was released in theaters on July 10, 1996. In theaters, the pilot episode of Hey Arnold! called Arnold was shown before the film. 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. 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.įilming began in the fall of 1994 in Toronto and was completed by the end of 1995.

Smith-Cameron, Gregory Smith, and Vanessa Lee Chester. 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.

Louise fitzhugh