Matrixston Wow! Such a good movie.

Solemplex To me, this movie is perfection.

Stephan Hammond It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,

Zlatica One of the worst ways to make a cult movie is to set out to make a cult movie.

boblipton Mona Freeman was brought up by a tough, money-hungry, shady, single mother -- June Duprez in quite a change from her role in THE THIEF OF BAGDAD -- and soon falls in with grifting James Dunn. When she steals a watch from a drunk military man, Dunn shows some patriotism and tells her to give it back.... and she winds up married, a war widow and struggling to keep her baby in this movie directed by Alfred Santell.Miss Freeman was 20 when she made this movie, but she always seemed younger than she was, a factor which hampered her screen career; in this, she looks quite convincing in the opening scene as a 14-year-old girl buying a flower for her mother. She gives a fine, layered performance, but the script, from a story by Adele Rogers St. John, tries to cover too many bases, half tough-girl drama, half weepy-mother-loses-baby soap, with a dose of judicial moralizing and a dash of miraculous intervention. As a result, her characterization, and that of James Dunn, fresh off an Academy Award win for A TREE GROWS IN BROOKLYN may seem not so much nuanced as inconsistent.I think not. I think it's a good movie, although I find the first half more interesting. That, however, is largely because I don't care for weepy melodramas. Judging by the record, no one was particularly impressed by this picture at the time. Dunn's career resumed its slide, aided by alcoholism; Freeman worked in minor movies for another ten years, then in television until 1972; and Santell, whose directorial career had begun in 1916, and who lived until 1981, never directed another movie.

kidboots When Mona Freeman was given a chance to expand her range on "That Brennan Girl" she jumped at the chance. In the Adela Rogers St. John story she was required to age from 11 to 25 but critics weren't impressed and felt her performance didn't rise to the weighty story. The truth was she looked too young and that seemed to be why her career never got off the ground. Her first part was going to be as Barbara Stanwyck's step daughter in "Double Indemnity" but she was replaced as she photographed like a young teen, another part that was taken from her was as Elizabeth Taylor's older sister in "National Velvet", she was thought to look younger than Taylor so Angela Lansbury replaced her.If Freeman looked too young - she makes poor James Dunn look ancient!! With his weather beaten face (courtesy of too much alcohol) he looked just too old and careworn to be playing a hot shot con man full of big ideas! He didn't win an Academy Award for nothing (although it did nothing to boost his career) and he really comes into his own and gives out some Irish charm in the scenes with his mother.This film is a showcase for Mona and from the time she is introduced as her mother's sister she becomes an eager pupil for her mother's creed - which is "don't let your looks go to waste, take men for everything you can get and you can never start too young"!!! After being expelled from school she is plunged into Natalie's world and catches the eye of fast talking Denny (Dunn) who gives her a job convincing customers (usually older, well heeled ones) that when moving house they simply must use "Denny's Removalists" - and that is usually the last people see of their precious possessions!!When Ziggy meets naval officer, Martin Neilson, she falls for his obvious sincerity but when she finds herself a war widow with a baby it is all too easy to slip back into club life. This movie has more plots than a "soapie" and you just know things are not going to be good when the young high school girl (Shirley Mills) that Ziggy has hired is keener to go riding with the boys than stay put looking after the baby. The juvenile authorities are alerted and suddenly Ziggy is up before a judge on a suspended sentence and the baby is in care!!It was a big stretch to have beautiful June Duprez (for whom Technicolor seemed to be made ie "The Four Feathers", "The Thief of Bagdad" etc) and who was only 8 years older than Mona Freeman having to play her mother!! She pulled it off though, looking like a big sister in the first scenes but later looking much older as her playgirl lifestyle catches up with her. She was British but quickly went to Hollywood to cash in on her fame and as the British equivalent to Maria Montez but unfortunately her agent asked for too high a salary and she found herself almost unemployable.

MartinHafer When I say that this is a strange film, this is not an insult. It's just one of those rare films that you can't categorize and is like nothing else.Mona Freeman plays 'Ziggy' Brennan--a young and very irresponsible young lady. The film then goes back in time and you see how she developed into the seemingly sociopathic lady she'd become when the film began. Her mother had absolutely no motherly feelings towards her and Ziggy grew up finding mostly for herself. At first she's a nice kid but given her upbringing she soon spirals into a good-time girl and thief. Rather inexplicably, she falls in love with a nice sailor during the war but he's soon killed--leaving her pregnant and almost completely incompetent when it comes to parenting. Can she make a go of it or are she and the baby doomed? Tune in and see.The reason this is such an off film is that Freeman does not exactly play a sympathetic character and the story is, at least until late in the film, is unlike the usual Hollywood formulaic pieces. It does sink into sentimentality a tad at the end, but this worked as most really would not want to see a film with absolutely no sense of redemption or change. This is nice and the film is worth a look.

Leslie Howard Adams The film begins on Mother's Day, 1938 when 14-year-old Ziggy Brennan (Mona Freeman) buys a gardenia for her mother. Ziggy's youthful exuberance disappears when she enters their apartment and finds her mother, Natalie (June Duprez), drinking with a strange man. Natalie introduces Ziggy as her "sister" and quietly cautions Ziggy against calling her "mother." Later, dispensing some motherly-advice, Natalie tells Ziggy that if she learns all the tricks, she'll never have to work for a living. Ziggy goes right out and applies parts of this advice by stealing a valuable lapel pin from a fellow high-school student, and is promptly expelled from school.About five years later, Ziggy has made progress and meets Denny Reagan (James Dunn), who persuades her to go into his racket. Ziggy's role is to telephone people who are planning to move and make arrangements to provide a truck to move the furniture. The departing truck is the last that the owners see of their furniture as it is taken to a warehouse and sold by Denny and his gang.Hanging out in a nightclub one evening, circa 1943, the still-underage Ziggy flirts with a young naval officer from Minnesota, Mart Neilson (William Marshall), who promptly falls in love with Ziggy and proposes marriage. Ziggy, to ensure that Mart knows her background, introduces him to Natalie (at her worst), but Mart doesn't change his mind and still insists on the marriage. Shortly after the wedding ceremony, Mart is shipped out to war-duty and is killed in action.Ziggy learns that she is expecting a baby, while the law catches up to Denny and ships him out to prison. Ziggy is still living with her mother but Natalie, horrified at the prospect of being a grandmother, kicks her out and Ziggy moves into Mrs. Merryman's (Rosalind Ivan) boarding-house. Ziggy has the baby and some time passes, circa 1944-45, and Ziggy---still making her nightclub rounds---runs into the just-paroled Denny. This Denny is a new-and-thoughtful version, and he does not approve of Ziggy leaving her baby with a sitter while she makes her rounds. Denny shows great interest in the baby and sees more and more of Ziggy. Returing from a date, Ziggy finds the baby's crib vacant. In her absence the baby-sitter had gone out to her boyfriend's car for some heavy necking and, in her absence, the baby had almost choked to death before being discovered by Mrs. Merryman, who promptly called the police.At the trial, the baby-sitter denies responsibility (negligence-of-duty)and Ziggy loses custody of her baby. The new-and-thoughtful Denny will have nothing to do with Ziggy, even though his mother (Dorothy Vaughn), knowing that Denny and Ziggy really love each other tries to bring them together. But...Ziggy has disappeared.Ziggy, having moved to another boardinghouse, drops by a church and, plot-wise convenient, promptly finds an abandoned baby. Later, Denny finds her, while she and the baby are sunning in a park, and he is greatly impressed with new-and-thoughtful mother-instincts, and he is convinced that she has become a perfect mother.With Denny's help, Ziggy appeals her case in order to regain custody of her own child and, when the judge learns that she has been caring for an abandoned baby, he is much impressed and returns her own infant to her. (Most judges would have inquired as to why she didn't drop off the abandoned-baby at the nearest abandoned-baby sub-station but that wouldn't have made for the happy ending with Ziggy and Denny and "their" two babies looking forward to a bight-and-happy future together.)This May-December pairing of Dunn and Freeman came when Dunn was 45---and looking every day of it---and Freeman was twenty--and still looking fourteen. Dorothy Vaughn, who played Dunn's mother, was only eleven years older than Dunn. But this was before the days when actors could bombard the IMDb with requests-slash-demands to change their actual birth-dates, and in the days when real-good actors could play over-or-under their real age. The question wasn't how old are you, it was can you act? Evidently, some of the IMDb change-DOB demanders can't.This film was also one of the rare instances when Republic gave a studio-contract employee a Producer credit rather than the studio's standard Associate Producer credit.