The Beloved Brat

In the title role, Bonita Granville appears about as lovable as she'd been two years earlier in "These Three." A brat: Yes. Beloved? Not really. Not by the audience and not by her family.

She gets into mischief of an increasingly serious nature. Her self-involved wealthy parents are given the option of sending her to a school that seems to be a step above reform school.

The luminous Dolores Costello is employed there. Oh, who can forget her heartbreaking performance a few years later in "The Magnificent Ambersons"? She's very good here too.

All the acting is at least decent and often more than that.

From the beginning we see that Granville's character is the monster she is because no one -- not even her parents' servants -- likes or pays real attention to her. It's far from a great movie but it's also better than one would expect.

This film is unexpectedly relevant to what is happening today, 70 years later, as the Western world is being flooded with spoilt 'Frankenkinder' and China is being flooded with even more spoilt 'little emperors'. This is a very gritty tale written by the Romanian refugee Jean Negulesco, before he had begun to direct films. Negulesco did not write the script, and I suspect that was softened, and the ending made more sentimental than in his original story, in order to be more 'audience friendly'. Bonita Granville, a highly talented young actress of the time (best known for her four Nancy Drew mystery films, in which she excelled when she was somewhat older), plays the neglected daughter of a truly appalling spoilt rich couple. The mother is the worst sort, many of whom I have had the misfortune to know and who are more common than ever today; her interest is herself, and a child is at best an accessory and at worst a nuisance to be disposed of to servants and then to a boarding school. In her case, however, she did not even have the excuse of being a 'killer career woman', but was merely an idle and vain social snob. The father is only interested in making money, and is always out doing so. This leaves the normally charming Bonita, who has a great deal of fire to her character, to rebel and become in protest a hideously spoilt brat, and eventually even a delinquent entangled in a crime. This process is clearly shown, to a degree not at all normal in Hollywood films, where false sentimentality was the usual way to view children. Bonita Granville rises to the challenge extremely well, not hesitating to make herself as odious as necessary. There is a very wicked butler who torments the girl secretly, there is a very nice male secretary who tries to help her, and eventually an angelic school headmistress who wishes to save her. The film is really a very savage attack on the idle rich and their family victims. Negulesco, who had been a 'companion to rich older women' at Nice before coming to Hollywood, was clearly describing a woman of precisely the type he had known personally, with a rich absent husband and a victimized daughter such as he must have observed at first hand. It is a bitter tale, and honestly done except for the ending.

It was fun, at first, to see the lead character acting like a complete brat. Refreshing to see black kids treated like normal kids, instead of racist stereotypes. Though I have to point out their mom doesn't get off so lightly. Nevertheless, Stymie Beard steals those early scenes. That kid had amazing comedic chops.

I didn't lose my mind when the Brat was responsible for vehicular manslaughter because, well, this is make-believe.

But she is such a relentless brat that it got tiresome. The only thing that kept me watching in the second half was Dolores Costello.

Wouldn't watch again.

BONITA GRANVILLE specialized in playing brattish kid sister roles throughout most of the '30s (when she wasn't playing Nancy Drew), and this is one of her more insufferable roles as a rich brat given to tossing dinner trays out the window when in a huff.

She plays the neglected daughter of DONALD CRISP, only instead of pouting the way Shirley Temple would do under these "dire" circumstances, Bonita takes a feistier approach, talking back to the house servants and refusing to eat her spinach with much more vehemence than Shirley ever showed.

She befriends a black boy, only because he promises to teach her how to use his rifle. LEO GORCEY turns up as another unlikely companion for the poor little rich girl and from then on the film becomes pretty unwatchable as Bonita is taught a thing or two about changing her snobbish ways.

By the time the plot gets any thicker, Bonita has totally lost the patience of her parents as well as the viewer. Too bad Warner Bros. couldn't come up with better scripts for their child star instead of casting her in these insipid programmers that are enough to wear anyone's patience.

Any resemblance to the real world is purely coincidental.

Trivia note: The script was written by Jean Negulesco, who later made a much better director than screenwriter.

Roberta Morgan (Bonita Granville) has wealthy parents who don't care much about her. She is forced to give up a puppy for embarrassing her mother. She acts out against the household help. She befriends black siblings, Pinkie White and his sister Arabella. She is impressed with their loving family. She acts out more when Jenkins the butler kicks out her guest Pinkie.

I don't know the old time definition of brat. She's not really bratty in the modern sense for the first half hour. She's more a poor little rich girl. Of course, the fire is very bratty and the perjury is unforgiveable. In the end, Roberta is a conflicted character. The turns are abrupt. I would have preferred a simply runaway story and Pinkie can help her return home. The story leaves me a little unsatisfied. Leo Gorcey does have a good scene looking like his Dead End Kid. Granville is a fine young sassy actress. So I like the first half but the second half is not as compelling.