Lágrimas d'Alma

Hmmm. This film takes a pretty long time to depict the tribulations of the eponymous, pretty and shallow girl "Ziggy" (Mona Freeman) who lives with her floozy mother "Natalie" (June Duprez). This sets the scenario for the film: she's a bit of a chancer who lives her life fleecing gents and committing petty larceny. When she alights on "Denny" (James Dunn), they up their game and start to illicitly divert the furniture of people moving house - quite a lucrative trade, as it turns out. There is a little hope for the girl, though - she falls in love with a naval officer who is content to let her put her past behind her. Sadly, though, he heads off to war and is killed leaving her, quite literally, holding the baby. Nope, we are not yet done with the calamities the befall the girl. Now, she rather thoughtlessly goes on a date, leaving her newborn baby alone in her lodgings; the bairn falls from her cot, is rescued by a neighbour and the ensuing tribunal removes the child from the care of "Ziggy". What can she do? On a very wet night, she finds herself outside a church. In she goes, hoping to find some spiritual comfort and instead finds a baby abandoned on a pew - this is her Damascan moment, and you can easily guess the rest. There is an element of salvation, eventually, but otherwise this is really quite a dreary tale of a self-destructive character that engenders very little sympathy over a long 95 minutes. Freeman tries hard with the part, but she doesn't really click for me - a sort of poor man's Jean Simmons. Frank Jinks is quite engaging as the cabbie "Joe", perhaps the only one in the whole film with any semblance of decency, otherwise it's just an unremarkable melodrama.

The title role in That Brennan Girl is played by Mona Freeman who learned early and hard to be a cynic. This was a loan out role for Freeman for this Republic production because at her home studio of Paramount she was normallyy playing sweet young ingenues.

Freeman has a great example set to her by her mother June Duprez who says land a man with a bank account and hang on tight. Still she's a romantic sort and does fall for sailor William Marshall.

It all ends tragically for her when Marshall is killed during the war. But he's left something behind and that forces an attitude readjustment.

Top billed however in That Brennan Girl is James Dunn who was a lead in the 30s with Fox but who gradually fell out of top tier parts and studios due to a drinking problem. But winning an Oscar for A Tree Grows In Brooklyn the previous year gave his career a temporary rebound.

He's an Irish-American gangster who's between Duprez's and Freeman's age sparks an interest in both. He too undergoes a change in life as only a stretch in the joint might affect some. In many ways this is similar to the part he played in A Tree Grows In Brooklyn.

Freeman is the real revelation here. You won't find her in too many roles like this one.

Raised by a flamboyant and irresponsible mother, Ziggy Brennan (played by Mona Freeman) gets involved in hustling men at a young age. She hangs around with a wild crowd and learns gets her "street smarts" first from her mother (who wants everyone to think they are sisters) then from an older man. He starts teaching her his tricks of the trade and she falls right in line with his crooked ways. Then one night she meets a tall, handsome, honest farmer boy who's a soldier and they fall in love. While he's away fighting the war, she discovers she's pregnant.

I won't say more so as not to spoil it. But I found the ethics that this film teaches to be something sorely missing in our films nowadays. Suffice it to say that even though she goes through some heartbreaking experiences, she reforms her ways and there is a happy ending.

Probably not a film that most young people would enjoy. Not any action and some parts drag a bit, but it's Frank Capra type of message left me with a good feeling. Baby-boomers will most likely love it.

This is an odd film, coming as it does from Republic Pictures, a studio not noted for taking chances on serious psychological subjects. The film is inhibited by the censorship of the time and lack of real courage by Republic. The studio washed over the troubled upbringing and its obvious repercussions on the character of a young woman brought up by a slatternly mother. Mona Freeman, young as she was, is the best actor here. She is quite believable (most of time) despite the erratic and often improbable plotting. Great effort is made throughout the film to make the seedy characters who inhabit such a world likable and sympathetic. James Dunne, for example, is first introduced as a cunning crooked gangster, but, as he loves his corn beef and cabbage mom, he turns out okay. After being sent to prison for crimes we never learn about, he suddenly sets out to redeem himself. Why? Many of the characters are badly written, or badly acted. English actress, June Duprez has no idea what her tough lady dialogue means and is totally miscast. William Marshall, Mona's husband, is dreadful and not particularly attractive. He, too, seems to be reading lines he doesn't understand. Director Alfred Santell does a workman like job of staging an enormity of scenes with the usual Republic shooting schedule and budget, but the complexity of the relationships is beyond his modest talents. There was the possibility of a great movie here. Look at MILDRED PIERCE in the hands of Michael Curtiz, and imagine what a better director and superior cast might have done with this interesting human story.

I saw this film last night on Youtube and it's remarkably good. Mona Freeman gives a stunning performance as Ziggy, the young and troubled heroine of the movie.

This is the kind of part that somebody like Jean Simmons or even Audrey Hepburn might have fitted well into. And Mona Freeman's acting here stands up to anything they might have done in the part. The rest of the cast are equally fine. Had this movie been made by one of the bigger studios of the day it would,I think, have been better none. It certainly deserves to be better none as it's definitely more than a B picture.