Une fille perdue

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.

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.

James Dunn is way too old as a romantic partner for very young Monna Freeman, who is barely old enough to carry off her age and sophistication shifting role. Even in the 1940's I'll bet more than a few eyebrows were raised at the age inappropriateness; he looks almost old enough to be her grandfather. And June Duprez is too young to be the mother of a 20 year old girl; Duprez was 28 at the time.

Despite their age inappropriateness, all three are convincing in their acting. British Duprez does an excellent American accent. But the film's story is Hollywood moralistic nonsense - Catholic conservative, audience bait. And it suffers from having to adhere to Breen office censorship -- Ziggy's mother is obviously meant to be a prostitute and perhaps Ziggy as well, but they can't more than barely hint at that, and it weakens the story.

Also a minus - The Dunn character's stereotyical and theatrically phony Irish mother.

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.

The director Alfred Santell remains rather mysterious; his output ranging from moody black & white adaptations of Maxwell Anderson and Eugene O'Neill to Technicolor nonsense with Dorothy Lamour. A lot of people who consider themselves knowledgable about films have never heard of him. In 1946 he was considered important enough to include in the appendix at the back of Roger Manvell's 'Film', but twenty years later, despite still being alive, both he and this film (his last after breaking with Republic over a contract dispute in 1947) had fallen through the cracks in film history sufficiently to be omitted from both Andrew Sarris's 'American Cinema' and Maltin's 'TV Movies'.

Despite the twee title, it deserves consideration alongside other shoestring Republic 'art' movies like Orson Welles' 'Macbeth' and Frank Borzage's 'Moonrise', stylishly shot by Jack Marta (for whom it must have been a stimulating change from westerns), with an eccentric score by George Antheil and attractive lead performances by Mona Freeman and James Dunn (whose last lead this was, fifteen years after being launched by Borzage in the latter's Oscar-winning 'Bad Girl').