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.

Along with a few other reviewers, I caught this last night as part of TCM's spotlight on the restored films of the long defunct Republic Studios. Aside from its John Wayne vehicles, Republic was known as a 2nd tier studio with limited budgets and usually rented/free agent acting talent. "That Brennan Girl" is example of one its budgeted melodramas with a cast of talents on the downside of their careers.The plot: Set in 1930's-40's San Francisco when it was known for its large Irish-American population, young teenager "Ziggy Brennan" (Mona Freeman) is raised by her cynical single mother, "Nat" (June Duprez), to use her good looks and feminine charms to take what she can get out of sap-hearted men. By the time she's in her late teens, Ziggy is a petty thief and con-artist who enjoys a good time drinking and clubbing. During one of her soirees, she runs into "Denny Reagan" (James Dunn) a middle-aged grifter who quickly IDs her as a fellow con and employs her in his scams. Although presenting himself to the world as a hard-hearted cynic, Reagan is devoted to his kindly mother (Dorothy Vaughan) from whom he hides his actual profession. And it's his affection for his mother that leads him to cause Ziggy to make a life-changing decision when he urges her to return an item she stole off a sailor on shore-leave, "Mart Neilson" (William Marshall).That leads to Ziggy and Neilson marrying, but soon leaving her a widow with a baby. Although she loves her child, Ziggy is still a girl herself and has no clue how to be a good mother. She struggles with her desire to enjoy being young and pretty and her new responsibilities. Along the way, Denny, who has received a harsh wake-up call as to his career decisions, tries to help steer her towards the straight and narrow, but can she depart the mold that her mother created for her?This was an odd movie. It starts out as a fairly interesting character study of a girl being sent down a tough path by a misguided parent, but ends-up as a fairy-tale about broken people finding love, happiness, and babies. The disjointed and rather silly 3rd act hurts the film.The casting is odd. June Duprez as Mother Brennan was definitely cast against type. Remembered for playing aristocratic, well-mannered beauties in the British classics: "The Thief of Bagdad" (1940) and "The Four Feathers" (1939), here she is playing a cynical slattern who lies about her daughter being her sister and wants no part of being a grandmother. James Dunn trying to cash-in on his career performance in 1945's "A Tree Grows in Brooklyn" got top billing and certainly plays well the role of an Irish-American charmer, but the ridiculous disparity in age between himself and Miss Freeman undermines their story arc.Still, it held my interest mainly due the performance of Miss Freeman. Apparently, the 20 year old Freeman had been chomping at the bit to break-out of the teenage ingenue roles that had so far been her film career. So, she leaped at the chance to play the sadder-but-wiser Ziggy. Although Ziggy is still a very young woman, she's no child. She dresses and acts like an adult although one that still has a lot to learn. Freeman does a very nice job with the role and her performance is the best thing about the film. (Also, she's very nice to look at especially in those 1940's outfits!) Sadly but understandably, "That Brennan Girl" didn't find an audience in 1946. So, it didn't help the struggling careers of Ms. Duprez or Mr. Dunn. And it certainly didn't help Miss Freeman escape playing wide-eyed teenagers. The movie she did immediately after this film, 1947's "Dear Ruth," saw her once again donning bobby-sox and saddle shoes and playing a 14-15 yr old child.

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.

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.