The Brat (1931)
A society novelist brings a brash young chorus girl home in order to study her for inspiration for his new novel. His family is distraught, but soon her behavior has forever altered their snobbish ways.
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Thanks for the memories!
Brilliant and touching
It's hard to see any effort in the film. There's no comedy to speak of, no real drama and, worst of all.
It's the kind of movie you'll want to see a second time with someone who hasn't seen it yet, to remember what it was like to watch it for the first time.
Alan Dinehart is an author looking to draw inspiration from reality, so he pays the court costs of Sally O'Neill, and takes her home in this Pygmalion story.Everyone is good in their role: Miss O'Neill as the rough-and-tumble Brat, Dinehart as the snobby and increasingly unlikable author. Albert Gran is fine as the live-in bishop and J. Farrel MacDonald, a Ford regular. Joseph August's camera-work is as good as it's ever been, particularly in the opening sequence at night court. However, the show creaks as a sort of cut-rate version of George Bernard Shaw's version of the Greek myth.The problem is that, except for MacDonald's relationship with Frank Albertson, playing Dinehart's put-upon and whiny younger brother, this movie does not play to any of Ford's strength. With the coming of sound he had to learn to direct anew, and took this as another assignment. The result is another rote production with the excellent camera-work that distinguished Fox productions in this period as its only point of interest to anyone not interested in seeing everything that John Ford directed.