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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I don't have all the words right now but this film is a work of art.
There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.
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.