Beloved Brat (1938)

1938, near the end of Natalie’s career, but she manages to get a fairly big role in a major studio film(Warner Bros), although this is a quickie, only a little over an hour long. This movie is similar to her movie “What becomes of the Children” as it’s about parents to don’t care for their children and the children become bad or suffer. The star of this movie is Bonita Granville, of Nancy Drew fame, she plays the child who causes havoc for anyone around her because her parents don’t play with her and won’t let her have any friends and any fun. She tries to runaway but gets picked up by her butler who she hates, and causes them to wreck their car. The butler dies, she lies that it was her fault but out of gilt she tells the truth and is sent to a reform school. Slowly but surely she gets better and loves being at the reform school and then refuses to go home when her parents come back for her, but all ends well and the family is happily reunited. Not a great movie, but seeing Natalie in a bigger role, as the mother, was great to see, as always she did a fantastic job, she was always good playing not so nice people. She looked very beautiful, yet still a bit weird seeing her as a brunette, it makes her look older, but it worked here. I like Bonita Granville, she’s always a lot of fun, but she over acted a bit in this film, but still good.