The story concerns a young woman raised in an unwholesome environment who joins a confidence racket run by one of her mother's friends.

She mends her ways by devotedly caring for an abandoned infant and meets up again with the con man, who has also reformed after a prison stint, and together they build a new life.

The watch's inscription, showing it is a gift from the boy's mother, gives Denny a guilty conscience, so Ziggy returns it to Mart Neilson, the sailor.

Dunn, who had won an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance as an alcoholic father in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn (1945), here played "a daring, but sentimental young gangster".

[8] Unable to find a suitable house in San Francisco, the film crew used a stately Old California home in Pasadena for the scene in which the racketeers carry out an expensive sofa into their truck.

[10] The Chicago Tribune wrote: "Jimmy Dunn does as well as anyone could, considering the plot and the script, and Mona Freeman is appealing, but the whole business is leaden and definitely second class fare".

After Ziggy suffers for her hedonistic lifestyle and Denny serves time in prison, their reunion seems to convey that "their romance should be both logical and appealing".

[12] The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette called Dunn's performance "restrained and believable … [b]ut this role doesn't give him a chance to show the stuff he did in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn".

This is remarkable when you consider that she has to impersonate a thief, a devoted young mother, a brazen mantrap, an industrious housewife, a shoplifter, a war widow, a bar butterfly, a confidence woman and a specimen of fine womanhood, and all within 95 minutes.

The only way Republic could get this role played right would be to have Katharine Cornell, Helen Hayes, June Havoc and Ina Claire do it in relays.

[13] At the same time, it gave kudos to the performances of actresses June Duprez, Dorothy Vaughn, and Rosalind Ivan, calling the latter's portrayal of the landlady "excellent".

[13] The Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph also singled out actresses who played minor characters – including the babysitter (Shirley Mills in an uncredited role[1]), two lonely women, and an assortment of neighbors – for praise.

[18] The Pittsburgh Sun-Telegraph complimented Santell's "minor directorial flourishes", adding, "As a matter of fact, his contribution alone puts the picture into the general category of worth seeing".

[3] A re-mastered, restored print of That Brennan Girl by Paramount Pictures, The Film Foundation, and Martin Scorsese was screened at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in February 2018.