- A mother encourages Ziggy, her teen daughter, to grow up quickly, and her boyfriend recruits Ziggy into his racket. Living fast and loose, Ziggy is soon a single mother herself.
- 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 need 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 her and proposes marriage. To ensure that Mart knows her background, Ziggy introduces him to Natalie (at her worst), but Mart 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) boardinghouse. 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. Returning from a date, Ziggy finds the baby's crib vacant. In her absence the babysitter had gone out to her boyfriend's car for some heavy necking and the baby had almost choked to death before being discovered by Mrs. Merryman, who promptly called the police. At the trial, the babysitter denies responsibility (negligence-of-duty) and Ziggy loses custody of her baby. The new-and-thoughtful Denny will have nothing to do with Ziggy, although his mother, knowing that Denny and Ziggy really love each other, tries to bring them together--but Ziggy has disappeared. Having moved to another boardinghouse, she drops by a church and finds an abandoned baby. Denny finds her and the baby sunning in a park and is impressed and thinks she's become the perfect mother. With Denny's help, Ziggy appeals her case 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.
- On Mother's Day, 1946, in San Francisco, Ziggy Brennan thinks back on the events which have brought her to this day: In 1938, young Ziggy's mother Natalie makes her pretend they are sisters and call her Nat, and teaches her how to trick men into giving her money. By the time she is a young adult, Ziggy's ambition and wiles attract a fellow con artist, Denny Reagan. Although Denny's pious mother worries for his soul and donates all the money he gives her to the church, he continues to work scams, and convinces Ziggy to help him. One evening at a nightclub, Ziggy meets a simple, handsome soldier, Mart Neilson, whose watch Denny admires. Ziggy steals it, but Denny later sees the watch's inscription from Mart's mother, and demands Ziggy return it. When she finds Mart, he insists that she date him, and although she admits that she stole the watch and brings him to spy on her mother as she cons a man into giving her money, Mart continues to love Ziggy. Days later, they marry and Ziggy becomes pregnant, but Mart is soon killed in combat. Around the same time, Denny is arrested and sent to the penitentiary. Soon after, Nat decides to marry and tells Ziggy to find her own apartment. When the baby, Martha, is born, the neighbors help Ziggy learn to care for her. Ziggy loves Martha, but continues to remember her mother's scornful prediction that she will be a bad mother who will only want to carouse. When a teenager, Olivette, offers to babysit, Ziggy hires her and begins to go out nightly, unaware that Olivette is leaving the baby alone as soon as she falls asleep. When Martha is eight months old, Denny is released from prison and visits Ziggy. He has reformed and wants her to do the same, and together they care for Martha during the day and go out each night. One night, Olivette leaves with her boyfriend and Martha falls out of her crib and almost chokes to death on the sheets. After Ziggy's landlady sends Martha to the juvenile authorities, Ziggy attacks her and is arrested. During her trial, Ziggy's neighbors accuse her of being neglectful, and the court places Martha in an orphanage. Denny shuns Ziggy for being a bad mother, and she soon becomes despondent. After Ziggy spurns Denny's mother's offer of help, she runs to the church. There she finds an abandoned child on a pew and takes him home. Months later, Denny is about to leave for Florida when he passes by Golden Gate Park and sees Ziggy with the baby, Denny, Jr. He checks up on her and, upon discovering that she is a model mother, begins a relationship with her again. Soon, Ziggy returns to the court, where the judge admonishes her for taking in a child but recognizes that she has become a devoted mother and returns Martha to her care. After Denny, Ziggy, Martha and Denny, Jr. leave the courthouse together, he asks her to marry him.
Contribute to this page
Suggest an edit or add missing content