Line #1 Film/TheJourneyOfNattyGann


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/085c1e57_703e_4660_ab18_5d859f44384d.jpeg]]
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3	''The Journey of Natty Gann'' is a 1985 {{picaresque}} live-action Creator/{{Disney}} film starring Creator/MeredithSalenger, [[Creator/{{Jed}} Jed the Wolfdog]], Creator/RayWise, and Creator/JohnCusack in one of his earliest major roles.
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5	It's 1935, and with TheGreatDepression in full sway, finding a job is a matter of life and death. So when single dad Sol Gann (Wise) gets an offer to travel to the state of Washington to work as a logger, he can't possibly afford to refuse — even though it means leaving his daughter Natty (Salenger) behind in Chicago until he can afford to buy her a train ticket to come join him.
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7	Unfortunately, that takes time, and in the meantime everybody but Natty herself starts coming to the conclusion that she's been abandoned. When she realizes that she's about to be handed over into the custody of the state, Natty takes off on her own, hopping a train and heading west to try to find her father herself, no matter what obstacles she runs into along the way.
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9	----
10	!!The film includes examples of:
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12	* AdultsAreUseless: Mostly averted. While many of the adults Natty meets are unhelpful, so are many of the kids, and a few adults - such as Charlie the blacksmith and the woman at the milling operation - go out of their way to help her reunite with her father.
13	* AirVentPassageway: Natty escapes the reform school via ''some'' kind of vent, anyhow.
14	* AllForNothing: The blacksmith's assistance to Natty.
15	* AmplifiedAnimalAptitude: Wolf appears at times to be the smartest character in the whole film. Most notably, the first time Natty encounters him again after helping him escape into the woods, he brings her a freshly-killed rabbit, leads her across the wilderness to a farmhouse, and ''protects the farmer's chicken coop from foxes'' for no apparent reason beyond repaying the farmer and his wife for helping Natty.
16	* AndroclesLion: Natty wins Wolf's friendship by helping him escape the dogfighting ring and later giving him some of her food.
17	* AttemptedRape: G-rated version. A guy who gives Natty a ride in his truck tries to get way too friendly.
18	* BecauseYouWereNiceToMe: Wolf repays Natty for saving him from a dog fighting ring by acting as her companion and protector.
19	* BenevolentBoss: The logging foreman Sol works under gives him time off work to look for Natty, and while he allows him to take dangerous work after she's presumed dead, he tells Sol that "it won't bring her back."
20	* TheBlacksmith: Charlie, one of the few adults who goes out of his way to help Natty, works pounding iron.
21	* BoardingSchoolOfHorrors: Nattie is very briefly put into a reform school when she's arrested for stealing a cow.
22	* ABoyAndHisX: A girl and her wolf. The wolf is Natty's constant companion throughout the story, and the bond between them is one of the focal points of the movie
23	* BrainyBrunette: Natty may not be the most educated child, but she's still very street smart.
24	* CanineCompanion: Wolf again. He's portrayed by Jed, a wolfdog also known for his appearances in ''Film/WhiteFang'' and ''Film/TheThing1982''
25	* DaddysGirl: Particularly given the absence of her mother, Natty and her father are very close. She won't hear a negative word spoken about him and never once believes that he would intentionally abandon her.
26	* DeadpanSnarker: Harry.
27	* DeathSeeker: After he thinks Natty was killed in a train accident, Sol starts volunteering for the most dangerous jobs available.
28	* {{Delinquents}}: Natty briefly joins a gang of them while making her way to Washington. She joins them on a cattle rustling job and is caught by the authorities.
29	* ADogNamedDog: A wolf named Wolf.
30	* EstablishingCharacterMoment: Several:
31	** Natty is first seen [[OneOfTheBoys sneaking off to a bathroom to smoke a cigarette with several boys of about her age]], and getting into a fistfight with one [[DaddysGirl when he calls her father a "commie."]]
32	** [[JerkWithAHeartOfGold Harry]] saves Natty from falling under the wheels of a moving train, and though he's curt to her himself, he admonishes the other men in the train car to stop scaring her. They don't say another word.
33	* EvilDetectingDog: Wolf ''always'' knows when trouble is coming.
34	* EvilOrphanageLady: Natty is briefly dumped into an orphanage run by such a lady.
35	* GentleGiant / TheGrotesque: Charlie the blacksmith is a huge guy, a huge sweetheart, and has a partially-melted face.
36	* GoodScarsEvilScars: Averted. Charlie has nasty burn scars covering one whole side of his face, but he's one of the nicest and most sympathetic adults Natty meets on her journey, despite his initial gruffness.
37	* TheGreatDepression: The setting, and the reason that Sol has to go from Illinois to Washington - he can't afford to pass up the chance at paying work.
38	* HeroesLoveDogs: Prior to rescuing Wolf, Natty is also seen adopting a stray puppy, which dialogue indicates is only the latest one that she's tried to bring home.
39	* HeroicBSOD: Sol doesn't take it well when he thinks that Natty has been killed.
40	* {{Hobos}}: Harry has been riding the rails for some time looking for work. Other hobos appear sporadically throughout as well, including an entire shantytown (or [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hooverville "hooverville"]], as they were sometimes known) where Harry and Natty are reunited.
41	* {{Irony}}: Harry notes that the people who raid and burn down the Hooverville where he and Natty reunite are "Law-abiding citizens" and some of the town's elite.
42	* JerkWithAHeartOfGold: Harry, whose jerk veneer is pretty thin.
43	* MissingMom: Natty's mother died at some point prior to the film.
44	* MisunderstoodLonerWithAHeartOfGold: Charlie.
45	* NobleWolf: Wolf seems smarter than some humans and he repays debts of kindness to others, such as Natty for rescuing him and the farmer family for aiding Natty.
46	* OneOfTheBoys: Natty is a complete tomboy and is shown hanging out with boys rather than girls while she's living in Chicago.
47	* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: The girl at the reform school who befriends Natty and aids in her escape is only known as Twinky.
48	* ParentalAbandonment: Invoked. Characters regularly assume that Sol has simply abandoned Natty. She insists that he'd never do that.
49	* {{Picaresque}}: The misadventures and scrapes Natty gets into on her journey
50	* PluckyGirl: Natty.
51	* RedScare: Sol's pro-labor speeches and organizing has led at least a few other characters to think that he's a "Commie." Sol denies the label when Natty asks him if he is one.
52	* SearchingForTheLostRelative: Natty is searching for her father. He's taken a job as a logger out west, but couldn't bring her with him and was forced to leave her in Chicago. But he's gone for so long that the authorities are about to make Natty a ward of the state because they think she's been abandoned, so she runs away to find her father herself. Her father, meanwhile, learns of her plight and starts searching for her; this gets complicated when he's mistakenly led to believe she was killed in a train wreck.
53	* SceneryPorn: While trying to reach her father, Natty travels through some gorgeous mountains and prairies that go on and on, although this is occasionally deconstructed with a NatureIsNotNice moment, such as when she nearly freezes during a sudden rainstorm.
54	* SheCleansUpNicely: It doesn't even take a change of clothes; Harry is visibly startled the first time he sees Natty after she's had a chance to wash her face and comb her hair.
55	* ShooTheDog: Ultimately, Natty encourages Wolf to return to the wild, though the final scene shows he's still watching over her from a distance.
56	* SmallRoleBigImpact: Connie is directly responsible for the movie's plot and conflict by driving Natty to run away, but her presence in the movie is limited to four minutes of screen-time and two {{Newhart phone call}}s.
57	* TomboyishName: "Natty" is short for "Natalie Sue."
58	* TooDumbToLive: The guy who tries to molest Natty ''while he's driving a truck'' and she has a wolf in the back.
59	* TwoGirlsToATeam: The group of juvenile cattle rustlers Natty briefly joins has one other girl in it.
60	* TrainStationGoodbye: At a bus station instead of a train station, when Harry departs for California.
61	* UndyingLoyalty: Wolf towards Natty. [[spoiler: Even after she sends him off to return with his kind, the end shows he's still watching over her as she and her father reunite.]]
62	* VitriolicBestBuds: Natty and her friend Louie get Into a fist fight over the their respective fathers opinions. However, when Natty sees his family being evicted, she's devastated, calling out words of support and joining the crowd throwing rocks at the officers evicting the family.

Context Film / TheJourneyOfNattyGann