AllMovie

After several appearances as a "good girl," little Jane Withers returns to her patented screen brattiness in Gentle Julia. Based on a novel by Booth Tarkington, the film stars Withers as Florence Atwater, precocious kid-sister of flirtatious Julia Atwater (Marsha Hunt). After spending most of the film bedeviling Julia's hometown sweetheart Noble Dill (Tom Brown), Florence shows that she's really a good kid underneath it all by saving her sister from an unfortunate marriage to phoney-baloney city-slicker Mr. Crum (George Meeker). The film's comic high point is a fancy lawn party, which Florence sabotages by releasing a frightening array of bugs, mice and snakes. Gentle Julia represents Jane Withers' second co-starring appearance with her male counterpart, diminutive screen menace Jackie Searl (the two young actors, neither one of which were as nasty in real life as they could be on screen, got along splendidly).