The Journey of Natty Gann

The Journey of Natty Gann is an American movie that was released in 1985 and directed by Jeremy Paul Kagan. Set in 1935, the movie tells the story of a young woman, Natty Gann (played by Meredith Salenger). Out of work, because of Great Depression-era unemployment, Natty's father Solomon, travels from Chicago, Illinois to the state of Washington to find work in the timber industry, leaving tomboyish Natty behind. Because Solomon is a widower and Natty has no living relatives, she is left in the care of Connie (Lainie Kazan), the insensitive woman who manages Natty's apartment building. After overhearing Connie reporting her as an abandoned child, Natty runs away to find her father on her own, embarking on a cross-country journey. Some troubles arise as she nearly gets killed by a train, and later when she falls in with a bad gang and framed for cattle rustling, which gets her remanded to a juvenille facility. She escapes and meets a sympathetic mountain man named Charlie, who gives her some money and advises her to get out of the area to avoid police pursuit. Along the way, she is befriended by a wolf whom she saves from a dogfight ring and travels with her for much of her voyage, has a brief, innocent romance with another unemployed man (John Cusack) who ultimately gets a job in California, and encounters various obstacles that test her courage, perseverance, and ingenuity.

Trivia
This is one of the few Disney films to have rough adult expressions. When Solomon is told of Natty's apparent death due to her wallet being found on the train tracks in Colorado, his reaction is "What the hell was she doing in Colorado?"