"Two Alone" (1934) is definitely a pre-code film, although it's agrarian setting and well-meaning script would soon be the fallback position for the studios as the silly Hays Code was about to descend on them. The sophistication level of these pre-code films is quite startling and it is fun to pick out the scenes and sequences that would not have made the cut (pun intended) had it been scheduled for a 1935 release.
Jean Parker (fresh-faced and fresh-from-playing Beth in "Little Women") has the top billing and is on screen for about 80% of the running time. I didn't mind. She is paired off romantically with Tom Brown; known back then as the "Buster Brown Shoe Kid" because as a child he had posed in costume for their advertisements. It's one of the better young love combinations and the film's main strength. Parker's full face was more "interesting-beautiful" than it was "Loretta-Young-perfect"; and probably connected to viewers because of it's multi-dimensionality (she seems like an entirely different person with each expression). One thing to watch for is the surprising number of close-ups of Parker, more than I recall ever seeing in a film of this vintage. This technique gives the film a more modern look and should help viewers to quickly buy into Parker's character, and even bond with her.
Mazie (Parker) has been taken out of an orphanage to help out on a local farm. The farm family is appropriately named the Slag's and Mazie's position is much like that of "Cinderella" before she got her fairy Godmother. Beulah Bondi plays Mrs. Slag, a character not nearly as sympathetic as her best-known roles (Jimmie Stewart's mother in "Mr. Deed's" and "It's a Wonderful Life").
In a departure from "Cinderella", Mr. Slag has the hots for Mazie (I said this was pre-code), first revealed when they show him watching her bathe in a nearby pond. He chases away George Marshall, his farmhand and Mazie's only friend, when he suspects that there might be romantic sparks (a surprise twist will later explain this). And he tries to keep anything from developing between Mazie and Adam (Brown); a reformatory escapee who Slag exploits for free farm labor. That Slag is quite a guy!
Despite all the obstacles Mazie and Adam fall in love. When Slag learns that Mazie is about to be an unmarried mother he becomes unglued as the film speeds to its action-packed climax.
A very young Edith Fellows (a few years before she hit the big time as Polly Pepper) appears briefly in two scenes late in the film. Zasu Pitts gets high billing in the credits but is only in a couple of mildly funny early scenes; playing off her perpetually drunk father (Charley Grapewin who you may recognize as Uncle Henry in "The Wizard of Oz" and Grandpa in "The Grapes of Wrath").
There's not much comedy or overwrought melodrama here. But Parker and Brown make a nice couple and their romance feels right. Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.
Jean Parker (fresh-faced and fresh-from-playing Beth in "Little Women") has the top billing and is on screen for about 80% of the running time. I didn't mind. She is paired off romantically with Tom Brown; known back then as the "Buster Brown Shoe Kid" because as a child he had posed in costume for their advertisements. It's one of the better young love combinations and the film's main strength. Parker's full face was more "interesting-beautiful" than it was "Loretta-Young-perfect"; and probably connected to viewers because of it's multi-dimensionality (she seems like an entirely different person with each expression). One thing to watch for is the surprising number of close-ups of Parker, more than I recall ever seeing in a film of this vintage. This technique gives the film a more modern look and should help viewers to quickly buy into Parker's character, and even bond with her.
Mazie (Parker) has been taken out of an orphanage to help out on a local farm. The farm family is appropriately named the Slag's and Mazie's position is much like that of "Cinderella" before she got her fairy Godmother. Beulah Bondi plays Mrs. Slag, a character not nearly as sympathetic as her best-known roles (Jimmie Stewart's mother in "Mr. Deed's" and "It's a Wonderful Life").
In a departure from "Cinderella", Mr. Slag has the hots for Mazie (I said this was pre-code), first revealed when they show him watching her bathe in a nearby pond. He chases away George Marshall, his farmhand and Mazie's only friend, when he suspects that there might be romantic sparks (a surprise twist will later explain this). And he tries to keep anything from developing between Mazie and Adam (Brown); a reformatory escapee who Slag exploits for free farm labor. That Slag is quite a guy!
Despite all the obstacles Mazie and Adam fall in love. When Slag learns that Mazie is about to be an unmarried mother he becomes unglued as the film speeds to its action-packed climax.
A very young Edith Fellows (a few years before she hit the big time as Polly Pepper) appears briefly in two scenes late in the film. Zasu Pitts gets high billing in the credits but is only in a couple of mildly funny early scenes; playing off her perpetually drunk father (Charley Grapewin who you may recognize as Uncle Henry in "The Wizard of Oz" and Grandpa in "The Grapes of Wrath").
There's not much comedy or overwrought melodrama here. But Parker and Brown make a nice couple and their romance feels right. Then again, what do I know? I'm only a child.