The New Pictures

Ourselves Alone (Gaumont-British), whose title is a free translation of the Gaelic Sinn Fein, differs from Hollywood investigations of that Irish revolutionary group by approaching it from a temperate and somewhat more realistic British viewpoint. Not entirely neglecting the poetry of The Informer and The Plough And The Stars or the star-crossed romance of Beloved Enemy, Ourselves Alone is concerned chiefly with the hard lot of the

Black-&-Tans, those hard-bitten ex-Army men who were sent to Ireland in 1920 to shoot it out with the Nationalist guerrillas. Irish County Inspector Hannay (John Lodge) and British Captain Wiltshire of the Royal Intelligence Corps (John Loder) both dedicated to preserving British law & order, have captured a pair of important emissaries from Sinn Fein headquarters but their lorry is hijacked by a mysterious local Sinn Fein chieftain named Commandant O'Dea (Niall MacGinnis). Neither suspects that O'Dea is the high spirited young brother of Maureen Elliot (Antoinette Cellier), the Irish girl with whom both are in love. Maureen does not suspect either, until Commandant O'Dea is surprised on a tip given by an informer, shot by Captain Wiltshire after Inspector Hannay's gun jams. When Maureen nevertheless helps Captain Wiltshire to escape a Sinn Fein trap, the Inspector realizes where her affections lie and, as a final gallant gesture, takes the blame for shooting her brother himself.

Briskly directed by Brian Desmond Hurst and flavored by a pawky Irish supporting cast, Ourselves Alone will relieve U. S. curiosity regarding Cinemactor John Davis Lodge, the grandson of a onetime Massachusetts Senator and brother of a present one, who left the law for an acting career five years ago. After an un-happy series of roles in Hollywood climaxed when he appeared opposite Marlene Dietrich in The Scarlet Empress in a neck-length wig, vigorous, clean-cut Cinemactor Lodge seems to have found a niche in British cinema. So pleased were his producers by his work in Ourselves Alone that he is now under a long-term starring contract. Already announced is Sensation, from Basil Dean's play Murder Gang, in which he will appear as a tough reporter.

Stella Dallas (Samuel Goldwyn) exhibits an aspect of class struggle which has recently been overlooked: the aspect of simple social climbing. Stella Martin (Barbara Stanwyck) is the daughter of one millworker and the sister of another but when an eccentric Harvard socialite comes to Millhampton and goes to work in his shirt sleeves, she sees a chance for advancement. Soon Stella and Stephen Dallas (John Boles) are married and the parents of a dimpled baby girl, whom they name Laurel.

Stella Dallas wants to be a lady. This is unfortunate because she lacks the capacity to become one. Thus, when she and Stephen go to a country club dance, Stella behaves like a guttersnipe; when Stephen gets a better job in New York she refuses to go with him because she feels that she can climb more safely if she stays at home. By the time little Laurel (Anne Shirley) is 13, it is 1933 but Stella and Stephen are not worrying about either the Depression or the New Deal. Still separated, they are worrying about little Laurel and what is to become of her. Laurel lives with her mother and visits her father during her holidays. On such trips she acquires a taste for genteel surroundings which her home environment fails to satisfy. Her mother's best friend is a rum-soaked bookmaker and Laurel's schoolmates shun the house.

The class war over poor little Laurel reaches its crisis when her mother takes her on a trip to a de luxe hotel. Here Laurel's playmates laugh at Stella Dallas' loud clothes and Stella overhears them. Moral of Stella Dallas is that bad manners and stupidity may conceal a heart of gold. Stella proves it when, instead of merely wearing quieter costumes, she solves the problem of little Laurel's future by sending her to live with her father and his new well-bred wife, going to watch Laurel's marriage to a sprig of aristocracy through a window which Laurel's foster mother had thoughtfully left uncurtained to the street.

If for Producer Sam Goldwyn Stella Dallas does not capture Warner Brothers' laurels as Hollywood's top investigators of the social scene, he is not likely to feel aggrieved. Producer Goldwyn was less interested in the class implications of Stella Dallas than in recreating a story which, filmed with Ronald Colman and Belle Bennett, made him a fortune in 1925, because cinemaddicts of all classes like to weep. If discriminating cinemaddicts find the point of view inherent in Stella Dallas somewhat irrelevant in 1937, they are almost sure to be outnumbered by less discriminating cinemaddicts who now, as they did twelve years ago, will find it dolefully delicious. Worst shot: Laurel Dallas, whose mother's atrocious habits of apparel are the first premise of the plot, responding to a compliment on the conspicuously good taste of her own dresses with the explanation that her mother makes them.

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