AllMovie

Sentimental, old-fashioned, and melodramatic, this bucolic romance from RKO remains fine viewing due mainly to some excellent performances by Arthur Byron and Beulah Bondi as the well-named Slags, penny-pinching farmers who keep orphaned Maizie (Jean Parker) more or less as a slave. When Maizie falls in love with reform school runaway Adam (Tom Brown), old man Slag suddenly exhibits a less than fatherly attitude towards his pretty ward (incongruously pretty, in fact, courtesy of an over-eager make-up artist). To escape molestation, Maizie teams up with Tom to locate George Marshall (Willard Robertson), a former farmhand whom Maizie had befriended. The latter, who has just learned that Maizie is his natural daughter, in on his way back to the Slags and just misses the fugitives. Meanwhile, the exhausted youngsters are caught by Slag and returned to the farm, where Maizie discovers that she is with child. Happily, Marshall turns up just in time to save his daughter and prospective son-in-law from the vengeful Slag, who is arrested for harboring a fugitive. A hurried happy ending leaves one question unsolved, however: Is Maizie's child young Adam's or is the father the nasty Mr. Slag? Based on Wild Birds, a prize-winning play by Dan Totheroh, Two Alone was a troubled production. Originally cast as Maizie, Dorothy Jordan became ill on location at Sonora, California, and had to be replaced by Jean Parker, whom RKO hastily borrowed from MGM. Unfortunately, the re-filming of Maizie's scenes more or less eliminated Zasu Pitts, who ended up completely wasted in a small role as the Slags' fluttery neighbor.