We Are Not Alone is a 1939 American drama film directed by Edmund Goulding and starring Paul Muni, Jane Bryan, and Flora Robson. The film is based on the 1937 novel We Are Not Alone by James Hilton, who adapted his novel with Milton Krims.
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Plot
Dr. David Newcome lives in a small town in the English fenlands with his shrewish wife, idealistic son and elderly maid. One day he brings home a traveling theater performer who had attempted suicide. She eventually comes to live in the house as the child's governess. This, however, disrupts the balance of power in the home, as the wife fells that the governess is usurping her role as primare caregiver, while people in the village begin to talk about a possible affair between the governess and the doctor. This suspicion is only heightened after the July Crisis and the increase of Anti-German sentiment in the neighborhood, including the stoning of a German owned store.
After his son mixes up the medicine in bottles in his cabinet, his wife fatally overdoses on poison and both Dr. Newcome and Leni are put on trial.
Reception
Frank Nugent praised the film in his The New York Times review, writing "his [James Hilton's] We Are Not Alone emerges as a film of rare tenderness and beauty, compassionate and grave, possessed above all of the quality of serenity...one of the most soundly written films of the year, one of the best directed and, of course, one of the most brilliantly played."