All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

Easily the biggest piece of Right wing non sense propaganda I ever saw.

The joyful confection is coated in a sparkly gloss, bright enough to gleam from the darkest, most cynical corners.

This was James Hilton's most upsetting novel, a parallel to Hans Fallada's "Was nun, kleiner Mann?" about the plight of small humble people at the mercy of a world of inhumanity. Paul Muni makes one of his finest performances ever as a good and decent but not very clever small town doctor, who is governed by a bit too orderly wife (Flora Robson), who doesn't like music, while Paul Muni actually plays the violin and does it well. As one of his patients he takes care of a young dancer who has broken a delicate bone, but she is foreign (Austrian) and has no one to turn to when she falls out of luck, deserted by her dancing company and attempting suicide in her abandoned despair. She proves to have a very good hand with children, and the doctor and his wife need a nanny for their young son (about 5 or 6), so even Flora welcomes her. But she becomes such good friends with both the son and the musical doctor, that Flora feels bypassed and takes action, ordering her to leave. There the trouble begins.It coincides with the outbreak of the first world war, and as an Austrian the delicate Jane Bryan finds herself a declared enemy in a very hostile country, where the small town folk don't hesitate to lynch local Germans. And so it goes from bad to worse.Edmund Goulding has much of the credit for this extremely human and touching film, which could make anyone's heart melt. A sure thing is you will never forget it. It completely dwarfs "Good-Bye Mr Chips" of the same author and almost the same year for its deeper human poignancy. "We Are Not Alone" refers to the fact which the doctor quietly observes, that those who suffer as martyrs for meaningless hatred in local places indeed are not alone, since hundreds of thousands of innocents are martyred at the same time in the trenches of the war. There are many delicate details in this film making it worth seeing again now and then, since situations like this always will remain actual and important reminders.

Noel Coward said Jane Bryan was one of the best actresses on the planet after seeing "We Are Not Alone," from 1939. This beautiful woman led a charmed life. After making two more films, she married the owner of Rexall Drugs and retired. I'd say she did okay."We Are Not Alone" is based on the novel by James Hilton and stars, besides Bryan, Paul Muni, Flora Robson, and Una O'Connor. I didn't read the novel, so I'm unclear whether it was a love story or a story making an antiwar statement, or managed to do both things in a less choppy manner than the film. In any case, the film, set in England at the start of World War I, does a complete turnaround midstream and becomes about something else.Muni plays an absent-minded, sweet, respected doctor, David Newcombe, who lives in a village with his wife Jessica (Robson) and young son Gerald. Gerald is overimaginative, easily frightened, and his mother's response is to be too harsh and disciplinary. Fortunately, he has his father to balance things out.David encounters Leni (Bryan) when she becomes his patient. She's Austrian and is a dancer, but when she becomes injured, her work becomes too difficult. At one point, he brings Gerald with him when he treats her, and, hearing about how good she is with the boy, Jessica thinks she might be a great nanny. She hires her.It's not long before gossip starts, and Jessica becomes jealous and also doesn't like the fact that Leni was "on stage" and at one point attempted suicide. She and David argue, with David refusing to fire Leni. Jessica angrily brings the boy to live with her brother.When the town erupts in anti-German sentiment, David realizes that he has to get Leni out of the country immediately.This is a disappointing film, to say the least - I mean, what happened to the Hayes code? The Hayes code wanted everybody punished for their sins, so how come people are punished when they don't commit any? I really had a major problem with this.Una O'Connor as the troublemaking maid is a shrew right out of hell. The little boy, played by David Severn, is adorable, and his innocent smile at the end of the film will make you cry. Someone wrote that the end is life-affirming. In a way, I guess it is. Still, it bothered me.So much for wanting to end Thanksgiving on an upbeat note.

Okay, I'll admit this is NOT a perfect film. However, given the talent of Paul Muni, an interesting story by James Hilton AND the full MGM treatment, this is still an exceptional film. Two things that stand out particularly for me is the amazing awfulness of Muni's wife--she's so bad you can't stop watching. Second, is the very unusual plot involving the advent of WWI and xenophobia run amok that results in the public condemning an innocent woman simply because she is Austrian. ABout the only people I would NOT recommend this to are people who HATE older movies (I feel VERY sorry for you) and people who really need happy endings (you won't find one here).

WE ARE NOT ALONE is one of James Hilton's lesser works, perhaps because it is a somber drama with a downbeat ending--and somewhere there's a message trying to get out. Whatever it is, it remains ambiguous as the ending itself.The performances are expert, the tale is told with sensitivity--but somewhere along the way the plot goes off on a different tangent and we're left with an unsatisfying conclusion.Paul Muni as a gentle doctor faces his imminent death with more noblesse oblige than Sidney Carton ('A Tale of Two Cities')--in fact, he makes Carton look like a coward. Jane Bryan as the German girl who becomes a nanny for his son, and Flora Robson as his shrewish wife (the kind who deserves their fate) is excellent.Little Raymond Severn gives an appealing performance as Muni's child and his scenes with his father have genuine warmth.But that ending...what were they thinking???