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Love from a Stranger (Eagle-Lion) is another of those innumerable melodramas based on the Bluebeard theme (Chaplin's Monsieur Verdoux turned it into major satire). It is doubtful that anybody will want to boycott this one: it has no moral, no psychological force--and no interest.

But it is prettily dressed and decorated. Sylvia Sidney, as the target for tonight, and John Hodiak, as the maniac, play it as if they 1) wished they were elsewhere, but 2) felt that they owed some kind of minimum to their employers and their conscience as craftsmen. Supporting players are given to lines like "Yon storm'll be upon us main soon."*Others merely curtsy, mew incoherently or tug their forelocks. For what it is worth--a middling curdler--the whole thing was much better done in 1937 by Basil Rathbone and Ann Harding.

Always Together (Warner), a hurried, ordinary little comedy, has a few better-than-ordinary comic ideas, but they never quite come off. A multimillionaire (Cecil Kellaway), plagued by deathbed conscience, leaves a million dollars to a secretary (Joyce Reynolds) who believes that life is just like all the movies she sees. She knows, accordingly, that money is the root of all evil, and will spoil her marriage with Robert Hutton, a bitter young writer. As it turns out, he is thoroughly satisfied; but she can't believe it and hurries off to Reno. Best idea in the picture: the husband becomes a national hero among men, a national monster among women, by demanding alimony.

Some nice but undeveloped situations and lines fight a draw with the rather childish performance of the Boy & Girl. Best thing in the show: Humphrey Bo-gart--appearing briefly in a movie the girl goes to--as an outcast father, weeping against a rainy windowpane.

*It is.

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