Two Alone is a 1934 American pre-Code drama film directed by Elliott Nugent and starring Tom Brown and Jean Parker. According to RKO records the film lost $158,000.[1] Based on the play Wild Birds by Dan Totheroh, most remember the film primarily for its early skinny-dipping scene. Jean Parker was borrowed from MGM.[2]
According to producer David Lewis, Merian Cooper, head of RKO, approached him asking for a vehicle for his new wife, Dorothy Jordan. Lewis suggested the play Wild Birds and Cooper agreed to buy it. Jo Lovett wrote the first script whose dialogue was worked on by Joseph March. Filming began but Cooper had a heart attack and Jordan had to leave the film to be with him. Cooper was replaced as head of RKO by Pandro Berman, who suggested Jordan be replaced by Jean Parker from MGM.[3]
Censorship
Before the film could be released in Kansas, the Kansas Board of Review required the elimination of the nude woman sitting on a rock until she swims away.[4]
Reception
Lewis later wrote "Ultimately I was not happy with the film; it didn’t jell at all. The poetry of the play disappeared and the films eemed to me leaden. Maybe the material just wasn’t film material. I had been so highly enthusiastic about the property, I probably didn’t have the perception at that time to examine the screenplay and discover its faults....Jean Parker was no better a choice for the role of the girl than Dorothy Jordan....You could say it was aimed for art-house audiences, but at that time they didn’t exist. Two Alone had been calculated to give RKO a little class, but I doubt that it did."[5] it.
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