Over the farms of the middle west, over those sunburnt and dreary acres which have lain in the hands of one family for generations, there is a spirit of contentment, of satisfaction with the ways of God, which convinces the natives of the Bible Belt that they are the Lord's chosen people. In a romantic interpretation this is the spirit of the soil, mystical, but nourishing and real. In a materialistic psychology the observer might merely comment that the hinds realize that in prosperity or dearth, fair weather or foul, their lands will feed them and save them from the evils to which their stupid incompetence would lead in harsher circumstances.

"The Stranger Returns" is the romantic interpretation. In it Lionel Barrymore, slightly juvenile for his years, is the grand old man Storer, who saves from rapacious peasant "in-law" the land which rightfully belongs to his granddaughter, the last of the Storers, played by an over-tense and under-trained Miriam Hopkins. The photography is above average, script below par. Barrymore same as ever. Good entertainment.