Lonesome [Criterion Collection] [Blu-ray]

Director: Paul Fejos

Overview

Two lonely people discover short-lived happiness in this silent drama. Jim (Glenn Tryon) and Mary (Barbara Kent) live in the same rooming house in New York City, though they've never met; Jim works in a metal fabricating plant, and Mary runs a switchboard for the telephone company. While both have friends, they both long for something more in their lives. One afternoon, Jim decides to go to Coney Island to see the famous amusement park, and on the bus he spies Mary. Jim finds her attractive, and eventually works up the nerve to introduce himself on the beach. The two discover they share a mutual attraction, and over the course of the day Jim and Mary fall in love, while a visit to a fortune teller suggests to Mary that she's met the man who will become her husband. However, Jim and Mary are separated, and despite their best efforts the two don't know how to find one another again. Lonesome was released in 1929, as silent films were giving way to talking pictures; the picture was originally released silent, though it was soon reissued in a version with sound sequences.

Product Details

Release Date:	08/28/2012
UPC:	0715515097918
Original Release:	1928
Rating:	NR
Source:	Criterion
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W]
Language:	English
Time:	1:09:00
Sales rank:	12,160

Special Features

Disc One: Audio Commentary featuring Film Historian Richard Koszarski; The Last Performance, Director Paul Fejos's 1929 silent starring Conrad Veidt, with a new score by Composer Donald Sosin; Reconstructed sound version of Broadway, Fejos's 1929 musical; Fejos Memorial, a 1963 visual essay produced by Paul Falkenberg in collaboration with Fejos's wife, Lita Binns Fejos, featuring the filmmaker narrating the story of his life and career; Excerpt about the Broadway camera crane from an Audio Interview with Cinematographer Hal Mohr; Plus: a booklet featuring essays by critic Phillip Lopate and Film Historian Graham Petrie and an excerpt from a 1962 interview with Fejos

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Barbara Kent	Mary
Fay Holderness	Overdressed woman
Gus Partos	Romantic Gentleman
Andy Devine	Actor
Glenn Tryon	Jim

Technical Credits

Tom Reed

Edward Lowe

Tom Reed	Screenwriter
Carl Laemmle Jr.	Producer
Edward Lowe	Screenwriter

Editorial Reviews

This rarely screened silent-era gem is a classic boy-meets-girl story set in the hustle and bustle of New York City. Jim Tryon and Barbara Kent play Jim, a factory worker, and Mary, a telephone operator, who meet at an Independence Day carnival by the seashore. Director Paul Fejos crams each frame with energy and movement, employing all kinds of expressive camerawork and visual effects. In a montage depicting the hectic drudgery of Mary's working day, he superimposes a clock and several tiny faces chattering away as she frantically works the switchboard; and when the lovers finally find themselves alone on the beach at night, the film suddenly glows with hand-tinted color. Made at the dawn of the sound era (two sound scenes were added later to cash in on the new craze), Lonesome represents the height of silent film artistry. Besides being a charming tale with a neat twist at the end, it is also a visually dazzling cinematic essay on urban alienation and an intoxicating ode to love.