Lonesome

Audience Reviews

View All (20) audience reviews

Audience Member Adorable little movie. Great to see Coney Island, but worth it for way more than just that. Being lonely in the city is apparently as old as cities. Love it. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/19/23 Full Review Audience Member I was pleasantly surprised with this. The sound sequences were pretty laughable but overall this is a nice film with two actors that have noticeable chemistry. Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 02/03/23 Full Review Audience Member Paul Fejos shot this film in the silent mode but then it was refashioned: first, with sound effects and music, and then, with three short scenes with actual sound dialogue (thus it is a "part-talkie"). Two lonely people meet at Coney Island on the 4th of July weekend and enjoy a whirlwind day out. Fejos uses superimposition very liberally, both to depict what people are thinking but also just to show concurrent events (and he even overlays a clock to show us that time is passing). Although the early scenes (with the clock) are all drudgery and lonesomeness, once we reach the beach, we are treated to hand-tinting and some beautiful compositions. "Always" by Irving Berlin plays an important role on the soundtrack and in the "twist" ending to the film. Of course, the twist in question is fully telegraphed - when the two young people become separated (and they don't even know each other's last names), we know they will be reunited - but we just don't know how or when. A delight! Rated 4.5/5 Stars •  Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/04/23 Full Review eric b The plot is simple: A boy and girl (both "working stiffs") find innocent love at an amusement park, only to have their new romance threatened by casual circumstance. Nothing too interesting there. What is interesting is Paul Fejos's amazing, shoot-the-works direction, which includes dizzy editing, lots of multiple-image layering and even a splash of color (in 1928!). Definitely a film ahead of its time. The release year is also crucial because this was the transitional period between silents and talkies, thus there are three sound scenes of dialogue squeezed into the action. Some film buffs will say these are unwanted and awkward, but no real harm is done and some necessary plotting is delivered. A magical film, breezing by in under 70 minutes. Why is "Lonesome" so poorly known today? Rated 4/5 Stars •  Rated 4 out of 5 stars 03/31/23 Full Review Audience Member A forgotten classic of the silent era, LONESOME realliy is a one of a kind . I can't recommend this one enough. Rated 5/5 Stars •  Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/03/23 Full Review Audience Member Lonesome is a part silent, part sound film from 1928. Released by Universal Pictures and directed by Hungarian-turned-American director Paul Fejos, the film was very successful, returning its budget and helping to close out the silent era with another classic film. The film is about a lonely young man and a lonely young woman who are working stiffs in a big city, but have no love in their lives. They meet one night at a 4th of July celebration and instantly fall in love, and we see their plight over the course of the evening. There are so many sequences in the film that are remarkable when you consider the technology of the time. There's very experimental editing, certain areas of the frame painted with color, optically-printed shots and free-flowing camera movement. All of these things were unheard of for a basic story like this, and were mainly techniques that were used on bigger and more epic motion pictures. The only thing that really sticks out are the dialogue sequences, which were shot after the film had wrapped. There are three of them in all, and they don't really serve any purpose in the storytelling other than to have some dialogue as to compete with films that had sound. The lines given to the actors are so awful and inane that it sounds like a slapped-together B movie. Worse yet, the film's soundtrack basically stops for these scenes. All of the music and most of the sound effects disappear, making these scenes stand out like a sore thumb more than they already do. So it has problems, but it's still a technical and worth seeing. Rated 3.5/5 Stars •  Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars 01/26/23 Full Review Read all reviews

Lonesome

My Rating

Read More Read Less POST RATING WRITE A REVIEW EDIT REVIEW