calvinnme ... and I could say the same thing about Fejos' "Broadway", made a year later. Fejos recounts the tale of two lonely New Yorkers, Jim (Glen Tryon) and Mary (Barbara Kent), who find love and each other during a half day holiday at the beach and Coney Island. You first see the workday from Jim and Mary's perspective as they are ruled first by the tyranny of the alarm clock and then the tedium of the workday as you see a clock overlaying the image of each at work. Jim is a low-level machine operator, and Mary is a telephone operator. Then there are "the crowds". Jim and Mary are crowded at breakfast, at a diner filled with patrons, crowded on the subway, crowded at work, and crowded at the beach and amusement park. Yet both of them are completely alone in the world, which, especially in the attractive Miss Kent's case, seems somewhat inconceivable.This late era silent has a dearth of title cards, which does not subtract from the film's enjoyment. In fact, what does subtract just a little are the short dialogue scenes that just don't make sense. One scene is Jim and Mary on the beach suddenly in the dark AND in color, with the crowd removed. Nothing they say shines any light on their situation or feelings at all. Another one is in a courtroom where Jim has been detained for being unruly. He gives a speech like a Bolshevik basically shaming the judge and ... the judge lets him go???? This social awareness seems very strange stuff coming from Jim who, up to that point, has seemed to be a very uncomplicated fellow. Very strange, but typical of talking scenes inserted into silent films at the dawn of sound.What is extra special about this film is to see the lives of working class people in 1928. Notice that the workday that Jim and Mary are going through is a Saturday, and this was the norm back then and until some time after WWII. People would normally work half a day on Saturday and have only Sunday in its entirety as a day off. Catch this film if you can, even if you are not a huge silent film buff.

EyeDunno Wonderfully-paced, great camera movements, excellent location photography. When you compare this with other films of its era, you'll see how well Lonesome was developed. Being visual, I'm always interested in camera placement and movement. While other films of its time showed static camera shots, Lonesome always wanted to keep the camera moving. The pace rarely lets up, soon after the male protagonist Jim, wakes up. The version I refer to is the Eastman House-restored film. It's presented in a pristine, high- definition film transfer from original film stock, a nitrate print apparently from France. What a treat to watch life from the early 20th century, and the way it seems, the storyline could be presented today, in modern New York City. This version has music and plenty of sound effects, but it's still one of the last silent films of the era. It's a fun treat, watching the facial expressions as the performers have to sell their emotions without voices. It must have been a trend-setting piece of filmmaking in its time. I only wish the pace on some of the films made today had as much entertainment packed inside.Packed within the Eastman House print are several scenes with actual dialog between the two, and there's also a bit of color-tinted B/W to boot somewhere in the film. It's worth it for true film buffs to find the restored version. There's no heavy storyline here, just a guy finding it hard to meet a woman he finds attractive. The film really gives me another reason to smile.

dbdumonteil ...that I cannot stand my own company...says the hero.This could be the optimistic side of King Vidor's "the crowd".This era was a time when the pursuit of happiness was legitimate and "even with a face like that" you could hope to find the woman of your dreams.Robert Siodmak would make "Menschen Am Sonntag" and Marcel Carné "Nogent Eldorado Du Dimanche" soon after ,and would replace Coney Island by the banks of the Rhine or of the Seine.1928 was the year before the crash .Even in the biggest city in the world ,you can be lonelier than the loneliest of creatures.He pretends he is a millionaire ,she pretends she is a princess ;in fact he is a working man,she is an operator .It is not as optimistic as it seems at first sight.The crowds are hostile and do nothing to help them ,they are as selfish as today's crowds ."Lonesome " is an important movie,if only for its simplicity and its spontaneity.Everything happens in the short space of one day (from the rude awakening to the night when solitude becomes even harder to bear ) and the two principals are really endearing ,almost matching Janet Gaynor and Charles Farrell.NB:Paul Fejos would continue his career in France in the early thirties where he directed Annabella in a tragic melodrama ("Marie Legende Hongroise")and a remake of Feuillade's "Fantomas", the first third of which surpasses the original .

Levana If only this remarkable movie hadn't had the misfortune to be released just when the enthusiasm for sound was sweeping all before it, it would probably have been more appreciated at the time and remembered today as one of the all-time classics. As an expression of the isolation of city life, it builds up an atmosphere of desperation, in spite of its romance with a happy ending. The scene where the boy searches frantically for the girl throughout crowded Coney Island, buffeted this way and that by the uncaring throngs, turned away by the indifferent faces of the amusement park workers, has few equals for anguish. Also unforgettable is the montage that cuts from one to the other of the lovers (who have not yet met) while they are at work, the one at a factory, the other at a telephone switchboard; the motions of the hands and the machines build to a frantic, overwhelming pace.Unfortunately, before the movie was released it was sadly mangled by the insertion of several sound sequences, which stop the continuity dead with their absolute stasis, and feature dialogue so thunderously inane you have to suspect it was written by the sound technician. Nonetheless, "Lonesome" remains one of the most sophisticated examples of the silent movie, an art form that was killed by sound almost as soon as it had reached maturity.