Barbara Zdarko Studs Lonigan is a great miniseries! All star cast with Charles Durning, Colleen Dewhurst, Harry Hamiln, etc. I love this and looked for it for almost 40 years. Until May 2018 - when I FOUND IT available at DVD Planet Store. Not cheap, but WORTH IT!! Glad to finally have it in my movie collecttion!

bugsmoran29 I started making my way through James T. Farrell immense body of works with my reading of the Studs Lonigan trilogy in 1973. Over the years I gone back countless time to reread about the rise and fall of Studs Lonigan and his old gang on 58th Street in Chicago. I would say that Farrell had a very strong impact upon my life. I am a fellow Irish-American and lapsed Catholic like Farrell. We also share a common surname. I was exchanging letters with James when this mini-series first aired, and did prefer it over the original film version. Unfortunately, he died shortly after the mini-series aired. His world view was relentless bleak, and I think he believed it was justified because life is relentlessly bleak for most people.

mrhernia This is a fine adaptation of one of the great Depression Era novels, rivaling The Grapes of Wrath. Harry Hamlin gives a believable portrayal of Studs but he is a bit too old to be seen in knickers playing Studs as an 11 year old youth. The final 2 episodes are earth shattering and worthy of this review. In fact I was so moved by the finale that I became a confirmed alcoholic to experience the rough times Studs experienced. I am now a bum in the Bowery but they still call me Fungo. i suppose that Hamlin was quite adequate for the part but his mothers portrayal by Colleen Dewhurst was vivid and honest. Dewhurst was subsequently seen in the Sean Connery film Outland where she portrayed a lady scientist who eventually decides to aid Connery in taking down the boss of this outer space mining colony.

Dan1863Sickles This mini-series about the decline and fall of a tough, working class lad named Studs Lonigan is better than James T. Farrell's original novel. While Farrell was undoubtedly sincere in his attempt to expose the bigotry and hypocrisy of the rising Irish immigrant class of 1920's Chicago, his monotonous prose and bleak moral outlook prevented any of his characters from engaging the reader's sympathy. The miniseries preserves the tragic ending, but softens and humanizes Studs Lonigan's family and friends to a very considerable degree.In the book version, Danny O'Neill, the sensitive lad who stands in for Farrell himself, is merely a casual acquaintance. Studs does not like him or respect him. In the mini-series, the two are close friends, and Danny cares for Studs' girlfriend after he is gone and provides a moving elegy to his fate. Similarly, the only Jewish kid in the gang, Davey Cohen, is treated badly by Studs in the novel, while in the mini-series the two remain loyal comrades to the very end. This indeed heightens the tragedy immeasurably, as Studs dies of pneumonia just after Davey has promised to hire him at his new factory. Watching the dying Studs sink slowly into the gutter, still holding aloft the dollar bill Davey has loaned him like a battle flag, is one of the most moving moments in the mini-series. In the book Studs' collapse is less poignant, since no one was trying to help him and he had no reason to keep on fighting.In the book, Farrell tends to insist that everyone must be ground down and degraded by "the system," without any room for charm or luck, much less hard work and initiative. In the mini-series Studs falls, but many of his old friends succeed. Even Lucy Scanlan, the dream girl Studs worships from afar, proves to be surprisingly warm and engaging in the film version. At the end, when Studs is dying in the gutter, we see a brief glimpse of Lucy -- by now the pampered and well-protected wife of a very wealthy Irish attorney -- pausing to give a little money to a broken down street bum who looks a lot like Studs. Thus the end message is not so much that life is hateful and everyone is doomed, but that life goes on and kindness will triumph in the end.All in all a fine NBC mini-series, from the days when network television meant something more than vulgar spectacles and reality TV.