... 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.

Two ordinary people - their personalities seem to jump out from the start of this brilliant film. Mary is cheery, greeting every day with a smile, Jim is a jokester, the life of the party, she is a switchboard operator, he is a machinist. But they are lonely and meet after taking the advice of a billboard that encourages people to have a fun day at Coney Island. Jim spies Mary on the bus and tries to attract her attention but it is only at the beach when Jim finds Mary's cherished ring that they get to know each other.The version I saw was all silent, with Hungarian titles no less, probably packaged for Paul Fejo's own country, to show he was much more than a bacteriologist!!! Fejos was another import for Universal who, along with Fox, thoroughly embraced the European Expressionism movement that peaked in Hollywood in the late 1920s. Fejo didn't stay in America long and by the early 1930s he was back directing in Europe but with "Lonesome" he included some striking neo expressionistic camera effects including multiple super impositions etc.Like "The Crowd" the two leads were played by relative unknowns and they were perfect in their roles. Barbara Kent had found fame of sorts by playing the good girl in "Flesh and the Devil" but who was going to remember her with Greta Garbo playing the villainess. Glen Tryon had failed to make the grade - initially he was a Hal Roach discovery who saw him as another Harold Lloyd. He was also given the role in Fejo's next film "Broadway". Both of them are almost too convincing as the lonely couple who as the evening progresses find themselves caring very deeply about the other person. They are separated when the roller coaster that Mary is riding in catches on fire and Jim, who is thought of as being a nuisance is hauled off to night court. There is an extended bit of silent dialogue here (similar to a scene on the beach where Jim is dreaming of blue picket fences etc) which was probably another "goat gland" sequence.I thought Tryon was very moving - outside cocky but inside eaten up with loneliness. At one stage he says "I am so lonely and alone - I can't stand my own company". The emotion and the intentness builds as they look for each other at the fair that is now fast becoming desolate. At the end they both return to their flat, overcome by despair - he tries to play records and her little doll, the one memory of the day, falls off the table and breaks. They then discover that they live in the same building!!!Fejo found the idea in a newspaper article about loneliness in New York but I think it shares similarities with a 1915 film "Young Romance". In the older movie, two youngsters who, unbeknown to themselves, work in the same department store, read the same romantic serial and go on a week's holiday determined to find some romance at any cost - preferably with someone wealthy. Mary and Jim, early in the movie, try to pretend to be more exotic that they really are, then Mary laughs and says that they have probably both been reading the same romantic serial!!Highly, Highly Recommended.

I saw a bad print ,on you tube ,with rock music and Czech titles.I was not aware that this was an American silent,and that actor in it was Glen Tyrone ,of king of jazz fame.I thought it was a Slovakian silent,but, when I read the i.m.b d . about it ,I was surprised.It was a silent that originally had synchronized music and sound effects and had talking sequences.I got real curious about it more.Then I read that it wasn't lost at all.It was played in archive theaters.I even suggest t.c.m if they could considered playing it .They ignored me .Then ,by surprise,I discovered that the restored version of lonesome was put On d.v.d. ,with four other Paul Fejos films.So I bought it.It was a good Tone poem about two lonely people ,played by Glen Tyron and Barbera Kent.She is a switch board operator ,while he is a machinist.They both end up meeting each other on Koney Island Beach.But only learn their name later on ,Mary,",so! it was Mary!Mary!, and Jim.The movie looks a little bit similar to Sunrise.Some of the Koney island amusement park night scenes were tinted ans stencil colored.It was a good effect.It also seemed that Andy Divine played a small part too, he was also a bit leaner in 28.The talking sequences looked like they were done in a hurry.The Camera did not move.Not even zoom lenses were used.The police station sequence was very static in it's sound talking photography.But they probably had a date type release the film and could not take more time for better shots, may be.In spite of this this is a very good silent ,sound classic film.One of the reason probably why it took time to get it on home video, was the fact,The song ,"always,written by Irving Berlin,Was in the movie as back ground music and a record sequence.The copy rights had to be paid to the Irving Berlin estate,may be.This comes with three other Paul Fejos classic films, Then talking version of Broadway, 1929.The silent version of ," The last performance,1929.It is worthy of collection.Available from Criterion and amazon.com and your specialty shops. I don't think wall mart would have this, may be. 09/22/12

A young man and a young woman lead nearly identical lives throughout the day, he a punch-press operator and she a telephone operator. After work, both decide to go to Coney Island, where they meet, have fun, fall in love, and then lose each other. The movie's cute, but it isn't anything superb. There were two much better films made in the same year that Lonesome reminds me of. First, King Vidor's The Crowd, one of the best films of the period. That one takes place over quite a lot more time, but the styles are similar, with The Crowd being much more sophisticated in its narrative, characterization, etc. The Coney Island scenes are probably the most celebrated part of Lonesome, but these are nothing compared to those in the Harold Lloyd vehicle Speedy. Fejös exaggerates these scenes beyond belief, with so much confetti falling on the Coney Island patrons that one would think the crowd would drown in paper. This film is from the school of silent filmmaking where putting a lot of people on screen at the same time is considered ingenious. In comparison, the crowds of Speedy are believable, and that sequence is absolutely lovely. Lonesome also suffers from three intrusive sound sequences, which Universal forced in at the last minute. They stop the film dead in its tracks (but they are somewhat funny). Overall, the film is entertaining, if not too memorable. One particular sequence stands out as masterful: the man's and woman's workdays, edited back to back, with the whole screen surrounded by the numbers on a clock, translucent hands following the time. 7/10.