Lonesome in New York

One of the upcoming releases of ours that we’re most excited about is Paul Fejos’s Lonesome. It’s early-Hollywood buried treasure, produced by Universal at a time when studios were still cranking out silent films as well as the talkies that the public was beginning to clamor for. And this delightful, technically audacious boy-meets-girl story, set in Manhattan and Coney Island on July Fourth weekend, is mostly silent, though it features a few isolated dialogue scenes. New Yorkers can check the charmer out on the big screen on Monday, August 6, as part of Film Forum’s terrific, wide-ranging Universal 100 series, celebrating the studio’s centenary (other Criterion titles in the program in the next week include The Naked City on August 3, Written on the Wind and Magnificent Obsession on August 4, Charade on August 5, Two-Lane Blacktop on August 7, and Do the Right Thing on August 8). Check out a clip from Lonesome below for a taste of Fejos’s energetic and thrilling filmmaking style.