Amazon.com: Landmark films never lose the ozone-snap excitement of their special historic moment. The Trail of the Lonesome Pine was the first feature shot outdoors in three-strip Technicolor, and its exhilaration in forest and lake, mountain and cloud remains as fresh and privileged today as it must have been in 1936. Director Henry Hathaway, already a seasoned veteran, had a fine pictorial eye along with sturdy storytelling instincts; he knew just how to place his cast in dynamic settings without getting fussy about it (a talent still going strong 33 years later in True Grit). No one would mistake Trail for a great film, but it's abundantly enjoyable, and a model of golden-age craftsmanship.
This was Hollywood's fifth version of John William Fox's novel about a long-running Appalachian feud and its interruption by modernity in the form of a mining engineer (Fred MacMurray). The very young MacMurray, Henry Fonda (the scrappingest of the Tolliver clan), and Sylvia Sidney (as the cousin he loves) form an appealing romantic triangle, while elders Beulah Bondi and Fred Stone (the Tollivers) and Robert Barrat (patriarch of the rival Falins) nurse generations' worth of sorrows. Nigel Bruce is droll as MacMurray's colleague, Spanky McFarland represents the Great Smokies chapter of the Little Rascals, and hillbilly Greek chorus Fuzzy Knight gets to sing two peerless ballads, 'Twilight on the Trail' and 'Melody from the Sky.' And if that eldest Falin boy seems familiar, add 20 years and a war bonnet and you've got The Searchers' Chief Scar, Henry Brandon (here Henry Kleinbach). --Richard T. Jameson
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Average Rating:
Rating: - Enjoyed
This was a gift for someone who never asks for anything. I knew just where to find it. This movie has been watched over and over since it has been received. It was an old favorite long ago and loved once again.
Rating: - Please Put On DVD!!!!!!1
Please put this great early technicolor film classic in DVD so that humble people such as myself can afford it. Thanks!!!
Rating: - A TECHNICOLOR MILESTONE.
Fred MacMurray plays a city stranger getting caught up in the lives of a primitive Kentucky mountain family and their feud with a neighbouring clan. Sylvia Sidney is good as the girl he tries to educate and comes to love and Hank Fonda scores as the disapproving brother who is killed befored the feud is settled. Beulah Bondi is terrific as usual as is Fuzzy Knight in this saga filmed in the full-hue great outdoors. Paramount ventured away from black and white features for the first time since 1930 with THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE. The studio had been waiting for an improved 3-colour Technicolor to be perfected, and the new process enhanced the Walter Wanger production's appeal immensely, both on the screen and at the box-office. This was the third filming of John Fox, Jr.'s novel, and the best: the 1916 and 1923 versions had nothing to compare with the pictorial scope and cast strength of the modernised ... Read More
Rating: - It's a Good Idea to Steer Clear of the Hillfolk
Just finished watching "The Trail of the Lonesome Pine" and I have rather mixed feelings about it. I can't say I liked it; in fact, I'm pretty sure I didn't. However, the technicolor treatment is wonderful--the film looks very fresh, and it is only when you see how young Henry Fonda and Fred MacMurray are that you know this is in fact quite an old movie. I didn't care for Sylivia Sydney's role as the daughter of one feud family who takes a liking to railway engineer MacMurray even though she's sort of engaged to her cousin, Fonda (such consanguinuity doesn't bode well for the next generation, I'm afraid). All the trouble in the film stems from her actions, but no one in the movie seems to notice that. I would have much preferred if someone would have at least yelled at her for that, but no. So in that way, she reminded me of Maria in "West Side Story", who got the bright idea to send Tony to stop that rumble, where ... Read More
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- It's a Good Idea to Steer Clear of the Hillfolk
