Search - The Trail Of The Lonesome Pine (Universal Backlot Series) on DVD

A TECHNICOLOR MILESTONE.

scotsladdie | 11/16/2001

(4 out of 5 stars)

"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 screenplay, written by Grover Jones, Harvey Thew and Horace McCoy. Henry Hathaway directed with a straighforward drive."

Trail of the Lonesome Pine

Fran Palmersheim | Sioux City, IA United States | 10/21/2000

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Excellent Movie. Great outdoor,scenic views. Great movie for children and grandchildren. I first saw this movie about 50 years ago and it is still exciting today. ..very heartwarming!"

A TREAT? NO, A COLOR FEAST !

Olivier Comte | Neuilly FRANCE | 05/02/2009

(5 out of 5 stars)

"It's all about three strip Technicolor, the second movie, after BECKY SHARP but with Californioa locations. If the Universal transfer (1935 PARAMOUNT film released in 1936) is great, you'll be stunned. Please look up my review at AMAZON.CO.UK . You won't need a multizone machine.


"

"In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia..."

Annie Van Auken | Planet Earth | 05/28/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

"Appearing in Henry Hathaway's historic full-color THE TRAIL OF THE LONESOME PINE is seven-year-old "Spanky," of Little Rascals fame, on loan from MGM.

For moviegoers in 1936, on-location cinematography in and around California's mountainous Big Bear Lake area must have been astonishing. (This was the first PARAMOUNT picture filmed in three-strip Technicolor.)

It's a Hatfield/McCoy-type story set in the Appalachians. The often-violent feud between the Falins and Tollivers has been going on for so long no one can remember how it started. Henry Fonda and Sylvia Sidney are distant Tolliver cousins who plan to marry. Fred MacMurray wants to run a railroad through the mountain folks' pristine lands, but he meets local resistance. MacMurray's romantic interest in Sidney greatly complicates matters.


Related item:
Henry Fonda also co-starred in the early Technicolor FOX western, JESSE JAMES (1939) with Tyrone Power, Randolph Scott, Brian Donlevy and John Carradine (as "the dirty little coward...").


Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 viewer poll rating found at a film resource website.

(7.2) The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (1936) - Henry Fonda/Sylvia Sidney/Fred MacMurray/Fred Stone/Nigel Bruce/Beulah Bondi/Robert Barrat/George 'Spanky' McFarland/Fuzzy Knight/Otto Fries/Samuel S. Hinds/Alan Baxter/Richard Carle/Irving Bacon/Charles Middleton"