Stern yet polite stares are the most common weapon of the warring factions, and though these do give way to fisticuffs, the melees are either painfully slow and off the mark (Fred MacMurray hits like a girl, y'all!) or sped up to the point of being comedic. There is a lot of anger, but not much fire. The problem is that Hathaway's film is lacking in any real gumption. Which is totally fine, a melodrama of this kind is often enjoyable for its predictability, one expects to have the emotional buttons pushed. While I do realize this flick is pretty old, I would wager it was already a fairly hokey and manipulative tactic back then. ![]() Try to imagine what the Falins could do to the Tollivers that would make the business-minded Jack want to pick up a gun and shoot somebody, and I bet you'll have figured out the third-act fulcrum. There are several dramatic twists in The Trail of the Lonesome Pine, but none that weren't done a million times before and a million times since. Naturally, he runs afoul of Dave's bruised ego, and then he runs afoul of the Falins, and Jack quickly stops decrying the barbarous ways of fightin' hill folk and nearly gives into the violence himself. country manners, as Jack convinces June and her little brother Buddie (played by Spanky) that education is worthwhile and goes about building his railroad. The city boy saves Dave's arm, convinces his Uncle Judd (Fred Stone) to sign on with the company (making the bumpkins all rich in the process), and as if that weren't enough, steals the heart of June (Sidney), the pretty young cousin Dave was set to marry. This would have been fatal were it not for the sudden intervention of Jack Hale (MacMurray), a railroad man looking to buy the Tolliver land to get at their coal reserves. Dave was recently wounded in a shootout with the Falins, and the injury has gotten infected and turned gangrenous. ![]() No one rightly cares, though, the battle is now just part of their everyday DNA. The Tollivers are mountain people who have been mixing it up with the neighboring Falin family for generations, a feud that goes back so far, its origins are lost. This version starred Henry Fonda as Dave Tolliver, the scrapping elder cousin of the Tolliver clan. The Trail of the Lonesome Pine is based on a novel by John Fox Jr., and this appears to be the fifth time it had been brought the screen. Unfortunately, while nature may stand the test of time, some stories do not. There are some gorgeous views of cloud-covered mountains and the misty valleys below. Howard Greene still has the power to impress. It's the first Paramount feature to be shot in Technicolor, and one of the first movies using the three-strip process to film outdoors. As melodramas go, Lonesome Pine is predictable and limp, but as a technical achievement, it's still fairly grand. Made in 1936, it's a pretty mediocre movie, despite its excellent cast-Henry Fonda, Fred MacMurray, and Sylvia Sidney star, and Spanky McFarland from "Our Gang" is one of the supporting players. Many of his novels were historical romances or period dramas set in that region.Henry Hathaway's The Trail of the Lonesome Pine is one of those movies that now survives due to its historical significance more than its ability to entertain. ![]() Many of his works reflected the naturalist style, his childhood in Kentucky's Bluegrass region, and his life among the coal miners of Big Stone Gap, Virginia. The Little Shepherd of Kingdom Come (published in 1903) and The Trail of the Lonesome Pine (published in 1908) are arguably his most well known and successful works, entering the New York Times top ten list of bestselling novels for 1903, 1904, 1908, and 1909 respectively. Though he occasionally wrote for periodicals, after 1904, Fox dedicated much of his attention to fiction. Fox gained a following as a war correspondent, working for Harper's Weekly in Cuba during the Spanish-American War of 1898, where he served with the "Rough Riders." Six years later he traveled to Asia to report on the Russo-Japanese War for Scribner's magazine. Two moderately successful short story collections followed, as well as his first conventional novel, The Kentuckians in 1898. After working for both New York Times and the New York Sun, he published a successful serialization of his first novel, A Mountain Europa, in Century magazine in 1892. He graduated in 1883 before becoming a reporter in New York City. According to Wikipedia: "Born in Stony Point, Kentucky to John William Fox, Sr., and Minerva Worth Carr, Fox studied English at Harvard University.
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