The Trail of the Lonesome Pine **** (1936, Sylvia Sidney, Fred MacMurray, Henry Fonda, Fred Stone, Nigel Bruce, Beulah Bondi, Robert Barrat, Fuzzy Knight) – Classic Movie Review 9010

Director Henry Hathaway’s compelling 1936 romantic adventure drama The Trail of the Lonesome Pine is based on the novel by John Fox Jr and stars Sylvia Sidney, Fred MacMurray and Henry Fonda. It is Paramount’s first Technicolor movie and the first to be shot in Three-Strip Technicolor on location. It was nominated for one Oscar: Best Original Song for ‘A Melody from the Sky’ (music by Louis Alter and lyrics by Sidney D Mitchell). Henry Hathaway won a Special Recommendation for Color Film at the Venice Film Festival (1936).

The exciting big news here was that a new process allowed Paramount Pictures to film this fourth, but first sound version of John Fox Jr’s novel on exterior locations in Three-Strip (three-tone) Technicolor film – and the gorgeous colour still greatly impresses. The process was so new that the costumes, sets and props were not designed for colour, being in the tones of brown and grey for black and white movies.

MacMurray plays Jack Hale, a city slicker mining executive who teaches a Kentucky mountain family, the Tollivers, how to live and gets mixed up in their long-standing feud with a rival clan, the Falins. Sidney stars as June Tolliver, the young woman of the family whom he falls for, while Fonda plays her unsympathetic brother Dave.

Naturally, the Lonesome Pine movie trail may have gone a little dusty now, but the visual and acting strengths, the splendid production and Hathaway’s pounding direction still command attention.

There are notable appearances form Fred Stone and Robert Barrat as Judd Tolliver and Buck Falin, the heads of the two feuding clans, Nigel Bruce as MacMurray’s grouchy associate Major Thurber, Beulah Bondi as Sylvia Sidney’s mother Melissa Tolliver, Fuzzy Knight as singing Tater, and Spanky McFarland as Sidney’s little brother Buddie.

Also in the cast are Richard Carle, Samuel S Hinds, Otto Fries, Henry Brandon [Henry Kleinbach], Clara Blandick, Irving Bacon, John Larkin, Lee Phelps, James Burke, Alan Baxter and Fern Emmett.

It was filmed at Big Bear Lake, Cedar Lake, and I.S. Ranch, at the Big Bear Valley, San Bernardino National Forest, California, as well as at the Iverson Ranch, 1 Iverson Lane, Chatsworth, Los Angeles.

It was filmed before as silent movies in 1914, 1916 and 1923.

‘The Trail of the Lonesome Pine’ (music by Harry Carroll) is played during the opening credits, which appear on tree barks. Twilight on the Trail (music by Louis Alter and lyrics by Sidney D Mitchell) and A Melody from the Sky (music by Louis Alter and lyrics by Sidney D Mitchell) are sung by Fuzzy Knight.

‘The Trail of the Lonesome Pine’ song meets its peak in Laurel and Hardy’s Way Out West (1937).

The Trail of the Lonesome Pine is directed by Henry Hathaway, runs 101 minutes, is made by Walter Wanger Productions and Paramount Pictures, is released by Paramount, is written by Grover Jones (screenplay) and Harvey F Thew (adaptation) and Horace McCoy (adaptation), based on the novel by John Fox Jr, is shot in Technicolor by W Howard Greene, is produced by Walter Wanger, is scored by Gerard Carbonara and Hugo Friedhofer, and is designed by Hans Dreier.

© Derek Winnert 2019 Classic Movie Review 9010

Check out more reviews on http://derekwinnert.com