‘Lonesome’ to screen at James Bridges Theater

It’s hard to find anything in cinema history books about the 1929 quasi-silent/quasi-talkie romantic drama “Lonesome.” The film wasn’t a success upon release and faded into obscurity. But it has developed a cult status in the last 16 years, since a George Eastman House restoration of the picture debuted at the Telluride Film Festival.

Since then, it has become Eastman’s most highly requested distribution print. “That says a lot about this particular film,” says Caroline Frick, the senior curator at Eastman. “I have talked to a lot of my colleagues here about why this film captivates people so much. They say it’s a beautiful film that seems to captivate every audience that it plays in front of.”

And now Los Angeles audiences will get the opportunity to see this little gem Monday evening when the UCLA Film and Television Archive presents a free screening at the James Bridges Theater. Frick will be at the screening, which is the world premiere of the film’s new audio restoration.

Directed by Hungarian filmmaker Paul Fejos, who later became an anthropologist, the drama follows the lonely lives of a New York switchboard operator (Barbara Kent) and a drill press operator (Glenn Tryon) who don’t know they live in the same boarding house. Then they meet on the beach at Coney Island, and it’s love at first sight. But a fire there nearly destroys their budding relationship.

Jan-Christopher Horak, who heads the UCLA archive, was at Eastman House when the nitrate print, which came from the Cinémathèque Francaise, was restored, and a screening copy was made. “The wonderful thing about ‘Lonesome’ is that so much of it was shot on location in New York,” says Horak. “The last half of the film all takes place in Coney Island.”

Horak likens the film to King Vidor’s 1928 masterwork “The Crowd,” which also takes place in New York City. “It’s very closely observed, dealing with lower middle-class workers. It has that kind of feel to it,” he says.

“Lonesome” was made, though, during the transition from silents to talkies. Audiences were clamoring for talking pictures. “Lonesome” was originally released as a silent with a musical soundtrack and sound effects and then re-released with two talking sequences that weren’t shot by Fejos.

“There are a couple of scenes where they are sitting on the beach and talking to each other,” Horak says. “They went to this tiny studio to shoot those. It’s supposed to be outdoors, but they couldn’t record sound outside the studio. The rest of the film is elegant in terms of style and its location shooting. Then when you go to these two scenes in the studio, and it really stands out like a sore thumb.”

Restoring the audio was a big challenge for Chace Audio by Deluxe in Burbank. “It’s a picture that comes right at the beginning of sound for motion pictures, so it has technical limitations,” says Bob Heiber, vide president of audio at Chace.

Despite “big, ugly pops and crackles,” restorers were able to fill in a few missing spots in the audio with the copy that had been made in 1994. “We were able to achieve very good results,” says Heiber. “We wanted to make the sound as good as the day Paul Fejos heard it. “

susan.king@latimes.com