Studs Lonigan

Clearly, Lerner didn't have the resources to do Farrell's characters and milieu justice, but it's an honorable low-budget effort ... and there are a few passages of daring editing that indicate what the film was aiming for.

The picture is arty, fumbling and disconnected, with an embarrassingly amateurish performance by newcomer Christopher Knight in the title role.

'Studs Lonigan' is an amazing testimony of the maturity that Jerry Goldsmith had already reached in just thirty years. [Full Review in Spanish]

James T. Farrell has denounced the film as a travesty of his novel and I agree with him. The sordidness and brutality have been left in, but the social context that gave them meaning has been excised.

To cheer things up, a contrived happy ending is attached.