During the Great Depression, many of America's most gifted writers and artists aspired to create a single, powerful work of art that would fully expose the evils of capitalism and lead to a political and economic overhaul of the American system.

[citation needed] Farrell chose to use his own personal knowledge of Irish-American life on the South Side of Chicago to create a portrait of an average American slowly destroyed by the "spiritual poverty" of his environment.

Parts of Farrell's novels were made into a B movie in 1960, directed by Irving Lerner and starring Christopher Knight in the title role.

Pauline Kael wrote in The New Yorker that "it’s an honorable low-budget effort by a group of people trying to break the Hollywood molds, and there are a few passages of daring editing that indicate what the film was aiming for.

[2] In 1979 Studs Lonigan was produced as a television miniseries starring Harry Hamlin, Colleen Dewhurst, Brad Dourif, Dan Shor, and Charles Durning.