Lili

this is quite an old movie, as you know. my mother wasn't even born when it came out. yet i enjoy it greatly. it is a true love story, and unlike movies of today's age, it depicts that love with elegance and style. it is not only about love, but about the "blossoming" of Lili, of how she grows into womanhood and learns the ways of the world, as well as her own world. personally, i find it all to be quite symbolic, with Lili as the symbol of good and innocence. it also has some interesting humor in it (the puppets are well characterized and amazingly personalized). i think you will fall in love with the well-rounded main characters just as i did. i hope people will not be turned off by the age of the movie (it is over 50 years old now) because i find newer love stories to be far too sexual that leaves nothing to the imagination. this movie is VERY imaginative and beautiful in its storytelling. of course, kids could watch it and enjoy it to some extent, but the language is slightly elevated and the meaning is quite deep. watching this movie as an older person truly made the difference. i hope you enjoy it.

This is one of my favorite films. It is so delightfully simple. Leslie Caron does a marvelous job of making us believe she is an awkward 16 year old in love with a magician. I can't explain exactly why I love this film--perhaps I'm a sucker for all in-love-with-someone-who's-in-love-with-someone-else stories, or maybe I have a soft spot for puppets. But this film warms me to the heart and I recommend it to all but the heart hearted cynic.

Last night, driving with a friend, she popped a CD into the player in her car and Jimmy Durante's voice sang a song I had not heard in about 35 years - "Hi-Lili Hi-Lo." The emotion of this movie that I saw as a young child, perhaps six years old, came rushing back to me.

I don't remember a lot of things from when I was six but I do remember being entranced and a bit haunted by the movie Lili. I was easily able to relate to Lili's encounter with the puppets that became her confidants and friends when the adult world became too hard to handle. The initial charm of the magician character that, as all too often became the case for people in my young life, turned to emotional unavailability. The course by which Lili's fear of the puppeteer gets dissolved through understanding. And most of all the hauntingly beautiful song and dance sequence.

I don't remember much of the plot but I am very much looking forward to seeing this movie again. If it was available on DVD I would immediately buy it for my own children.

"Lili", based on Paul Gallico's "Love For Seven Dolls", is one of the most delightful films ever. Leslie Caron deserved her Academy Award nomination as "Lili". The ballet sequence at the end of the film in which each puppet turn into Paul, the puppeteer, making Lili realize she loves him is magical. "Lili" was the basis for a big, lavish Broadway musical "Carnival" that lost the basic beautiful simplicity of the original. This film is a classic and deserves to be. The puppets are magnificent.

This is one of my all time favorite movies, and I have taken every occasion to see it again after the first time in 1953. Leslie Caron is perfectly cast as the homeless orphan who falls in with a circus troupe and becomes part of their puppet act, only to fall in love with the embittered puppet master. In the end, the lovers get together after Lili (Leslie Caron) gets to display her ballet dancing talents.