Liliom

Molnar's dreamlike tragedy-fantasy is, as another poster said, just the meat for Frank Borzage, and he invests the material with a typically deft, warm hand. Those of us who love "Carousel" (I think it's the greatest musical ever written) will be struck by how similar they are, with nearly identical dialog in some spots, from a translation by Benjamin Glazer (though the translation is also rumored to be by one Lorenz Hart). The expressionistic, Murnau-like sets fit well, though they're illogical--would Liliom and Julie really have a picture window looking directly out on the amusement park? I'd give it a higher rating, but there's a fatal flaw: Charles Farrell, good-looking as he is, hasn't the requisite swagger for Liliom, and his high nasal voice isn't suitable. Rose Hobart is a suitably quiet, introspective Julie, and there's wonderful work from a young Lee Tracy. The Budapest setting isn't altogether realized, but there's some lovely, Kalman-like scoring, and the surviving print is, for its day, excellent.

I can now see why this particular film directed by Frank Borzage is not one of his more famous ones. It simply isn't a very good film by today's standards. Much of this can be attributed to when it was made. Borzage was a fine director--particularly of silents. This one, however, is one of his early talking pictures--and it suffers from several problems relatively common in early talkies. The sound quality is only fair (you'll want to use the optional captions), some of the actors way over-annunciate and the dialog is, at times, poor. However, it was up to the director to re-shoot scenes where lines were flubbed--and too often they were used as-is and the film looks a bit rough because of it. A few examples are Julie's girlfriend and her often lousy style of delivering her lines (bizarre is more like it), the awkward way Farrell knocks down Hobart at 35 minutes into the film and the subsequent stilted dialog between Hobart and her male friend, the Carpenter.

As for the plot, "Liliom" is an odd film. Unlike some of Borzage's films where the nobility of the common man is demonstrated (such as in "Street Angel" and "Seventh Heaven"), here in "Liliom" the characters are poor but very earthy. Liliom is a ne'er-do-well--a leech who feeds off his girlfriend, knocks her up and hangs with low-life friends--a type plot you'd never see once the Production Code was strengthened in 1934. It's rather odd to see Charles Farrell (Liliom) in such a role--not the usual nice guy and a bit odd looking underneath his gypsy-like hair and mustache. As a result, it's harder to connect with his character and, in fact, you find yourself hating him. As for his poor girlfriend, Julie (Rose Hobart), she just seems weak and pathetic--and incredibly needy. Put in psychological terms, he seems like an antisocial personality and she like a dependent personality.

When the film begins, Liliom meets Julie and he seems taken with her but also very indifferent at the same time. As for the quiet Julie, she is clearly smitten and allows him to move in with her. He doesn't work and soon she becomes pregnant. All the while, one of Liliom's old girlfriends keeps popping in and out of the picture. When Liliom learns that Julie is pregnant, he finally tells the girlfriend to take a hike and he wants to be responsible. So, he does what such a guy would do--plans on a robbery with his friend to get cash. What happens next you'll just need to see for yourself--and I pretty much suspect that you will never guess! And does it get weird!!

While I found the plot at first unpleasant due to the annoying characters, sub-par acting for a Borzage film and disliked the sloppy scenes needing re-takes, there still was a lot to like in the film. Borzage was a master at cinematography and used black & white film in an ingenious manner--and the film's use of shadows and wonderful sets are impressive. This is something Borzage perfected in the silent years and it clearly carries over here. Also, while some noted that the rear-projected backgrounds were not very good, it was the first film to use this technique--and you need to give the film makers credit for this. I particularly loved the scene where the train came through the window--it was surreal, beautiful and impressive. And speaking of this, the plot does change and picks up considerably towards the end--and must be seen. As a result of so much good and bad, the overall film is bizarrely uneven. I cannot hate it, but I really couldn't unequivocally recommend it either (even with a cool second half). Simply put, it should have been a lot better.

By the way, it is interesting and fitting that H.B. Warner was cast as the Magistrate in the film considering only a few years before he played Jesus in "The King of Kings". And, didn't the plot seem to justify and even romanticize domestic violence?!

LILIOM (Fox Films, 1930), directed by Frank Borzage, stars Charles Farrell in the title role taken from a famous play by Fernec Molnar. With some silent screen adaptations based on this material, including A TRIP TO PARADISE (Metro, 1921) starring Bert Lytell, LILIOM became its first sound edition. Popularized years later as the Broadway musical, CAROUSEL (1945), later adapted as a 1956 motion picture, this early screen edition offers romance and sentiment in the Frank Borzage tradition, and often hailed as a motion picture of great promise weakened by the performance by its leading actor.

Opening title: "This play is the love story of Julie, a serving maid, and Liliom, a merry-go-round barker. Liliom gropes and struggles through life and death, and even beyond death, ever seeking escape from himself, while Julie's love for him endures always." Set in Budapest, Hungary, Julie (Rose Hobart), works as a servant girl accompanied by her friend, Marie (Mildred Van Dorn). As much as Julie turns down dates with a caring young carpenter (Walter Abel), Julie's sole interest is Liliom Zadowsky (Charles Farrell), an amusement park merry-go-round barker and ladies man. Although their union on the carousel is innocent, Liliom stirs up jealousy from his domineering employer, Madame Muskat (Estelle Taylor). She soon warns Julie to stay away from Liliom, who enters the scene by telling Madame Maskat that he does what he pleases. Losing his job, Liliom walks away with Julie to the pub where he drinks away his sorrows. Three months later, Liliom and Julie, now married, struggle through life's hardships. Liliom, still unemployed and having the reputation of being a lazy loafer by neighbors, turns down offers to return to Madame Muskat in favor of joining forces with Buzzard (Lee Tracy) to commit a robbery and use the stolen money for a better life in America, especially after learning that Julie is going to have a baby. Their plot of robbery fails. With Buzzard captured by the police, Liliom chooses the easy way out by taking his own life. On a train bound for Paradise, the soul of Liliom meets with the Chief Magistrate (H.B. Warner) who offers him a second chance in life to return to Earth. After serving ten years "in the hot place," he is given temporary freedom to visit with his daughter (Dawn O'Day). What Liliom does should determine his fate with destiny. Also in the cast are Lillian Elliott (Aunt Hulda); Bert Roach (Wolf Feiser); and Harvey Clark (The Angel Gabriel). Child actress, Dawn O'Day, would later become professionally known as Anne Shirley following to first leading role as ANNE OF GREEN GABLES (RKO, 1934).

As much as Charles Farrell's popularity rested upon his frequent pairing opposite Janet Gaynor (12 films in all), it's a wonder how successful he would have become acting opposite other young actresses instead. Having already done solo work opposite other leading ladies as Maureen O'Sullivan or Joan Bennett, Farrell is given Rose Hobart, making her movie debut. Farrell's leading role here, sporting dark curly hair and mustache, might have done it for him, but his weak voice was somewhat against him. Playing a similar character as an egotistical young man with a heart of gold in his first role opposite Gaynor in SEVENTH HEAVEN (1927), LILIOM, certainly has the makings of another Gaynor and Farrell romancer. Had Spencer Tracy assumed the role of Liliom instead, chances are the movie would have been a hit since Tracy acting ability seemed to be a better fit than Farrell. It's been critically said that the 1934 French-made adaptation of LILIOM starring Charles Boyer to be far superior, and possibly so. For the role of Julie, Rose Hobart does a commendable job. Her performance as a loyal wife with eternal love for her husband is certainly believable, as opposed to the pretty Mildred Van Dorn, whose weak acting and method of speaking limits the movie's credibility.

For an early 1930 talkie, LILIOM looks somewhat advanced in the European cinema sense, especially with its Heavenly futuristic scenes that make this movie seem more like a 1935 release instead. Aside from dark visuals of "film noir" style and underscoring, the train express leading to the clouds of Heaven with lavish settings is quite impressive. Aside from OUTWARD BOUND (Warners, 1930), the Heavenly theme and spiritual guidance would be done repeatedly a decade later starting with Robert Montgomery in HERE COMES MR. JORDAN (Columbia, 1941), which set the pace for other fantasies of this nature to come.

Unavailable for viewing in decades, LILIOM, has been resurrected through its distribution to DVD as a tribute to Academy Award winning director, Frank Borzage. For those familiar with the movie musical version of CAROUSEL (1956) starring Gordon MacRae and Shirley Jones, may want to take a look at this dramatic form of the same story and compare. (**)

There is indeed much to complain about this movie version of Molnar's mystical play --Farrell looks good in his title role, but his line readings, frankly, stink. This also suffers, in large part, from this being credited as the first movie that makes use of rear projection. The sets look phony.

There are two great strengths in this show, however: although the dialogue readings limp, the visual performances are perfect. Rose Hobart, as Julie, is little remembered today: mostly for ROSE HOBART, in which Joseph Cornell cut down the programmer EAST OF BORNEO to simply shots of her: credit Melford's stylish visual direction of the original. Her great beauty and simple (although stagy) performance help repair some of the damage to the earth-bound sections of this movie.

However, one of Borzage's themes is the mystical power of love, and it is the handling of the celestial sections that make this great, from the arrival of the celestial train to the journey to 'the Hot Place'. H.B. Warner's performance here is, as always, perfect.

So we have here a flawed but very interesting version. I think that Lang's 1934 version is better, as well as the celestial scenes in the Henry King version of CAROUSEL, the watered-down musical remake. But I still greatly enjoyed this version and think you should give it a chance.

This is a film based on a classic story reworked elsewhere by Fritz Lang, amongst others. It's a love story set in old Budapest about a carnival barker called Liliom, and a servant called Julie (pronounced with a decidedly odd "dj" sound throughout the movie) who is smitten with him. Julie is a remarkably attractive young lady who we first see toiling amongst an exuberance of glass vases, one of the more charming shots in the movie (wasn't life better when directors composed shots like painters?).

In this film and others, Borzage sets out his stall regarding love, his "faint heart never won fair lady" principles. I can live with that though he is rather brutal on the subject, quite happy to let the Fates unravel the threads of any man even faintly milksoppish. He really surpasses himself this time though, there's a carpenter who proposes to Julie and is knocked back, seemingly every week for a decade; perhaps he carries on after the end of the film until the undertaker is measuring him, who knows? The carpenter is an honest hard-working man who however is not the exciting razzmatazz individual we see with Liliom. There's a philosophy here. Liliom is lazy and a brute, Borzage shows no distaste even at the idea of him beating a woman. But he is carefree and charming. Borzage is telling us that there is no other value for a man in life than to be a rascal, beloved of the crowd. Indeed Liliom, absolutely without precedent, is selected as the first human to be allowed to return to earth after dying. That's the level of value that's associated with his lifestyle by the filmmaker.

My opinion is that Borzage stretches his philosophy too far with this movie and ends up seeming obnoxious. Love is a prize that women dangle from on high and men must make superhuman existential efforts to leap for. There's something antediluvian about his attitudes to gender. In Lucky Star, for example, it's charming, because you have a goodie up against a baddie, and it's a feel-good story with a spunky female. But here I just feel sorry for the carpenter, a much kinder man than Liliom, who works hard at life. I get the feeling from watching a few of his movies that he has fairly skewed ideas and would have a lot of sympathy with social Darwinists and also Objectivists like Ayn Rand.

It's an exasperating movie because it really is so beautiful, the fairground set is marvellous for example, and there is some beautiful heavenly footage. On the other hand Borzage hadn't managed to come to terms with sound here, at times it's almost like the actors are being prompted, that's how leaden the delivery can be. More fairly perhaps I should say that he hadn't come to terms with dialogue, because the sound design is actually very good in all other respects, the music in the beer garden is time wonderfully well with the conversation. What's really very nice to hear is the hammer dulcimer, which has a very unusual sound.

All in all a very mixed bag. In my opinion it's still totally unforgettable though.