A Bela Lillian Russell

Darryl Zanuck had high hopes for Lillian Russell, biographical picture of the turn of the last century stage star who was an American icon in the gaslight era. Even to hiring Irving Cummings as director. Cummings was a former stage actor who knew the great Ms. Russell back in her day. Alice Faye says he was of enormous help in capturing her character.

Unfortunately the film is not helped by a ponderous script that loses the character of Lillian Russell by trying to cram too much in. Though the main men in her life are dealt with, a lot of facts were taken liberty with including a couple of husbands that were dropped.

In her time Lillian was the most admired woman in America. She was a hefty woman in an era when that was the taste. Talk about full figured gal, take a look at a picture of Lillian if you can find one on the web. Jane Russell had absolutely nothing on her, in fact that is the only department where Alice Faye is deficient in her role.

Of course when Alice Faye sings that's when the film is really something to watch. Starting with In Old Chicago, Darryl Zanuck had the inspiration of casting her in these period costume dramas whereas previously Alice had been Fox's answer to MGM's Jean Harlow. These became her best work and most loved by her legion of fans.

Some new songs were brought in with some old standards. Alice's best moment is singing After The Ball twice during the film, a song very much identified with Lillian Russell. She also sings Come Down Ma' Evening Star which was the only song that Lillian Russell made an early gramophone recording of.

Henry Fonda hated the film. Hated it because he was lost in a whole crowd of male admirers of Faye that also included Don Ameche, Warren William, Leo Carrillo, Nigel Bruce. Fonda and Ameche played two of her husbands that didn't get left out of the script. Warren William was millionaire/gambler Jesse Lewisohn, Leo Carrillo was the fabled 19th century theatrical impresario Tony Pastor where Russell got her start, Nigel Bruce was W.S. Gilbert with whom Russell had a most unsatisfactory relationship when she went to star in one of the Gilbert&Sullivan operettas. And Edward Arnold who was born to play the role of Diamond Jim Brady and who had made it his own in a biographical film a few years ago, does the role again. I do believe Zanuck would not have done the film if he couldn't have gotten him.

Fonda in his memoirs felt he would get really top drawer parts after The Grapes of Wrath which he signed a studio contract with 20th Century Fox to get. Lillian Russell was not his idea of an upwardly mobile direction for his career. Though he did say he had nothing but good memories of working with Alice Faye.

Besides Russell and her men the film has Eddie Foy, Jr. once again playing his famous father and you have a once in a lifetime chance to see Weber&Fields probably the greatest vaudeville comics of their time doing one of their routines. If Lillian Russell has no other value, it's great that their art was captured on film for future generations.

So while the story leaves a lot to be desired, Lillian Russell is a great tribute to a star and her era as portrayed by another great star of another era, Alice Faye.

LILLIAN RUSSELL (20th Century-Fox, 1940), directed by Irving Cummings, is a nostalgic film tribute to Helen Louise Leonard, better known as Broadway legend Lillian Russell (1861-1922), as portrayed by Hollywood legend Alice Faye in one of her more challenging roles of her career. Faye doesn't attempt to act nor sing like Lillian Russell, although it's hard to determine the actual personality of this legend, yet makes her characterization simple, sweet and sentimental in the usual Faye manner without making it look too much like a typical Alice Faye musical.

The story opens in Clinton, Iowa, shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War, with the birth of the fifth daughter of Charlie Leonard (Ernest Truex), owner of a newspaper business, and Cynthia Leonard (Dorothy Peterson), pioneer for women's suffrage whom, after moving the family to New York City, runs and loses her bid as mayor. As for Helen, she grows up into an attractive young lady with a remarkable singing voice. Her grandmother (Helen Westley) wants her to be trained for grand opera by Leopold Damrosch (Joseph Cawthorn), who feels she'd be far more suited for something else. While "playing theater" in her backyard for her father, Helen is overheard by producer Tony Pastor (Leo Carrillo) who immediately hires her for his theater under the new name of Lillian Russell. Over the years she becomes a famous star, against her mother's objections, loved by wealthy suitors Jesse Lewisohn (Warren William) and the legendary Diamond Jim Brady (Edward Arnold). She eventually marries composer Edward Solomon (Don Ameche), settles in England for a time where she gives birth to their daughter, Dorothy. Before dying, Solomon completes a haunting ballad "Blue Lovebird" dedicated entirely to her. While going through fame and despair, Alexander Moore (Henry Fonda), a newspaper man, who has been coming in and out of her life for some time now, and assigned by his editor for her biographical interview, keeps to himself his everlasting love for the girl he known back home as Helen.

The motion picture soundtrack mixing old and new song standards include: "Back in the Days of Old Broadway" by Charles Henderson and Alfred Newman; "Under the Bamboo Tree," "Comin' Thru the Rye" (Scotch tradition melody by Robert Burns); "The Strawberry Blonde," "My Evening Star" by John Stromberg and Robert B. Smith; "My Blushin' Rosie," "Adored One" by Mack Gordon and Alfred Newman; "Blue Lovebird" by Gus Kahn and Bronislau Kaper; "Blue Lovebird," "Blue Lovebird" (reprises); "He Goes to the Church on Sunday" by E. Ray Goetz and Vincent Bryan; "Waltz is King" by Mack Gordon and Charles Henderson; "The Tales of the Vienna Woods" by Johann Strauss Jr.; "After the Ball" and "Back in the Days of Old Broadway."

A companion piece to ROSE OF WASHINGTON SQUARE (1939), with Faye in an unauthorized biography of Fanny Brice, along with supporting players assuming fictional names, ROSE and LILLIAN are met with production similarities. Originally a two hour piece, ROSE went through the editing process of 35 minutes, eliminating some great songs as well as comedy acts by the vaudeville comedy team of Joe Weber and Lew Fields. LILLIAN displays what ROSE might have been during its 127 minutes, indicating that maybe the wrong movie was dramatically downsized. A lavish scale musical-biography, LILLIAN succeeds most with its all-star cast, fine songs, plus added bonuses of Weber and Fields recorded on film, Eddie Foy Jr. playing his father, and for the second time on screen, Edward Arnold as Diamond Jim Brady, the role he originated in DIAMOND JIM (Universal, 1935). In spite of its pure accuracy in costume design and hair styles, recapturing the bygone era which ROSE didn't with its 1939 costumes in 1920s setting, the fault for LILLIAN lies on its weak script that might have be salvaged with Technicolor gloss instead of its standard black and white photography. Reviews then must have been mixed, but with fine support of big name and familiar actors, including Nigel Bruce and Claude Allister as Gilbert and Sullivan; and Una O'Connor as Marie, the maid, how could it fail? Yet, the big surprise is the third-billed Henry Fonda, straight from his triumph in THE GRAPES OF WRATH (1940). Not necessarily associated with musicals, it's been mentioned by various sources, including Bob Dorian, former host of American Movie Classics, where LILLIAN RUSSELL aired regularly prior to 1989, that Fonda was unhappy with this assignment, feeling that after several important projects under the direction of John Ford that he would be offered the chance to star mostly in prestigious assignments. As it stands, this project should have been an honor for him for that Fonda's name at this point, supported by a strong cast, to be beneficial to LILLIAN RUSSELL, but of course he didn't or couldn't see it that way. While the real Lillian Russell married four times, the movie only depicts one briefly and the fourth possible prospect, eliminating husbands two and three. Maybe adding a roaster of other popular 20th-Fox actors as substitute to the film's weak points might have helped some with the continuity.

How much can be said about Lillian Russell that could stir up interest to a new generation today? Hard to say. At least with this depiction on her life, whether it be fact or fiction, Lillian Russell's name continues to live on, especially now whenever this screen treatment plays on the Fox Movie Channel. Thank goodness for film and what it represents. (***)

Some historical films are totally worthless as guides to the lives and careers of the people they discuss. PARNELL, for instance, is a dismal film about the great Irish nationalist leader. LILLIAN RUSSELL is not a good guide to the career of the the famed singer and entertainer of the 1890s. There are omissions and polite bowdlerizing. For example, her marriage to Edward Solomon the composer(played by Don Ameche) was not ended by his dropping dead from overwork. Effective movie moment that it is, the marriage ended when Lillian discovered her husband was a bigamist with a living first wife. The relationship with Gilbert and Sullivan was not ended on such a sad but friendly note. Lillian did appear in PATIENCE, but she never played IOLANTHE (Gilbert claimed she did not want to rehearse as much as he insisted his performers do; rumor said that Gilbert tried to get Lillian onto the "casting couch" at the Savoy but she said no). Also, it is highly unlikely that Sullivan would have agreed to Lillian singing another composer's song in his operetta (even if between acts).

Henry Fonda's Alexander Moore is a bland enough character - handsome and kindly in the film, but not as colorful as rivals Ameche, Edward Arnold ("Diamond Jim" Brady) and Warren Williams (Jesse Lewisohn). In real life he was an important newspaperman in Pennsylvania and the Midwest, and (less acceptable in hindsight) a close friend of Warren Harding and Harry Daugherty's "Ohio Gang" of political spoils-men. Lillian, by the way, died in 1922, in the middle of Harding's corrupt administration.

The best things in the film are Faye, as pretty as usual in 19th Century costume, and warbling songs like "Blue Love Bird" in her best voice. That is worth watching. Then there is the color of the theater in the mauve decade. Tony Pastor's, the Savoy Operas, the stage of 19th Century Broadway (back then down near 14th Street and Union Square). My favorite moment: Joe Weber and Lou Fields in costume as their "Dutch" characters of the 1890s, demolishing a game of "Casino". It is a priceless moment of theatrical magic, that briefly tells us more about the real 1890s than the fake movie script for this film. Watch it for Joe and Lou and Alice.

The actors were brilliant in trying to portray such a complex person in such a complex time. The costumes were beautiful.

You do not have to use any imagination to try to figure out the characters and the way they dressed and the way they spoke.

Thank you for doing such a wonderful job. This movie is a true treasure. We are surely blessed with such wonderful artists.

These are truly gifted actors portraying a special time in our history.

The theatre was such a huge part of the American culture. It was the only form of entertainment.

It must of been very magical to witness a play by candle light.

In the 1930s and 40s, Hollywood made a ton of bio-pics. In most cases, the actual peoples' lives were only the barest of outlines for the films--with SIGNIFICANT padding (in other words, outright lying) to make the films more marketable. While the films were generally pretty enjoyable, they also were pure bunk--so when watching any biography from this period, take what you see and hear with a grain of salt. I say all this here because "Lillian Russell" is just one of those films--filled with fiction and is only a biography in name only.

While in some ways this film is accurate about the great stage actress Lillian Russell, here are a few ways where the film is total bull:

The film shows Lillian's parents as a loving couple. They actually separated when Lillian was 18 and she and her mother moved across country--leaving dad behind.

Lillian's first marriage in the film is the biggest problem in the film. Her creepy husband (Don Ameche) dies--leaving her a sad, sad widow who then sings HIS song as a tribute to him. In reality, it turned out this total louse was ALREADY MARRIED!!!! When Lillian discovered he was a bigamist, she divorced him! Some love story!!! He also was her second husband--and she'd been cheating on her poor old first husband!

Lillian was married four times...but not in this movie! She only married once and there is an implied marriage at the end.

Her beautiful baby is important in the film. The fact that it died as an infant was never mentioned!

Lillian herself was a feminist and suffragette--writing articles and speaking out for the cause. None of this is in the film and only her mother's political aspirations are discussed--odd considering the film is supposed to be about Lillian.

The film, despite having a completely dull and inaccurate plot, was a big-budget film--with AMAZING sets and lots of stars. It was odd, however, that despite having many big-name actors in the film that they were often used very poorly. Don Ameche, probably Fox's #1 male star at the time, plays a simpering loser--who also behaves VERY creepy 80 minutes into the film (where he basically says she can NEVER, NEVER leave him--even if she wants to!). Clearly it was NOT a role suited to such an illustrious star and might have been better for Boris Karloff! Henry Fonda basically plays a love-sick loser....and a creepy one who has stalked her from afar. Warren William is in the film...and that's all that can be said about his part. Pretty much the same can be said for Leo Carillo. Edward Arnold isn't bad as Diamond Jim Brady, however, and Helen Westley is GREAT as grandma. And as for the star, Alice Faye, this is one of her best films and the makeup and costuming folks have made her radiant. Clearly the women in this film outshine the men--as if the men, for a change, are more window dressing than people.

The overall verdict is that although the film looks great and has some decent moments, it's a dull, bloated and incredibly inaccurate film. By the way, there is a VERY funny glitch at the 89 minute mark. Lillian picks up her crying baby. The closeup of the kid is of a completely different kid--with the hair changing from brown to blond before your very eyes--and with a completely different face!! Didn't they think anyone would notice.

FYI--This film was wildly inaccurate that there is a special feature on the DVD entitled "A Woman Like No Other: The Real Lillian Russell"! It is worth seeing. It also shows that Lillian's life was FAR more interesting than the 20th Century-Fox film!