Liliom

Before the years of television and travel made easy by commercial aircraft, movie newsreels and feature films were the live action windows on the rest of the world for most Americans. Most of the films with Eastern Europe locales were based on novels or plays written by writers from those countries, or were made by directors and producers who came from there.

"Liliom" is one such film, based on a 1919 play of the same title by Hungarian author, Ference Molnar, known mostly by his professional name, Franz Molnar. This 1930 film is the first movie made of that play, with a screenplay by S.N. Behrman and Sonya Levien. The story takes place in Molnar's Budapest. Frank Borzage directed the Fox film with Charles Farrell in the lead role. Just four years later, Fox would remake the film with a major rewrite of the story, though still set in Budapest, and starring Charles Boyer.

The next major production of the story would be the Rodgers and Hammerstein 1956 musical, Carousel, again with a major revision of the story. It starred Gordon MacRae in the lead role and was directed by Henry King.

As the original play on film this is a good strory of love and drama, set around a carnival atmosphere. As it's a very early sound film, most of the cast seem somewhat wooden, probably due to the early sound techniques with stationary microphones. The sets also seem quite stagy. Still, itt's a fair film for a look at the original story as written by Molnar for his Austro-Hungarian stage of the time.

With the rudimentary production equipment and settings, this would probably not interest many movie goers of the 21st century.

Charles Farrell stars as the titular Liliom, a no-good 'barker', enticing people - especially pretty young ladies – to ride the carousel at the fairground. Along come servant Julie (Rose Hobart) and her colleague Marie and, to cut a long story short, Lil' and Jules find themselves unemployed, drinking in a beer-garden. Thus begins a not quite beautiful relationship. Liliom, being an 'artist', has trouble turning provider and Auntie-in-(common)law is running out of patience for the loafer on the sofa. Furthermore, Lil's former employer/lover, the sultry carousel owner Louise, wants him to come back to the fair, and his 'friend', 'The Buzzard', is never far off with his easy-money schemes… If you haven't had someone spoil the film for you, you're in for one hell of a surprise up ahead.

This is an early sound film and by jiminy it shows. The line readings are like children's TV – you know, sort of wooden and VERY clearly pronounced just in case the wee ones are still learning to understand their native tongues. BUT this film should be enjoyed as a sort of fairy tale anyway, so that isn't quite the problem here that it might be in a more conventional drama. The characters all come across intensely as living souls here and I found myself deeply affected by them. Visually it's other worldly, German expressionist, with the lights of the seemingly omnipresent carnival twinkling through the night and beautiful use of lighting throughout, bringing out the delightful faces of the leads. Some have objected to the film's offensive, out-dated gender politics – there's a possible reading that spousal abuse is fine if it was done for the right reasons; and that 'boys will be boys' and that's fine, even good! – but this wasn't the way I chose to read it. For me this was far from a moral/message film; more like an unforgettable surrealist's dream. Later remade in 1934 by Fritz Lang, and then again in 1956 by Henry King, as Carousel. Highly recommended.

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.

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.

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.