Customer Reviews

Lilacs in the Spring

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First a word about 'gray market' DVDs--
Often, transfers are not of the highest quality. The movies themselves are unrestored and rarely pristine (but still watchable), extras are non-existent and inclusion of artwork or liner notes varies by manufacturer. These niche companies can however provide a valuable outlet for movies unavailable anywhere else.


In the British-made melodrama LILACS IN THE SPRING, Errol Flynn's wife, Anna Neagle, who was five years his senior plays the aging matinee idol's daughter *and* his wife. (Freudians would have a field day with this one!)

Neagle's character sustains a head injury during a WWII air raid and her long-absent father (Flynn) flies from America to be with her. While unconscious, Neagle dreams she's both Queen Victoria and her mother, a former prominent stage star. Thus, when Flynn (in flashback) meets the yet-to-be-successful Neagle (as her mother) and marries her, she's his hallucinatory wife and his hospitalized daughter. (...just lie back on the couch, please...)

In her flashback, with Flynn's help Neagle's fame grows while the mediocre music hall soft-shoer's career falters. Out of desperation, he leaves wife and young daughter for America and a movie career, never to return until the bombing injury. In fairness to Flynn, his wife refuses to abandon the British stage to accompany him to America. They eventually divorce and she dies in an accident.

NOTES:
Both Flynn and Neagle get to sing and dance here. Sean Connery, who began his career as a chorus boy, supposedly appears in one of these sequences. Stephen Boyd has a bit part as Flynn's poolside companion. He was the original choice for a role that Connery eventually got: James Bond in DR. NO (1962). The Peter Graves portraying Prince Albert is *not* the American actor.


Parenthetical number preceding title is a 1 to 10 imdb viewer poll rating.

(5.9) Lilacs in the Spring (UK-1954) - Errol Flynn/Anna Neagle/David Farrar/Kathleen Harrison/Peter Graves/Helen Haye/Scott Sanders (uncredited: Sean Connery/Stephen Boyd)

A very nice movie with a story, which is written right out of real life. Absolutely worth seeing. 100%.

About the only thing worth seeing is Errol Flynn's attempt at song and dance. He was good in this. But it's a rather disjointed story.

The film isn't in very good condition either. There were many places where the film is badly discolored....at least on the VHS version....and several skips througout the film that causes you to miss some of the dialogue.