Customer Reviews

Liliom

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

 

 

At last we have it on video and DVD--the 1934 French film version of Ferenc Molnar's "Liliom", with very legible subtitles, so that now the entire English-speaking world can take in the beauty of this sorely neglected film.

For those who don't know, "Liliom" is the non-musical Hungarian play on which Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Carousel" is based, and in 1934, the great German director Fritz Lang, while staying in France during his flight from the Nazis (he was Jewish), made a French film version of it. (There had already been an early U.S. talking film version in 1930, but from all accounts, it received very poor reviews, made no impact whatsoever and remains forgotten.) Hammerstein, when adapting "Liliom" into "Carousel" in 1945, was largely faithful to his source material, so viewers unfamiliar with "Liliom" should have no trouble recognizing the similarities, right down to certain lines of dialogue.

This French film, unfairly kept out of circulation by Fox in favor of the film version of "Carousel", is everything an exemplary film version of a play should be, exceptionally well acted by some of the best character actors ever to emerge from France, beautifully photographed, and directed with an imagination that surpasses Henry King's in "Carousel", as excellent as that film is. Fritz Lang's idea of Heaven, easily the funniest segment of this otherwise very serious and deeply moving film, is one of the most imaginative concepts Lang ever dreamed up, and has to be seen to be appreciated.

Charles Boyer, extremely young, and with a full head of hair if not a hairpiece, is perfectly suited for the role of Liliom , the non-musical equivalent of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Billy Bigelow. The role of Julie has an imaginative twist to it in this version---both Julie and her daughter are played by Madeleine Ozeray, and if ever an actress showed versatility it is here. Ms. Ozeray creates two distinct characterizations flawlessly.

In other roles, the actress Florelle plays Mrs. Muskat (Mrs. Mullin in "Carousel") as more of a floozy than Hammerstein makes her in the musical, and Lang even gives her a touch of sympathy and humanity when she orders that all the lights in the amusement park be dimmed at an especially tragic moment.

Pierre Alcover plays Alfred the criminal (Jigger Craigin in "Carousel") as a self-satisfied, overfed lout who wouldn't even think of obtaining money in an ethical manner, and does so in the great tradition of French 1930's character acting. Wolf Beifeld, the character who was turned into Mr. Snow in "Carousel", is omitted entirely in this version, but Mimi Funes does play Marie, Julie's best friend, as a much more worldly character than we have ever seen. Maximillienne is all wise understanding as Mrs. Menoux, the boarding house keeper and equivalent of Cousin Nettie in "Carousel".And Henri Richard contributes a truly comical portrayal of two equally flustered commissioners, one in Heaven, and one on Earth.

There is no clambake in this version either, but those who are used to "Carousel" will notice that "Liliom" is so well acted and directed that one does not miss the beautiful Rodgers and Hammerstein score even if the viewer has it ringing in their head as they watch this film. That is how good the Fritz Lang "Liliom" is. Fox has been, up to now, sorely negligent in seeing that this film was widely shown with subtitles in English-speaking countries, but they have finally come through. Rent or buy "Liliom", and treat yourself to the most unfairly neglected 1930's foreign film classic.

Lang's version of Molnar's stage play, "Liliom" is quite wonderful, and one of the best films he directed during his long period of exile. However, Kino's DVD transfer is a disappointment and should be avoided. Buy the VHS version instead, particularly since the DVD looks as if the VHS was merely reproduced with a further loss in duplication. Kino almost always produces good to excellent DVD transfers, so this one is doubly troublesome; the contrast is poor, important details are lost, and the overall image is fuzzy and as soft as whip cream. This should be a five star but the poor quality of the transfer brings it way down. I bought it because I had to see it, but I only saw part of the lovely film that Lang originally put on the screen.

This film was thought to be lost; that a copy survived and was found at all is pure serendipity. Kino goes to great lengths to do right by the source material from which they work, which leads me to believe that this film just wasn't in very good condition. We're lucky to have it and I suspect they did the best they could. However, I've deducted a star because a release with such a high list price should offer something more in the way of special features than a "Fritz Lang Filmography" and "Subtitle Options." C'mon, guys.
This is a delicious piece of cinema. As mentioned by a previous reviewer, this film was shot on the fly during Lang's brief sojourn in France while en route to the States, fleeing what would have been almost certain extermination in Germany (despite his supposedly having been offered the opportunity to make films for the Nazis). He banged out this little gem (which flopped) and exited, well ahead of the Vichy Laws (talk about luck). Europe's loss continues to this day to be our gain, especially since so much of his catalog has been digitally remastered. The audio and video quality aren't great but they're really not as bad as reviewers would have you believe and besides, who can pass up a chance to visit Heaven--à la Lang, no less--with Charles Boyer?
Update as of 1/13/2007: I've read that the recent release of Carousel includes Liliom and that the print is MUCH better than this one (I've suspected for a while that Kino has been coasting on its reputation). Fans might want to look into purchasing the new release and getting two treatments of Liliom for the price of one.

The 50th anniversary DVD edition of Caruosel, recently released by Fox, has an excellent DVD transfer of Liliom. It's a wonderfully moving film. Buy Carousel and get Liliom too!

A STUNNING version of the non-musical play [there is a song or two though nicely warbled by Mr. Boyer] - the telling of a 'ne'er do well' lout who seduces?, And then 'perhaps' marries a rather oddly liberated young girl only to meet with disaster .... but then again there is 'that' silver lining....

ONE can easily see how this movie paved the way for the Cocteau masterpieces a few years later ... the surreal quality of 'Heaven' and especially the Matrix type Dark Angels are quite unforgettable.

ALSO the frank [brutal] way Liliom treats Julie [yes, he actually hits her in this version - unlike the Shirley Jones version - also splended]. Not forgetting the park bench sequence with Julie & Liliom - quite, err... frank shall we say for the period .....

As in all cases when a work like this [very earthy] tranfers into 'commercial mode' censorship must intervene.

ANOTHER 'Must" for the serious collector.

The Score - "F. Waxman" shares this distinction.

Now just 'where' is the "Fanny" trilogy?

If I were rating the VHS copy of this movie, rather than the DVD, I'd have no hesitation in giving it 5 stars. This is truly a delightful film, although after the title character dies and goes to "heaven", it does tend to drag a bit. But previous reviewers have described the film in such detail that I would like to concentrate, instead, on the film print used for this DVD version.

Kino Video is one of those companies that we can thank for producing DVDs of many hard to find films from the silent era and "Golden Age" of Hollywood and Europe. After all, it is Kino Video that we can thank for distributing the incredible restoration of "Metropolis"! So I criticize them with great hesitation. and only because I would like them to be a bit more consistent. (For instance I, for one, have never purchased a DVD produced by Criterion that wasn't almost perfect . . . well, OK, perhaps their print of "The 39 Steps" could have been a bit sharper, but this exception only proves the rule.)

One of the reasons the DVD format has become so popular, especially among film collectors, is its ability to reproduce films on our TVs at twice the resolution offered by the best of the old videotapes. If this ability is not utilized, what is the point of buying the DVD . . . why not just go buy the cheaper videotape? This is the case with "Liliom". As I mentioned, the print is very clean, but the resolution of the print is so low that it is like watching a rather mediocre videotape. For instance, in the "outdoor" scene where Liliom is going to rob the man in the tunnel (I realize that it was filmed in a studio, but none-the-less), the bushes in the background look like blobs of gray and white rather than bushes with actual leaves. The resolution is so low that a great deal of the scenery in many scenes looks like it was painted with a mop.

Having said this, however, I still recommend that everyone who is interested in great film-making see this film. It has many wonderful moments, and holds a significant place in the history of European cinema. Just go in with your eyes open . . . wide open, if possible . . . and see if you can borrow it from you local library instead of paying cold, hard cash for it. Maybe then, Kino will start looking around for better source material to "restore" for us collectors.

For some inexplicable reason, Amazon has removed the rate movie feature from the main product page. One must now write a review in order to rate a movie and generate recommendations. This is not a review, but merely a means to allow me to rate this movie and improve my recommendations. If you are as annoyed by this new "feature" as I am, please register your protest w/ Amazon help.

Whoever ordered a film with greaseball Charles Boyer sleazing it up as a shiftless scoundrel who takes advantage of half-witted women, your badly transferred print is ready for pick-up! Fritz Lang (whose filmography after he left Germany reads like a list of films of such low quality that they are not only forgotten, you have to wonder if the guy who compiled the list might have thrown in a few non-existent films just to play a practical joke) continues his downward slide into film irrelevance with this awful movie that eventually was remade into Rodgers and Hammerstein's, "Carousel" (a sign of things to come - Andrew Lloyd Weber would later figure out what R&H learned in the fifties (anyone remember "Flower Drum Song"?): that you can throw anything on stage if you include two hummable songs in the score). Boyer looks (and most probably smelled) like a pig. He is short, dirty and oily looking, has absurdly pointy, feminized sideburns, and carries himself like a man whose center of gravity is south of his belt buckle. Great acting? No! Boyer is like this in every film - although Hollywood was sometimes able to talk him into some clean clothes. The storyline would fit perfectly on THE weekday tv trash talk shows: "I GAVE MY HEART TO A LOSER AND NOW HE BEATS ME UP AND CHEATS ON ME!!" Half-witted Julie (who, like her feminine couterparts on tv, doesn't seem to have been able to get her GED or financial situation straightened out - BUT IS ABLE TO HAVE A BABY!) loses her job because she is testing the mattress springs too late with Boyer - who she has just met minutes before at a traveling carnival (Oprah would say that traveling carnivals are NOT exactly where evolved women find eligible bachelors - but who is Oprah to talk? She is stuck with Stedman and 40 pound overweight uglyfest Dr. Phil for male company!). Boyer decides to support Julie with a life of crime. Crime goes bad. Boyer commits suicide. He is taken to heaven by Angels who give him another chance. Hmm. As a Republican, I think he had more than enough chances already and belongs in the pokey or the sulphuric fires of hell - but that's just me - and anyone else crazy enough to believe that thirty old men know what they are doing and should be held responsible for their behavior (whoops! Let's not go off on a tangent that NPR might not like!). Lang has very, very little to do here. And the viewer may decided that they have plenty of better things to do than to waste their time on this. Kino seems to be scraping the bottom of the "classic" film barrel here. No matter; because I see that is has become rather chic to use unwanted DVD discs as coasters at cocktail gatherings. Chic, yes (with the "let's make sure that everything in our wardrobe is black" crowd). Functional, no. Once the condensation starts on the bottom of your cocktail glass, the DVD disc will stick to it like glue. Lift up to get a snoot, and you will be staring at Jean Claud Van Damme and Boyer through yoru martini.