Lilac Time
About Lilac Time
Jeannine Berthelot (Colleen Moore) keeps a farm in France with her mother beside a Royal Flying Corps squadron. Captain Philip Blythe (Gary Cooper), a new pilot, mistakes her for a boy in mechanic's clothes and cuffs her. She hides in his cockpit, the plane lifts and crashes, and he pulls her out. His father, General Blythe, arrives with Philip's fiancée, Lady Iris Rankin. Jeannine sees them kiss. The night before an offensive, Philip promises in the lilac garden that he will come back. A crash leaves him alive. The general tells Jeannine he is dead. She sends lilacs to be laid by his face. The smell wakes him, and she finds him.
Cast & crew
More about Lilac Time
George Fitzmaurice directed. Frank Lloyd is also on the director credit, listed as uncredited in some accounts. Carey Wilson wrote the screenplay. Willis Goldbeck and Adela Rogers St. Johns adapted the play by Jane Cowl and Jane Murfin. George Marion Jr. wrote intertitles. Sidney Hickox photographed. Alexander Hall edited. First National produced it. Warner Bros. distributed it. New York premiere 3 August 1928. United States release 18 October 1928. Running time is given as 110 minutes and as 80. The aerial crashes were filmed for this production. It had earned back its cost within months, and by the end of 1928 it had taken more than Moore's Flaming Youth.
Themes
Background
The squadron is Royal Flying Corps, quartered on a French farm in the 1914–18 war. The story's offensive is the night the planes leave at dawn.
Making
First National spent $1,000,000, with a squadron of actors as the flyers and crashes staged for the cameras rather than taken from news film.
Reviews
James H. Farmer called the picture overly sentimental and credited the original aerial sequences, including crashes shot for it. Stephen Pendo, in Aviation in the Cinema (1985), singled it out as one of the most sentimental aviation films of the period. Michael Paris later echoed that judgment.
Audiences
U.S. and Canada rentals were $1,675,000. The cost was back within months. By the end of 1928 it had outgrossed Colleen Moore's Flaming Youth.
Look
Sidney Hickox photographed the farm, the lilac garden, and the flying. The crashes were made for the film.
Technique
The air fights and crashes were photographed for this production, not borrowed from combat footage.
Music
The film was released with a Vitaphone score. The discs survive at the British Film Institute.
Preservation
The Vitaphone soundtrack survives on discs at the BFI. A picture copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- Burr McIntosh plays General Blythe. Kathryn McGuire is Lady Iris. Eugenie Besserer is Madame Berthelot. Cleve Moore, Colleen's brother, is Captain Russell. Émile Chautard is the mayor. Edward Dillon is Mike the mechanic. Arthur Lake is The Unlucky One.
- Jeannine prays to a statue of Joan of Arc in the lilac garden.
- The Los Angeles opening at the Carthay Circle put a wrecked fuselage on display.
- James H. Farmer, in Celluloid Wings (1984), separates the aerial work, including several crashes shot for the film, from the romance.
Scenes
- Philip cuffs Jeannine, taking the grease-smeared mechanic for a boy.
- She is in the cockpit when the throttle opens and the plane crashes into trees.
- Lilacs laid by his face bring him around after she has been told he is dead.
Influenced by
- Lilac Time (play)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Lilac Time (1928).webm)
