Liliom
About Liliom
Liliom (Charles Farrell), a barker on a Budapest merry-go-round, leaves Madame Muscat (Estelle Taylor) and marries the servant Julie (Rose Hobart). Out of work, and told she is pregnant, he lets his friend the Buzzard (Lee Tracy) talk him into robbing a cashier so they can sail for America. Caught, he stabs himself rather than be taken. A train of the afterlife sends him to hell for ten years. He is allowed one day back, sees his daughter Louise (Anne Shirley), and strikes her when he is shut out of the house. She feels the blow as a kiss.
Cast & crew
More about Liliom
Frank Borzage directed. S. N. Behrman and Sonya Levien wrote the screenplay from Ferenc Molnár's 1909 play. Fox released it on 5 October 1930. With Just Imagine, also from Fox, it was among the first films to use rear projection, here in a train sequence.
Themes
Background
A pre-Code Fox drama of 1930, the first talking adaptation of Molnár's play.
Technique
Rear projection is used in the afterlife train sequence, a device Fox was also trying that year in Just Imagine.
Preservation
Preserved by the Academy Film Archive. A copy is on Wikimedia Commons.
Notes
- The first sound version of the play. Fritz Lang filmed it again in 1934, also for Fox.
- H. B. Warner plays the Chief Magistrate. Walter Abel plays a carpenter. Lillian Elliott plays Aunt Hulda.
- The British Board of Film Censors rejected it for an irreverent treatment of sacred subjects. A PG certificate was issued in 2010.
Scenes
- Liliom rides the train of the dead and is sentenced to ten years in hell.
- Louise feels his slap as a kiss.
Influenced by
- Ferenc Molnár's play Liliom (1909)
Also available
- Wikimedia Commons (Liliom.webm)
