Liliom
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Movie Reviews of Liliom
Movie Review: on the MIDWAY 5 Stars
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?
Movie Review: Liliom, a "special feature" on the Carousel DVD
Summary: 5 Stars
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!Movie Review: Lang's Personal Favorite
Summary: 4 Stars
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--a 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.
Movie Review: let me rate movies on the product page w/o writing a review!
Summary: 4 Stars
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.Movie Review: WONDERFUL FILM - disappointing print
Summary: 3 Stars
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.
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