Directed by:
Frank BorzageCinematography:
Chester A. LyonsComposer:
Samuel KaylinCast:
Charles Farrell, Rose Hobart, Estelle Taylor, H.B. Warner, Lee Tracy, Walter Abel, Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams, Anne Shirley, Bert Roach, Oscar Apfel (more)Plots(1)
This first film version of Ferenc Molnar's poignant fantasy Liliom was supposed to have reunited the director Frank Borzage and stars Charles Farrell and Janet Gaynor of Fox's 1927 box-office smash Seventh Heaven. But Gaynor was enmeshed in one of her periodic contract disputes with the studio, so she was replaced by Rose Hobart. Set in the suburbs of Budapest, the film centers on the rocky romantic relationship between studdish carnival barker Liliom (Farrell) and his working-girl sweetheart Julie (Hobart). Fired by jealous carnival owner Mme. Muscat (Estelle Taylor), the swaggering Liliom is financially unprepared for Julie's pregnancy. Needing plenty of money fast, he agrees to participate in a robbery masterminded by "The Buzzard" (Lee Tracy), a two-bit thief. The hold-up goes horribly awry, whereupon Liliom, rather than face arrest, commits suicide. His soul is whisked by a modernistic celestial train to the outer gates of Heaven where he stands trial before the Court of Judgment. After ten years in Purgatory, he is given the opportunity to visit Earth for one day to make amends for past wrongs. He meets for the first time his daughter, Marie (Mildred Van Dorn), and tries to give her a stolen gift. When she backs off from him in terror, Liliom slaps the girl, just as he had her mother. A failure in death as in life, Liliom wearily returns to Purgatory, while Julie, somehow sensing what has happened, comforts her confused daughter. (official distributor synopsis)
(more)Cast
Charles Farrell
USA
Best movies:
City Girl (1930)
The Freshman (1925)
The Ten Commandments (1923)
Rose Hobart
USA
Best movies:
Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde (1931)
Conflict (1945)
Canyon Passage (1946)
Estelle Taylor
USA
Best movies:
The Ten Commandments (1923)
Bachelor Mother (1939)
Where East Is East (1929)
H.B. Warner
UK
Best movies:
It's a Wonderful Life (1946)
Sunset Boulevard (1950)
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
Lee Tracy
USA
Best movies:
Dinner at Eight (1933)
The Best Man (1964)
Doctor X (1932)
Walter Abel
USA
Best movies:
Fury (1936)
Hold Back the Dawn (1941)
Mr. Skeffington (1944)
Guinn 'Big Boy' Williams
USA
Best movies:
Beggars of Life (1928)
City Girl (1930)
Mr. Bug Goes to Town (1941)
Anne Shirley
USA
Best movies:
City Girl (1930)
4 Devils (1928)
Stella Dallas (1937)
Bert Roach
USA
Best movies:
Song of Love (1947)
Fury (1936)
Love Crazy (1941)
Oscar Apfel
USA
Best movies:
San Francisco (1936)
Manhattan Melodrama (1934)
Conquest (1937)
Martha Mattox
USA
Best movies:
The Cat and the Canary (1927)
The Bitter Tea of General Yen (1933)
Sidney D'Albrook
USA
Best movies:
The Power and the Glory (1933)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Mrs. Miniver (1942)
Jack Raymond
USA
Best movies:
After the Thin Man (1936)
Citizen Kane (1941)
Lonesome (1928)
James A. Marcus
USA
Best movies:
Regeneration (1915)
The Scarlet Letter (1926)
The Song of Songs (1933)
Phillips Smalley
USA
Best movies:
Sunrise (1927)
A Night at the Opera (1935)
Make Way for Tomorrow (1937)
June Gittelson
USA
Best movies:
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (1939)
King Kong (1933)
Our Relations (1936)
Frankie Genardi
USA
Best movies:
The Iron Mask (1929)
Street Angel (1928)
Paramount on Parade (1930)