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      Liliom

      Released Oct 5, 1930 1h 34m Drama List
      Reviews 55% 50+ Ratings Audience Score Liliom learns his wife is pregnant and robs a bank. During the getaway, he is killed and given a chance to return to Earth. He quickly learns the only way to make his wife and daughter happy is to leave them with cherished memories. Read More Read Less

      Audience Reviews

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      Audience Member Youtube has a pretty flawless print of this pictorially beautiful movie with creepy sentimental content about a man-boy brute who is a carousel barker. The beautiful part is the soundstage sets and the photography. The acting is third rate. The creepy part is that the ultimate message is: "He hit me and it felt like a kiss." And here I thought Carole King came up with that line in her notorious, Spector produced, pop tune. I have never seen any production of the musical Carousel. It is like this? Rated 1 out of 5 stars 02/06/23 Full Review Audience Member once lost now found mixes sci-fi with rom-com. Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars 01/21/23 Full Review Audience Member Lang's version of Liliom is easily more famous, but I think Murnau's is the best. No other director could film the spiritual connection like he could, and that's what this movie is all about. Murnau was also able to very delicately handle relationships of this nature. In the end, Liliom is just a great, extremely emotional story, and Borzage's handling of it is the best I've seen outside of Carousel. Rated 4.5 out of 5 stars 02/24/23 Full Review Audience Member Remarkable filming of Molnar's play that would later go on and serve as the source for Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Carousel." Not to be confused with Fritz Lang's French film of the same story made three years later, this is an American film directed by Frank Borzage at the dawn of the sound era. While Charles Farrell (who possessed a nasally, unattractive speaking voice... his career was not destined to survive the talkies) is not as persuasively masculine as Charles Boyer in the later Lang film, Rose Hobart's take on Julie is probably the best I've ever seen (and I'm including numerous productions of "Carousel" in this assessment). But the real star here is Borzage and his crew of designers and technicians. The film is rife with evocative and strange images that prepare us for the fantasy that is to come. The film's set piece... and what sets it apart from all other adaptations of Molnar's play... is a death scene that includes a celestial train riding off the tracks of a roller coaster and through the huge, expressionistic window to "pick up" one of the principal characters. Rated 5 out of 5 stars 02/13/23 Full Review Read all reviews Post a rating

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      Liliom

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      Movie Info

      Synopsis Liliom learns his wife is pregnant and robs a bank. During the getaway, he is killed and given a chance to return to Earth. He quickly learns the only way to make his wife and daughter happy is to leave them with cherished memories.
      Director
      Frank Borzage
      Screenwriter
      S.N. Behrman, Sonya Levien
      Distributor
      Fox Film Corporation
      Genre
      Drama
      Original Language
      English
      Release Date (Theaters)
      Oct 5, 1930, Original
      Runtime
      1h 34m