Lili
Encyclopedia
Lili is an American
film. An MGM
release, it stars Leslie Caron
as a touchingly naïve French girl, whose emotional relationship with a carnival puppeteer is conducted through the medium of four puppets. The screenplay by Helen Deutsch
was adapted from "The Man Who Hated People," a short story by Paul Gallico
which appeared in the October 28, 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening Post
. Following the film's success, Gallico expanded his story into a 1954 novella entitled The Love of Seven Dolls.
It won the Academy Award for Original Music Score
and was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role
(Caron), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Color)
(Cedric Gibbons
, Paul Groesse
, Edwin B. Willis, Arthur Krams
), Best Cinematography (Color)
, Best Director
(Charles Walters
) and Best Adapted Screenplay. It was also entered into the 1953 Cannes Film Festival
.
Leslie Caron and Mel Ferrer
's rendition of "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo
" was released as a single and became a minor hit, reaching #30 on the pop music charts.
The film was adapted for the stage under the title Carnival.
Naive country girl Lili (Leslie Caron
) arrives in a provincial town in hopes of locating an old friend of her late father's, only to find that he has also died. A local shopkeeper offers her employment and a meal, then tries to take advantage of her. She is rescued by a handsome, smooth-talking, womanizing carnival magician, Marc, whose stage name
is Marcus the Magnificent (Jean-Pierre Aumont
). Lili is infatuated with him and follows him to the carnival where, on learning that she is only 16, he decides to help her get a job as waitress. Lili is fired on her first night when she spends her time watching the magic act instead of waiting tables. When Lili consults the magician for advice, he tells her to go back to where she came from. Homeless and heartbroken, she contemplates suicide, unaware that she is being watched by the carnival's puppeteer Paul (Mel Ferrer
). He stops her by striking up a conversation with her through his puppets — a brash red-haired boy named Carrot Top, a sly fox named Reynardo, a vain ballerina named Marguerite, and a cowardly giant named Golo the Giant. Soon a large group of carnival workers gather and are enthralled watching Lili's direct interaction with the puppets, as she is seemingly unaware that there is a puppeteer behind the curtain. Afterwards, Paul and his partner Jacquot (Kurt Kasznar
) offer Lili a job in the act, talking with the puppets. She accepts and her natural and pure manner of interacting with the puppets becomes the most valuable part of the act.
Paul was once a well-known dancer, but suffered a leg injury in World War II
. He regards the puppet show as far inferior to his old career, which embitters him. Lili refers to him as "the Angry Man." Although he falls in love with Lili, he can only express his feelings through the puppets. Fearing rejection due to his physical impairment, he keeps his distance by being consistently unpleasant to her, even as Jacquot warns him that he is driving Lili away. Lili continues to dream about the handsome magician, wishing to replace his sexy assistant Rosalie (Zsa Zsa Gabor
).
Soon, Marcus receives an offer to perform at the local casino and decides to leave the carnival, much to the joy of Rosalie, who can now announce to everyone that she is his wife. Lili is heartbroken and innocently invites Marc to her trailer. His lecherous plans are interrupted by Paul, and he leaves. When Lili finds his wedding ring and tries to chase after him, she is stopped by Paul who calls her a fool and hits her. Lili runs off to think.
Two impresarios from Paris who have been scouting the show for a few days come to see Paul and Jacquot. They soon recognize Paul as the former dancer, and tell him that his current act with Lili and the puppets is ingenious. Paul is ecstatic about this and the offer, but Jacquot tells the agents that they will have to let them know at a later time. He tells Paul in private that Lili is leaving.
Lili takes the wedding ring to Marc and tells him that every little girl grows up and has to wake up from her girlish dreams and open her eyes. She has decided to leave the carnival. On her way out she is stopped by the familiar voices of Carrot Top and Reynardo, who ask her to take them with her. As they embrace her, she finds they are shaking. She remembers there is actually somebody behind the curtain, and pulls it away to see Paul. Instead of telling her how he feels and asking her to stay, he tells her of the agents' offer. She confronts him about the difference between his real self, seemingly incapable of love, and his puppets. He tells her he is the puppets, each and all, a creature of many facets and many flaws, as is any other man. He concludes by telling her, "this is business." "Not anymore," retorts Lili, who turns and walks away.
Walking the lonely road out of town, she imagines that the puppets, now life-size, have joined her. As she dances joyfully with Carrot Top, he turns into Paul. Dismayed, she draws back, and he fades away. Facing the other three, Marguerite brings her along next, but then she, too, turns into Paul and fades away. She begins to realize that what Paul said about being all the puppets is true, and slowly walks to Reynardo and dances with him. When he, too, turns into Paul and runs away, she throws herself into the arms of Golo, the last puppet, who turns into Paul and stays with her, dancing. Coming back to reality, Lili runs back to the carnival and into Paul's waiting arms. They kiss passionately as the puppets applaud.
included it in their 2004 Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made, as did Angie Errigo and Jo Berry in a 2005 compilation of Chick Flicks: Movies Women Love.
Bosley Crowther
, reviewing the movie at its opening, had nothing but praise for the movie, rejoicing that "at last Leslie Caron's simplicity and freshness... have been captured again in the film." He showered other encomia on Caron, calling her "elfin," "winsome," the "focus of warmth and appeal," praising her "charm," "grace," "beauty," and "vitality." He said screenwriter Helen Deutsch had "put together a frankly fanciful romance with clarity, humor, and lack of guile," and admires the choreographer, sets, music, and title song.
The movie was not universally liked, though; Pauline Kael
called it a "sickly whimsy" and referred to Mel Ferrer's "narcissistic, masochistic smiles."
, famous in puppeteering circles, made the puppets. They mostly worked in cabaret
s and did not appear on television. Lili is the only known filmed record of their work. Walton and O'Rourke manipulated Marguerite and Reynardo, George Latshaw was responsible for Carrot Top, and Wolo handled Golo the Giant. According to Kukla, Fran and Ollie
director Louis Gomavitz, Burr Tillstrom
was approached to create puppets for the film, but turned it down.
, with orchestrations by Robert Franklyn and Skip Martin
. Kaper's music received the Oscar for "Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture."
Lyrics for the song "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo" were written by Helen Deutsch
for her previously-published short story "Song of Love." Kaper's setting of the song was performed by Caron and Mel Ferrer in the film; the performance was released on record and reach # 30 on the charts.
Four excerpts from the score were first issued by MGM Records at the time of the film's release. The complete score was issued on cd in 2005, on Film Score Monthly
records.
The Paul Gallico short story from which Lili was adapted was published in expanded form in 1954 as Love of Seven Dolls, a 125-page novella. The New York Times review of the book opens "Those audiences still making their way to see Lili may now read the book from which this motion picture was adapted." The original short story was clearly based on the popular television puppet show Kukla, Fran and Ollie
, as it takes place in a television studio (not a carnival as in the film and book), and has many characters based on the Kuklapolitans. The novella was far more mystical and magic than the short story. Brettonais from the village of Plouha..."Wretched though she was, some of the mystery of that mysterious land still clung to her...the gravity of her glance, the innocence and primitive mind...there were dark corners of Celtic brooding...a little scarecrow."
Helen Deutsch's adaptation is [somewhat] true to the essential core of Gallico's story, but there are many differences, and Gallico's book is far, far darker in tone. In the book, the girl's nickname is Mouche ("fly") rather than Lili. The puppeteer is named Michel Peyrot, stage name Capitaine Coq, rather than Paul Berthalet. He is not a crippled dancer, rather "he was bred out of the gutters of Paris." Yet something moves him to save the potential suicide.
The puppeteer's assistant is a "primitive" Senegal
ese man named Golo, rather than the movie's amiable Frenchman, Jacquot. He shares with Mouche a sense of primitive magic, and with her believes in the reality of the puppets.
The first four puppets she meets correspond closely to those in the film and are a youth named Carrot Top; a fox, Reynardo; a vain girl, Gigi; and a "huge, tousle-headed, hideous, yet pathetic-looking giant" Alifanfaron. The latter two are named "Marguerite" and "Golo" in the movie (i.e. the name of the puppeteer's assistant in the book becomes the name of a puppet in the movie). The book includes three additional puppets: a penguin named Dr. Duclos who wears a pince-nez
and is a dignified academic; Madame Muscat, "the concierge," who constantly warns Mouche that the others are "a bad lot;" and Monsieur Nicholas, a man with steel-rimmed spectacles, stocking cap, and leather apron, who is "a maker and mender of toys."
The core of both book and movie is the childlike innocence of Mouche/Lili and her simple conviction that she is interacting directly with the puppets themselves, which have some kind of existence separate from the puppeteer. This separation is perfectly explicit in the book. It says that Golo was "childlike...but in the primitive fashion backed by the dark lore of his race" and looked upon the puppets "as living, breathing creatures." But "the belief in the separate existence of these little people was even more basic with Mouche for it was a necessity to her and a refuge from the storms of life with which she had been unable to cope."
In the movie, the puppeteer, Paul Berthalet, is gruff, unhappy, and emotionally distant. Although Lili refers to him as "the angry man", he is not very cruel or menacing. His bitterness is explained by his identity as a former ballet dancer, disabled by a leg injury and "reduced" to the role of puppeteer.
Gallico's Peyrot, however, is vicious in every sense of the word. No ballet dancer, he was "bred out of the gutters" and by the age of fifteen was "a little savage practiced in all the cruel arts and swindles of the street fairs and cheap carnivals." He has "the look of a satyr." "Throughout his life no one had ever been kind to him, or gentle, and he paid back the world in like. Wholly cynical, he had no regard for man, woman, child, or God. Not at any time he could remember in his thirty-five years of existence had he ever loved anything or anyone. He looked upon women as conveniences that his appetite demanded and, after he had used them, abandoned them or treated them badly." Furthermore, he hates Mouche for "her innocence and essential purity. Capitaine Coq was the mortal enemy of innocence...He would, if he could, have corrupted the whole world."
Peyrot rapes the virgin Mouche and embarks on an abusive relationship with her. "He debauched her at night and then willy-nilly restored her in the daytime through the medium of the love of the seven dolls, so that phoenix-like she arose each day from the ashes of abuse of the night before, whether it was a tongue-lashing, or a beating, or to be used like a woman of the streets. She was rendered each time as soft and dewy-eyed, as innocent and trusting as she had been the night he had first encountered her on the outskirts of Paris. The more cruelly he treated her, the kindlier and more friendly to her were the puppets the next morning. He seemed to have lost all control over them. As for Mouche, she lived in a turmoil of alternating despair and entrancing joy."
In both book and movie, Mouche/Lili is tempted by a superficial attraction to a handsome man—an acrobat named Balotte in the book, the magician Marc in the movie—but returns to the puppeteer. In the movie, Marc's relation with Lili is exploitative. In the book, however, it is Peyrot who is exploitative and abusive and the relationship with Balotte that appears healthy. On their first date, Balotte takes Mouche "solicitously by the arm, as though she were fragile. It had been so long since a man had been gentle with her that it quite warmed Mouche's heart. All of a sudden she remembered that she was a young girl and laughed happily." When they dance Balotte becomes "ardent" and holds her "close, but yet tenderly. The tenderness found an answering response in Mouche. Youth was wooing youth. For the first time in longer than she could remember, Mouche was enjoying herself in a normal manner."
She intends to leave with Balotte, but ultimately Mouche abandons this "normal" attachment and returns to Peyrot. Gallico says she comes to an understanding of Peyrot as "a man who had tried to be and live a life of evil, who to mock God and man had perpetuated a monstrous joke by creating his puppets like man, in his image and filling them with love and kindness." Mouche "passed in that moment over the last threshold from child to womanhood" and knew "the catalyst that could save him. It was herself." She tells Peyrot "Michel...I love you. I will never leave you." Peyrot does not respond, but he weeps; Mouche holds his "transfigured" head and, according to Gallico, "knew that they were the tears of a man...who, emerging from the long nightmare, would be made forever whole by love." If this is a happy ending, it is not the simple happy ending of the movie.
Reviewing the book on its publication, Andrea Parke says that Gallico creates "magic...when he writes the sequences with Mouche and the puppets." But "when he writes the love story of Mouche as the ill-treated plaything of the puppet master, the story loses its magic. The mawkish realism of the passages has an aura of bathos
that is not only unreal but unmoving."
. It is lighter in tone than other versions of the story. In particular, the abuse heaped by the puppeteer on the innocent "girl" is emotional and verbal. Unlike the novel The Love of Seven Dolls, the short story does not even hint at physical or sexual abuse.
The story opens in a New York City
television studio where Milly, a "sweet-faced girl with [a] slightly harassed expression," is about to make her farewell appearance on the Peter and Panda show.
Peter and Panda are part of an ensemble of puppets; they are a leprechaun and a panda respectively; other puppets include Arthur, a "raffish crocodile;" Mme. Robineau, a French lady "of indeterminate age with dyed hair;" Doctor Henderson, a penguin; and Mr. Tootenheimer, a toymaker. They are all operated by a single puppeteer, named Crake Villeridge. Despite being a puppet show, it has, like the real-life Kukla, Fran and Ollie TV show, a huge audience of all ages. Also like Kukla, Fran and Ollie, there is no script: "it's all ad-libbed". (In fact, the illustration included with the story features the actual stage used for Kukla, Fran and Ollie.) At the end of the show, "millions watching felt a sense of loss as though a family close to them were breaking up."
Milly has been with the show two years, and, as in other versions of the story, she interacts in a spontaneous and endearing way directly with the personas of the puppets. In a flashback, we learn that during her audition, she had met and talked to the puppets before meeting any human being. Not realizing that this encounter was her audition, she is surprised when a station representative meets her and tells her "Your performance this afternoon came closest to what [Mr. Villeridge] wants." She says "But it actually wasn't a performance" and is told "Exactly. The first time you start giving a performance, you're through."
Villeridge, we learn, is French Canadian
, and had once been headed for a serious career as a hockey player. In an accident, two men "skated over the side of his face," ending his hockey career, and seriously and permanently disfiguring him.
She soon learns that Villeridge is emotionally an abuser. She loves the on-air performances, loves the puppets and their personalities, and finds Mr. Tootenheimer, the wise old toymaker, particularly comforting. But she hates Villeridge and what he does to her in rehearsal and after the show. He shouts at her, demeans her, criticizes everything she has done, and humiliates her in front of the program staff. When she meets a nice man named Fred Archer and believes she is "a little in love" with him, she decides she can no longer withstand with Villeridge and his tyrannical ways. She announces that she is marrying Archer and gives notice.
After her farewell show, she changes into her street dress. She waits for everyone else to leave the studio, afraid of encountering Villeridge who "might be waiting for her with one last attack." As she leaves, she hears the voice of Arthur, the puppet, who says "I stayed behind. Milly, take me with you." Soon she is talking to Arthur and the other puppets. Mr. Tootenheimer, the "old philosopher," explains to her that every man is composed of many things, and that the puppets represent aspects of Villeridge's real personality:
Millie cries "Crake! Crake! come to me." They embrace, and Milly decides to say goodbye to "the outside world—reality—Fred Archer" and live with Villeridge and his created "Never-Never Land of the mind."
, March 10, 1953, pg. 20, cols. 4-6. (See Emoticon
.)
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
film. An MGM
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Inc. is an American media company, involved primarily in the production and distribution of films and television programs. MGM was founded in 1924 when the entertainment entrepreneur Marcus Loew gained control of Metro Pictures, Goldwyn Pictures Corporation and Louis B. Mayer...
release, it stars Leslie Caron
Leslie Caron
Leslie Claire Margaret Caron is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series...
as a touchingly naïve French girl, whose emotional relationship with a carnival puppeteer is conducted through the medium of four puppets. The screenplay by Helen Deutsch
Helen Deutsch
Helen Deutsch was an American screenwriter, journalist and songwriter.Deutsch was born in New York City and graduated from Barnard College. She began her career by managing the Provincetown Players...
was adapted from "The Man Who Hated People," a short story by Paul Gallico
Paul Gallico
Paul William Gallico was a successful American novelist, short story and sports writer. Many of his works were adapted for motion pictures...
which appeared in the October 28, 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
. Following the film's success, Gallico expanded his story into a 1954 novella entitled The Love of Seven Dolls.
It won the Academy Award for Original Music Score
Academy Award for Original Music Score
The Academy Award for Original Score is presented to the best substantial body of music in the form of dramatic underscoring written specifically for the film by the submitting composer.-Superlatives:...
and was nominated for Best Actress in a Leading Role
Academy Award for Best Actress
Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role is one of the Academy Awards of merit presented annually by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to recognize an actress who has delivered an outstanding performance while working within the film industry...
(Caron), Best Art Direction-Set Decoration (Color)
Academy Award for Best Art Direction
The Academy Awards are the oldest awards ceremony for achievements in motion pictures. The Academy Award for Best Art Direction recognizes achievement in art direction on a film. The films below are listed with their production year, so the Oscar 2000 for best art direction went to a film from 1999...
(Cedric Gibbons
Cedric Gibbons
Austin Cedric Gibbons was an Irish American art director who was one of the most important and influential in the field in the history of American film. He also made a great impact on motion picture theater architecture through the 1930s to 1950s, the period considered the golden-era of theater...
, Paul Groesse
Paul Groesse
Paul Groesse was a Hungarian-born American art director. He won three Academy Awards and was nominated for another eight in the category Best Art Direction.-Academy Awards:...
, Edwin B. Willis, Arthur Krams
Arthur Krams
Arthur Krams was an American set designer. He first made a name for himself working for MGM on films such as Holiday in Mexico, Easter Parade and The Student Prince in the mid 40s. Later, he went on to work with Paramount Pictures. While there, he shared an Oscar for The Rose Tattoo...
), Best Cinematography (Color)
Academy Award for Best Cinematography
The Academy Award for Best Cinematography is an Academy Award awarded each year to a cinematographer for work in one particular motion picture.-History:...
, Best Director
Academy Award for Directing
The Academy Award for Achievement in Directing , usually known as the Best Director Oscar, is one of the Awards of Merit presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences to directors working in the motion picture industry...
(Charles Walters
Charles Walters
Charles Walters was a Hollywood director and choreographer most noted for his work in MGM musicals and comedies in from the 1940s to the 1960s....
) and Best Adapted Screenplay. It was also entered into the 1953 Cannes Film Festival
1953 Cannes Film Festival
-Jury:*Jean Cocteau *Louis Chauvet *Titina De Filippo *Guy Desson *Philippe Erlanger *Renée Faure *Jacques-Pierre Frogerais *Abel Gance *André Lang...
.
Leslie Caron and Mel Ferrer
Mel Ferrer
Mel Ferrer was an American actor, film director and film producer.-Early life:Ferrer was born Melchor Gastón Ferrer in Elberon, New Jersey, of Catalan and Irish descent. His father, Dr. José María Ferrer , was born in Cuba, was an authority on pneumonia and served as chief of staff of St....
's rendition of "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo
Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo
"Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo" is a popular song with music by Bronislau Kaper, and lyrics by Helen Deutsch. The song was published in 1952. The song was featured in the movie Lili which starred Leslie Caron.-Recorded versions:...
" was released as a single and became a minor hit, reaching #30 on the pop music charts.
The film was adapted for the stage under the title Carnival.
Plot summary
Leslie Caron
Leslie Claire Margaret Caron is a French film actress and dancer, who appeared in 45 films between 1951 and 2003. In 2006, her performance in Law and Order: Special Victims Unit won her an Emmy for guest actress in a drama series...
) arrives in a provincial town in hopes of locating an old friend of her late father's, only to find that he has also died. A local shopkeeper offers her employment and a meal, then tries to take advantage of her. She is rescued by a handsome, smooth-talking, womanizing carnival magician, Marc, whose stage name
Stage name
A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...
is Marcus the Magnificent (Jean-Pierre Aumont
Jean-Pierre Aumont
-Early life:Aumont was born Jean-Pierre Philippe Salomons in Paris, the son of Suzanne and Alexandre Salomons, owner of La Maison du Blanc . His mother's uncle was well-known stage actor Georges Berr. His father was from a Dutch Jewish family and his mother's family were French Jews...
). Lili is infatuated with him and follows him to the carnival where, on learning that she is only 16, he decides to help her get a job as waitress. Lili is fired on her first night when she spends her time watching the magic act instead of waiting tables. When Lili consults the magician for advice, he tells her to go back to where she came from. Homeless and heartbroken, she contemplates suicide, unaware that she is being watched by the carnival's puppeteer Paul (Mel Ferrer
Mel Ferrer
Mel Ferrer was an American actor, film director and film producer.-Early life:Ferrer was born Melchor Gastón Ferrer in Elberon, New Jersey, of Catalan and Irish descent. His father, Dr. José María Ferrer , was born in Cuba, was an authority on pneumonia and served as chief of staff of St....
). He stops her by striking up a conversation with her through his puppets — a brash red-haired boy named Carrot Top, a sly fox named Reynardo, a vain ballerina named Marguerite, and a cowardly giant named Golo the Giant. Soon a large group of carnival workers gather and are enthralled watching Lili's direct interaction with the puppets, as she is seemingly unaware that there is a puppeteer behind the curtain. Afterwards, Paul and his partner Jacquot (Kurt Kasznar
Kurt Kasznar
-Early life:Kasznar was born in Vienna, Austria as Kurt Servischer. His father left when Kurt was very young, his mother married a Hungarian restaurateur named Ferdinand Kasznar, and Kurt assumed his surname. He emigrated to the United States in the mid-1930s for The Eternal Road in which he...
) offer Lili a job in the act, talking with the puppets. She accepts and her natural and pure manner of interacting with the puppets becomes the most valuable part of the act.
Paul was once a well-known dancer, but suffered a leg injury in World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. He regards the puppet show as far inferior to his old career, which embitters him. Lili refers to him as "the Angry Man." Although he falls in love with Lili, he can only express his feelings through the puppets. Fearing rejection due to his physical impairment, he keeps his distance by being consistently unpleasant to her, even as Jacquot warns him that he is driving Lili away. Lili continues to dream about the handsome magician, wishing to replace his sexy assistant Rosalie (Zsa Zsa Gabor
Zsa Zsa Gabor
Zsa Zsa Gabor is a Hungarian-born American stage, film and television actress.She acted on stage in Vienna, Austria, in 1932, and was crowned Miss Hungary in 1936. She emigrated to the United States in 1941 and became a sought-after actress with "European flair and style", with a personality that...
).
Soon, Marcus receives an offer to perform at the local casino and decides to leave the carnival, much to the joy of Rosalie, who can now announce to everyone that she is his wife. Lili is heartbroken and innocently invites Marc to her trailer. His lecherous plans are interrupted by Paul, and he leaves. When Lili finds his wedding ring and tries to chase after him, she is stopped by Paul who calls her a fool and hits her. Lili runs off to think.
Two impresarios from Paris who have been scouting the show for a few days come to see Paul and Jacquot. They soon recognize Paul as the former dancer, and tell him that his current act with Lili and the puppets is ingenious. Paul is ecstatic about this and the offer, but Jacquot tells the agents that they will have to let them know at a later time. He tells Paul in private that Lili is leaving.
Lili takes the wedding ring to Marc and tells him that every little girl grows up and has to wake up from her girlish dreams and open her eyes. She has decided to leave the carnival. On her way out she is stopped by the familiar voices of Carrot Top and Reynardo, who ask her to take them with her. As they embrace her, she finds they are shaking. She remembers there is actually somebody behind the curtain, and pulls it away to see Paul. Instead of telling her how he feels and asking her to stay, he tells her of the agents' offer. She confronts him about the difference between his real self, seemingly incapable of love, and his puppets. He tells her he is the puppets, each and all, a creature of many facets and many flaws, as is any other man. He concludes by telling her, "this is business." "Not anymore," retorts Lili, who turns and walks away.
Walking the lonely road out of town, she imagines that the puppets, now life-size, have joined her. As she dances joyfully with Carrot Top, he turns into Paul. Dismayed, she draws back, and he fades away. Facing the other three, Marguerite brings her along next, but then she, too, turns into Paul and fades away. She begins to realize that what Paul said about being all the puppets is true, and slowly walks to Reynardo and dances with him. When he, too, turns into Paul and runs away, she throws herself into the arms of Golo, the last puppet, who turns into Paul and stays with her, dancing. Coming back to reality, Lili runs back to the carnival and into Paul's waiting arms. They kiss passionately as the puppets applaud.
Critical response
The New York TimesThe New York Times
The New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
included it in their 2004 Guide to the Best 1,000 Movies Ever Made, as did Angie Errigo and Jo Berry in a 2005 compilation of Chick Flicks: Movies Women Love.
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther
Bosley Crowther was a journalist and author who was film critic for The New York Times for 27 years. His reviews and articles helped shape the careers of actors, directors and screenwriters, though his reviews, at times, were unnecessarily mean...
, reviewing the movie at its opening, had nothing but praise for the movie, rejoicing that "at last Leslie Caron's simplicity and freshness... have been captured again in the film." He showered other encomia on Caron, calling her "elfin," "winsome," the "focus of warmth and appeal," praising her "charm," "grace," "beauty," and "vitality." He said screenwriter Helen Deutsch had "put together a frankly fanciful romance with clarity, humor, and lack of guile," and admires the choreographer, sets, music, and title song.
The movie was not universally liked, though; Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael
Pauline Kael was an American film critic who wrote for The New Yorker magazine from 1968 to 1991. Earlier in her career, her work appeared in City Lights, McCall's and The New Republic....
called it a "sickly whimsy" and referred to Mel Ferrer's "narcissistic, masochistic smiles."
Production
Walton and O'RourkeWalton and O'Rourke
Walton and O'Rourke were a famous team of cabaret puppeteers who founded the Olvera Street Puppet Theatre in Hollywood in 1935....
, famous in puppeteering circles, made the puppets. They mostly worked in cabaret
Cabaret
Cabaret is a form, or place, of entertainment featuring comedy, song, dance, and theatre, distinguished mainly by the performance venue: a restaurant or nightclub with a stage for performances and the audience sitting at tables watching the performance, as introduced by a master of ceremonies or...
s and did not appear on television. Lili is the only known filmed record of their work. Walton and O'Rourke manipulated Marguerite and Reynardo, George Latshaw was responsible for Carrot Top, and Wolo handled Golo the Giant. According to Kukla, Fran and Ollie
Kukla, Fran and Ollie
Kukla, Fran and Ollie is an early American television show using puppets, originally created for children but soon watched by more adults than children. It did not have a script and was entirely ad-libbed...
director Louis Gomavitz, Burr Tillstrom
Burr Tillstrom
Franklin Burr Tillstrom was a puppeteer and the creator of Kukla, Fran and Ollie....
was approached to create puppets for the film, but turned it down.
Music
The score was composed by Bronislau Kaper and conducted by Hans SommerHans Sommer (composer)
Hans Sommer was a German composer. He was most successful as a composer for the theatre. Several of his operas used librettos based on fairy tales and were first produced at Brunswick: Der Nachtwächter , Loreley , Rübezahl und der Sackpfeifer von Neisse , Riquet mit dem Schopf and Der...
, with orchestrations by Robert Franklyn and Skip Martin
Skip Martin
Lloyd "Skip" Martin was an American jazz saxophonist, clarinetist, and music arranger....
. Kaper's music received the Oscar for "Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture."
Lyrics for the song "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo" were written by Helen Deutsch
Helen Deutsch
Helen Deutsch was an American screenwriter, journalist and songwriter.Deutsch was born in New York City and graduated from Barnard College. She began her career by managing the Provincetown Players...
for her previously-published short story "Song of Love." Kaper's setting of the song was performed by Caron and Mel Ferrer in the film; the performance was released on record and reach # 30 on the charts.
Four excerpts from the score were first issued by MGM Records at the time of the film's release. The complete score was issued on cd in 2005, on Film Score Monthly
Film Score Monthly
Film Score Monthly is an online magazine founded by editor-in-chief and executive producer Lukas Kendall in June 1990 as The Soundtrack Correspondence List...
records.
Love of Seven Dolls
"In Paris in the spring of our times, a young girl was about to throw herself into the Seine." Thus opens the novella from which the film "Lili" and the musical "Carnival" was drawn.The Paul Gallico short story from which Lili was adapted was published in expanded form in 1954 as Love of Seven Dolls, a 125-page novella. The New York Times review of the book opens "Those audiences still making their way to see Lili may now read the book from which this motion picture was adapted." The original short story was clearly based on the popular television puppet show Kukla, Fran and Ollie
Kukla, Fran and Ollie
Kukla, Fran and Ollie is an early American television show using puppets, originally created for children but soon watched by more adults than children. It did not have a script and was entirely ad-libbed...
, as it takes place in a television studio (not a carnival as in the film and book), and has many characters based on the Kuklapolitans. The novella was far more mystical and magic than the short story. Brettonais from the village of Plouha..."Wretched though she was, some of the mystery of that mysterious land still clung to her...the gravity of her glance, the innocence and primitive mind...there were dark corners of Celtic brooding...a little scarecrow."
Helen Deutsch's adaptation is [somewhat] true to the essential core of Gallico's story, but there are many differences, and Gallico's book is far, far darker in tone. In the book, the girl's nickname is Mouche ("fly") rather than Lili. The puppeteer is named Michel Peyrot, stage name Capitaine Coq, rather than Paul Berthalet. He is not a crippled dancer, rather "he was bred out of the gutters of Paris." Yet something moves him to save the potential suicide.
The puppeteer's assistant is a "primitive" Senegal
Senegal
Senegal , officially the Republic of Senegal , is a country in western Africa. It owes its name to the Sénégal River that borders it to the east and north...
ese man named Golo, rather than the movie's amiable Frenchman, Jacquot. He shares with Mouche a sense of primitive magic, and with her believes in the reality of the puppets.
The first four puppets she meets correspond closely to those in the film and are a youth named Carrot Top; a fox, Reynardo; a vain girl, Gigi; and a "huge, tousle-headed, hideous, yet pathetic-looking giant" Alifanfaron. The latter two are named "Marguerite" and "Golo" in the movie (i.e. the name of the puppeteer's assistant in the book becomes the name of a puppet in the movie). The book includes three additional puppets: a penguin named Dr. Duclos who wears a pince-nez
Pince-nez
Pince-nez are a style of spectacles, popular in the 19th century, which are supported without earpieces, by pinching the bridge of the nose. The name comes from French pincer, to pinch, and nez, nose....
and is a dignified academic; Madame Muscat, "the concierge," who constantly warns Mouche that the others are "a bad lot;" and Monsieur Nicholas, a man with steel-rimmed spectacles, stocking cap, and leather apron, who is "a maker and mender of toys."
The core of both book and movie is the childlike innocence of Mouche/Lili and her simple conviction that she is interacting directly with the puppets themselves, which have some kind of existence separate from the puppeteer. This separation is perfectly explicit in the book. It says that Golo was "childlike...but in the primitive fashion backed by the dark lore of his race" and looked upon the puppets "as living, breathing creatures." But "the belief in the separate existence of these little people was even more basic with Mouche for it was a necessity to her and a refuge from the storms of life with which she had been unable to cope."
In the movie, the puppeteer, Paul Berthalet, is gruff, unhappy, and emotionally distant. Although Lili refers to him as "the angry man", he is not very cruel or menacing. His bitterness is explained by his identity as a former ballet dancer, disabled by a leg injury and "reduced" to the role of puppeteer.
Gallico's Peyrot, however, is vicious in every sense of the word. No ballet dancer, he was "bred out of the gutters" and by the age of fifteen was "a little savage practiced in all the cruel arts and swindles of the street fairs and cheap carnivals." He has "the look of a satyr." "Throughout his life no one had ever been kind to him, or gentle, and he paid back the world in like. Wholly cynical, he had no regard for man, woman, child, or God. Not at any time he could remember in his thirty-five years of existence had he ever loved anything or anyone. He looked upon women as conveniences that his appetite demanded and, after he had used them, abandoned them or treated them badly." Furthermore, he hates Mouche for "her innocence and essential purity. Capitaine Coq was the mortal enemy of innocence...He would, if he could, have corrupted the whole world."
Peyrot rapes the virgin Mouche and embarks on an abusive relationship with her. "He debauched her at night and then willy-nilly restored her in the daytime through the medium of the love of the seven dolls, so that phoenix-like she arose each day from the ashes of abuse of the night before, whether it was a tongue-lashing, or a beating, or to be used like a woman of the streets. She was rendered each time as soft and dewy-eyed, as innocent and trusting as she had been the night he had first encountered her on the outskirts of Paris. The more cruelly he treated her, the kindlier and more friendly to her were the puppets the next morning. He seemed to have lost all control over them. As for Mouche, she lived in a turmoil of alternating despair and entrancing joy."
In both book and movie, Mouche/Lili is tempted by a superficial attraction to a handsome man—an acrobat named Balotte in the book, the magician Marc in the movie—but returns to the puppeteer. In the movie, Marc's relation with Lili is exploitative. In the book, however, it is Peyrot who is exploitative and abusive and the relationship with Balotte that appears healthy. On their first date, Balotte takes Mouche "solicitously by the arm, as though she were fragile. It had been so long since a man had been gentle with her that it quite warmed Mouche's heart. All of a sudden she remembered that she was a young girl and laughed happily." When they dance Balotte becomes "ardent" and holds her "close, but yet tenderly. The tenderness found an answering response in Mouche. Youth was wooing youth. For the first time in longer than she could remember, Mouche was enjoying herself in a normal manner."
She intends to leave with Balotte, but ultimately Mouche abandons this "normal" attachment and returns to Peyrot. Gallico says she comes to an understanding of Peyrot as "a man who had tried to be and live a life of evil, who to mock God and man had perpetuated a monstrous joke by creating his puppets like man, in his image and filling them with love and kindness." Mouche "passed in that moment over the last threshold from child to womanhood" and knew "the catalyst that could save him. It was herself." She tells Peyrot "Michel...I love you. I will never leave you." Peyrot does not respond, but he weeps; Mouche holds his "transfigured" head and, according to Gallico, "knew that they were the tears of a man...who, emerging from the long nightmare, would be made forever whole by love." If this is a happy ending, it is not the simple happy ending of the movie.
Reviewing the book on its publication, Andrea Parke says that Gallico creates "magic...when he writes the sequences with Mouche and the puppets." But "when he writes the love story of Mouche as the ill-treated plaything of the puppet master, the story loses its magic. The mawkish realism of the passages has an aura of bathos
Bathos
Bathos is an abrupt transition in style from the exalted to the commonplace, producing a ludicrous effect. While often unintended, bathos may be used deliberately to produce a humorous effect. If bathos is overt, it may be described as Burlesque or mock-heroic...
that is not only unreal but unmoving."
"The Man Who Hated People" (short story)
"The Man Who Hated People" appeared in the October 28, 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening PostThe Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
. It is lighter in tone than other versions of the story. In particular, the abuse heaped by the puppeteer on the innocent "girl" is emotional and verbal. Unlike the novel The Love of Seven Dolls, the short story does not even hint at physical or sexual abuse.
The story opens in a New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
television studio where Milly, a "sweet-faced girl with [a] slightly harassed expression," is about to make her farewell appearance on the Peter and Panda show.
Peter and Panda are part of an ensemble of puppets; they are a leprechaun and a panda respectively; other puppets include Arthur, a "raffish crocodile;" Mme. Robineau, a French lady "of indeterminate age with dyed hair;" Doctor Henderson, a penguin; and Mr. Tootenheimer, a toymaker. They are all operated by a single puppeteer, named Crake Villeridge. Despite being a puppet show, it has, like the real-life Kukla, Fran and Ollie TV show, a huge audience of all ages. Also like Kukla, Fran and Ollie, there is no script: "it's all ad-libbed". (In fact, the illustration included with the story features the actual stage used for Kukla, Fran and Ollie.) At the end of the show, "millions watching felt a sense of loss as though a family close to them were breaking up."
Milly has been with the show two years, and, as in other versions of the story, she interacts in a spontaneous and endearing way directly with the personas of the puppets. In a flashback, we learn that during her audition, she had met and talked to the puppets before meeting any human being. Not realizing that this encounter was her audition, she is surprised when a station representative meets her and tells her "Your performance this afternoon came closest to what [Mr. Villeridge] wants." She says "But it actually wasn't a performance" and is told "Exactly. The first time you start giving a performance, you're through."
Villeridge, we learn, is French Canadian
French Canadian
French Canadian or Francophone Canadian, , generally refers to the descendents of French colonists who arrived in New France in the 17th and 18th centuries...
, and had once been headed for a serious career as a hockey player. In an accident, two men "skated over the side of his face," ending his hockey career, and seriously and permanently disfiguring him.
She soon learns that Villeridge is emotionally an abuser. She loves the on-air performances, loves the puppets and their personalities, and finds Mr. Tootenheimer, the wise old toymaker, particularly comforting. But she hates Villeridge and what he does to her in rehearsal and after the show. He shouts at her, demeans her, criticizes everything she has done, and humiliates her in front of the program staff. When she meets a nice man named Fred Archer and believes she is "a little in love" with him, she decides she can no longer withstand with Villeridge and his tyrannical ways. She announces that she is marrying Archer and gives notice.
After her farewell show, she changes into her street dress. She waits for everyone else to leave the studio, afraid of encountering Villeridge who "might be waiting for her with one last attack." As she leaves, she hears the voice of Arthur, the puppet, who says "I stayed behind. Milly, take me with you." Soon she is talking to Arthur and the other puppets. Mr. Tootenheimer, the "old philosopher," explains to her that every man is composed of many things, and that the puppets represent aspects of Villeridge's real personality:
- And if a man who has been cut and scarred and is ashamed of his appearance, who loved you from the first time his eyes rested upon your face, could be a brutal fool, believing that if you could be made to love all of the things he really was, you would never again recoil from the things he seemed to be.
Millie cries "Crake! Crake! come to me." They embrace, and Milly decides to say goodbye to "the outside world—reality—Fred Archer" and live with Villeridge and his created "Never-Never Land of the mind."
Early smiley emoticon
An early instance of using text characters to represent a sideways smiling (and frowning) face occurred in an advertisement for Lili in the New York Herald TribuneNew York Herald Tribune
The New York Herald Tribune was a daily newspaper created in 1924 when the New York Tribune acquired the New York Herald.Other predecessors, which had earlier merged into the New York Tribune, included the original The New Yorker newsweekly , and the Whig Party's Log Cabin.The paper was home to...
, March 10, 1953, pg. 20, cols. 4-6. (See Emoticon
Emoticon
An emoticon is a facial expression pictorially represented by punctuation and letters, usually to express a writer’s mood. Emoticons are often used to alert a responder to the tenor or temper of a statement, and can change and improve interpretation of plain text. The word is a portmanteau word...
.)