Whoever knew that Charles Boyer could be so ebullient and charismatic. Since I saw Carousel as a boy when it was released in the UK in 1956 I've known the gist of Ferenc Molnar's play and have been curious about this Fritz Lang French version he made in 1934, as commentators have often said that the musical is inferior to this version. To me, that is to entirely to miss the point about Carousel, which only borrowed, if you like, Liliom, on which Rodgers and Hammerstein hung their musical masterpiece. I don't think that Carousel could have been made with same edgy feel as Liliom as it was intended for a family audience. Liliom is a lazy slob, basically, the same a Billy Bigelow is in the musical, but he's much rougher and we see him slap Julie, the innocent girl he takes up with. Charles Boyer is much more dynamic than Gordon MacRae was but MacRae needed to be more sympathetic for family audiences, although he was still a slob. I can't imagine those R & H songs slotted into Fritz Lang's more realistic film about love and redemption so best to leave comparisons alone. Liliom stands alone as a great fantasy drama with good all round performances and I was lucky to obtain a Blu Ray copy of Carousel from the States on which Liliom was hidden away in the extras, and a lovely clear copy it is. Liliom, the carousel barker, meets Julie and they live together, during which time he treats her pretty badly, slapping her one time and giving up his job to lay around. His employer on the Carousel is also in love with his roguish personality and tries all she can to persuade him to return to the carousel but when he finds out that Julie is pregnant, he gets excited and declines her offer. He commits an attempted murder to get the money they so desperately need and fails, killing himself with his knife to avoid capture and is sent to heaven to see if he can show some redemption. Boyer's death scene is every bit as moving as in Carousel but without the lush R & H score so it's all credit to Fritz Lang that he made such a good job of this film. It's well known that Frank Sinatra pulled out of Carousel just as filming was to start but I can't see him playing this part as well as Boyer as he was a more serious personality and as great a singer as he was, he didn't have Gordon MacRae's range in singing those theatrical songs.
Review of Liliom
