Tonight's Movie: Lili (1953) - A Warner Archive Blu-ray Review

One of many pleasures of the just-concluded TCM Classic Film Festival was revisiting the MGM musical LILI (1953) for the first time in a great many years.

The movie was shown in Theater 4, the festival's treasure house for viewing rarities and rediscoveries, typically in 35mm; LILI was one of 11 films I saw in 35mm at the festival.

In a happy coincidence, the Warner Archive Collection, which previously put out LILI on DVD in 2012, released LILI on Blu-ray this week, just a couple days after the festival ended.

LILI was a great favorite of my late father's, as he was a big fan of Leslie Caron, and as I've shared here previously our family also had the chance to meet director-choreographer Charles Walters on multiple occasions. The first couple photographs used in this review are stills from my father's collection.

One could describe LILI as a delicate bauble, a short 81-minute gem with a tender, unusual plot, but it works as well as it does thanks to the cast, sensitively directed by Walters.

Caron plays the title role, a young orphan who arrives in a small Parisian town hoping to work in a bakery owned by her deceased father's friend. When Lili discovers the friend has also died and his family has moved away, she's left with no resources and nowhere to go. She's briefly hopeful of a job in another store, but the lecherous proprietor makes clear there is an unthinkable price to pay for a roof over her head.

Lili chances to meet several members of a carnival, including a magician (Jean-Pierre Aumont) and puppeteers (Mel Ferrer and Kurt Kasznar), who take pity on her. Lili's attempt to work as a carnival waitress fails, but her sincere interactions with the puppets lead to success, drawing charmed audiences to the puppeteers' act.

Lili is infatuated with Marc (Aumont), not initially recognizing he's not a good person -- or that he has a wife (Zsa Zsa Gabor)! Meanwhile puppeteer Paul (Ferrer), a bitter former dancer, falls for Lili but is only able to express his feelings through his puppets.

I enjoyed rewatching the film immediately via the new Blu-ray, in part trying to analyze it in greater depth. The movie is touching and sentimental yet manages to avoid being mawkish or manipulative.

Indeed, the film's themes are quite gritty at times, with a young orphan who doesn't know where her next meal is coming from dealing at various points with attempted assault and contemplating suicide. A moment where Paul, in a moment of supreme frustration, slaps Lili may particularly cause modern audiences to wince.

It all somehow comes together for what might be the movie's main overarching theme: Life can simultaneously be painful and ugly yet also very beautiful.

How is it that a movie encompasses all this while having a barely there yet engrossing and unique story? Helen Deutsch's screenplay, based on a story by Paul Gallico, was nominated for an Oscar; I'd suggest the film is also partly stitched together by its memorable Oscar-winning score by Bronislau Kaper. Deutsch collaborated with Kaper to provide the lyrics for the song "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo."

It's hard to imagine someone besides Caron succeeding in this tricky role, part childlike waif and part an emerging woman in love. (I see some similarity to Sonja Henie's child-woman roles a decade previously, such as SUN VALLEY SERENADE.) In particular, Caron completely sells her interactions with the puppets.

I likewise find Ferrer sympathetic in a role which could easily be played as a petulant jerk; the viewer comes to understand him, just as Lili does in the film's final ballet. In that sequence she imagines dancing with her beloved puppets, now human-sized, only to find each one turns into Paul, and she realizes that all of the things she loves in the puppets are actually different facets of their puppeteer.

The movie was beautifully shot in Technicolor by Robert Planck, another Oscar nominee for this film. In addition to the Oscar-winning score and Oscar-nominated screenplay and cinematography, LILI also received Oscar nominations for Best Actress, Director, and Set-Art Direction.

The Warner Archive Blu-ray print is from a new 1080p HD master from a 4K scan of the original Technicolor negatives. I enjoyed seeing the film in 35mm last weekend, but parts of it seemed a bit faded; that's not the case with the Blu-ray. The movie's pastel color scheme looks beautiful, with the initial balloon-filled fade-in to the carnival looking especially vibrant.

Disc extras consist of the trailer and a trio of cartoons: THE IMPOSSIBLE POSSUM (1954), PUPPY TALE (1954), and PECOS PEST (1955).

Recommended.

Thanks to the Warner Archive for providing a review copy of this Blu-ray. Warner Archive Blu-rays may be ordered from Movie Zyng, Amazon, and other online retailers.

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