Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in New York, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
Lili (1952)
Director: Charles Walters
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Perhaps too deliberately charming for its own good, but this adaptation of a Paul Gallico novel about a 16-year-old waif who falls unhappily in love with a carnival magician (Aumont), thus adding to the bitterness of the crippled puppeteer (Ferrer) who loves her from afar, is actually rather delightful, thanks to Caron's touching performance and Walters' delicately stylish direction. Caron's scenes with the puppets (through whom Ferrer talks to her, and whom she accepts as her living friends and confidants) are in fact brushed with a touch of genuine fairy-tale magic. Not really a musical (though it has one hit song, 'Hi Lili, Hi Lo'), it ends with an ambitious ballet which is attractive but seems oddly out of key with the rest of the film.Author: GA
Cast & crew
Director: Charles Walters
Producer: Edwin H Knopf
Cast: Leslie Caron, Mel Ferrer, Kurt Kasznar, Jean-Pierre Aumont, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Amanda Blake full cast
Genre(s): Musicals
Duration: 81 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
To the letter
Forty years later, Costa-Gavras's Z still brims with fury.
Mind over matter
David Cronenberg reflects on a most bizarre body: his own corpus of work.
Fool's gold
Can an Oscar win lead to a cursed career? Here are five stories of postaward professional meltdowns.
We are the championed
Terrorists and teens abound in this year's "Film Comment Selects."
A history of violence
Matteo Garrone's kaleidoscopic Gomorrah wallops you with Italy's crime crisis.
True romantic
James Gray exchanges urban amorality for amour in Two Lovers.
Playing in the dark
MoMA salutes pianist Stuart Oderman's 50 years as the one-man sound of silents.
Junk bonds
Cast and crew recall the making of the classic NYC drug drama The Panic in Needle Park.
What do you think?
Post your review now