Sunday, September 27, 2009

Radio review – CP#33 – “Liliom” (1939) **

During the intro to this (and in the outro of the previous week’s show) Orson Welles kept going on about how popular Liliom was in so many different productions and so many different languages. We know the story today best as Carousel, although it has a similar template to Showboat – a simpering young thing marries a ne’er-do-well who, despite being a scoundrel, does love her. He hits her about in this version of the tale which isn’t much fun. He is later killed during a robbery but comes back to… what? Well, bless their child or something, I’m not quite sure. Helen Hayes simpers and whimpers through her performance (she was made for this sort of role ) but Orson is pretty good as the male lead.

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