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Will a video company ever release this with English subtitles?

posted 20 years ago by critic-2
3 replies | jump to latest

For some God-forsaken reason, nobody has had the foresight to make this 1934 French version available to the American public with subtitles.(Yes, I admit I have not seen it, although I did write the plot summary for this film--not a difficult thing to do if you've seen "Carousel", the great Broadway and film musical on which "Liliom" is very faithfully based.)

The question is still "Why does it remain unavailable in a subtitled version ???" Why is it so easy to regularly issue subtitled films of virtually all the great foreign directors of the past in easily available videos, and yet always leave out this film? Is the problem with Fox, who made two film versions of "Liliom" as well as "Carousel"? Or is the problem simply that nobody cares enough about this film along as "Carousel" is around?

I love "Carousel"; it is one of my very favorite musicals. I don't think Rodgers and Hammerstein ever wrote anything better, but it has whetted my appetite to see the Fritz Lang "Liliom" (I have absolutely no interest in seeing the 1930 Frank Borzage version). But it seems that video executives have deaf ears when it comes to this rarely shown film.

[–] critic-2 20 years ago

because it's been out on video and DVD, with subtitles, since March 30, although I still haven't been able to get my hands on it.

[–] rawkus1167 19 years ago

Yes it has. Issued by Kino, who also did marvelous new releases of Fritz Lang's "Woman in the Moon" (my personal fav of his silents) and "Spies". Along with Criterion's recent releases of "M" and "The Testament of Dr. Mabuse", 2005 so far has been a great year for Lang enthusiasts. I just finished watching Lilliom this morning (got it from Netflix) and it was great, of course. Charles Boyer is absolutely marvelous and the english subtitles and transfer are all top notch.

[–] jepommer 10 years ago

Correction. You say that "Liliom" was based on "Carousel" but it was the other way around. Lang's film was based on the 1909 play "Liliom" by the Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár. In 1945, at the suggestion of the Theatre Guild (which had produced 1921 and 1932 stage productions of "Liliom"), Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II wrote "Carousel" as an American musical adaptation of the play.