# Lili
**Lili** is a 1953 American musical romance film directed by Charles Walters for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, starring [Leslie Caron](https://www.edgepedia.org/leslie-caron) as an orphaned French teenager who joins a traveling carnival and is drawn to a crippled, embittered puppeteer who can reach her only through his puppets.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) The screenplay by Helen Deutsch was based on a 1950 magazine story by [Paul Gallico](https://www.edgepedia.org/paul-gallico), and the film's score by Bronislau Kaper, including the standard "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo," won the Academy Award for Best Score.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/21342/lili) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI)
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Director / producer | Charles Walters; produced by Edwin H. Knopf for Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (Loew's Inc.)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) |
| Principal cast | Leslie Caron (Lili Daurier), Mel Ferrer (Paul Berthalet), Jean-Pierre Aumont (Marc), Zsa Zsa Gabor (Rosalie), Kurt Kasznar (Jacquot)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) |
| Source | Helen Deutsch's screenplay, from Paul Gallico's 1950 story "The Man Who Hated People"[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/21342/lili) |
| Release | New York opening 10 March 1953; Los Angeles 17 March 1953; general release 10 July 1953[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) |
| Technical | Technicolor, Western Electric sound, 80–81 minutes, 9 reels[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) |
| Academy Awards | Won Best Score (Bronislau Kaper); nominated for Best Actress, Direction, Screenplay, Cinematography (Color), and Art Direction (Color)[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) |
| Cannes | In competition at the 1953 Festival de Cannes; won the Prix International du film de divertissement[3](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/lili/) |
| Stage adaptation | The Broadway musical *Carnival* opened 13 April 1961 and ran 719 performances[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/21342/lili) |
## Spoilers
### Plot
Lili Daurier, a recently orphaned sixteen-year-old, arrives in a small French town to find that the baker who had promised her father a job for her has died. Destitute, she is taken in by a store proprietor who makes a pass at her; she is rescued by Marc, a magician with a traveling carnival, and follows him to the carnival grounds.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) Marc gets her work as a waitress at the carnival's cabaret, where she watches his magic act, performed with his glamorous partner Rosalie. Fired after one night for neglecting her duties, and offered no sympathy by Marc, on whom she has a crush, she considers jumping from the acrobats' ladder.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/21342/lili)
She is stopped by Paul Berthalet, the puppeteer, who speaks to her from behind his puppet stage and improvises a show with his puppets to cheer her. Lili, innocent and lonely, responds to the puppets as if they were human friends and pours out her heart to them, particularly to the puppet [Carrot Top](https://www.edgepedia.org/carrot-top).[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/21342/lili) Recognizing her audience appeal, Paul and his partner Jacquot incorporate her into the act. Offstage Paul treats her coldly, jealous of her infatuation with Marc; Jacquot explains that Paul had been a famous dancer before his leg was injured in the war.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) In the end Lili comes to love her protector rather than risk an uncertain future beyond the carnival.[4](https://popularculturereview.org/uploads/1/3/6/5/136597491/20.1.pdf)
### Interpretation
One modern study reads the film as a Cold War parable: made at the height of tensions between the United States and the emerging Communist powers, it addresses postwar audiences through the figure of the flawed but protective puppeteer, who shields Lili from the wiles of the magician and the dangers of the world beyond the carnival.[4](https://popularculturereview.org/uploads/1/3/6/5/136597491/20.1.pdf) The film's dream ballet, in which Lili as a waitress vies for Marc's attention against Rosalie, and her singing to the four puppets, have also drawn scholarly attention as expressions of the heroine's inner life.[8](https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/153260/1/WRAP_Theses_Palmer_2020.pdf)
## Origins and production
Paul Gallico's original short story, "The Man Who Hated People," placed the puppet show not in a carnival but on a popular television program, and made the puppeteer, Crake, a former hockey player whose face was badly scarred in an accident on the ice; his assistant Milly realizes she loves the misanthropic creator.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) A modern source suggests the story was inspired by the television program *Kukla, Fran and Ollie*, specifically star Fran Allison's improvised conversations with the puppets operated by Burr Tillstrom.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) In 1954, one year after the movie came out, Gallico transformed the story into the novella *Love of Seven Dolls*, adding a French carnival backdrop while turning the bond between the puppeteer and the orphaned girl bleaker and marked by violence.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI)
According to modern sources, [Vincente Minnelli](https://www.edgepedia.org/vincente-minnelli) was originally asked to direct. In his autobiography he wrote, "The sentiment wasn't that far removed from *An American in Paris*, and I wanted to take another creative path." Charles Walters, a veteran of musicals such as *Easter Parade* (1948) and *Summer Stock* (1950), was recruited instead.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/21342/lili) The film was shot in [Technicolor](https://www.edgepedia.org/technicolor) between early March and late April 1952.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) Leslie Caron, a teenager dancing with Roland Petit's ballet company in Paris when [Gene Kelly](https://www.edgepedia.org/gene-kelly) chose her for *An American in Paris* (1951), had not had another role worthy of her talents until *Lili*; she later said that taking the unglamorous waif role was regarded by many as a disastrous career move.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/21342/lili) • [1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI)
The puppets were created by Paul E. Walton and Michael O'Rourke, with George Latshaw and Wolo Van Trutzzchler as puppeteers and the magician Dante as magic adviser.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI)
## Release and reception
MGM had low expectations for the film. According to a June 1953 *Hollywood Reporter* column, the studio feared the picture "might not have the necessary mass appeal," and Dore Schary, MGM's head of production, confirmed in his autobiography that the studio's New York sales and distribution executives dismissed it as "an art-house picture" and declined to set a release date.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) Schary's friend, the New York theater owner Harry Brandt, offered to run the film at his Trans-Lux Theatre in exchange for exclusive New York exhibition rights. *Lili* then ran at the Trans-Lux for a full year, an engagement that made it among the small number of films to stay at a single theater for such a stretch; per the deal, MGM was obliged to compensate Brandt for the privilege of releasing the film in Europe.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) The Toronto Film Society's notes describe it as one of MGM's most profitable musicals of 1953.[5](https://torontofilmsociety.com/film-notes/gold-diggers-of-1933-1933-and-lili-1953/)
Critics responded warmly. *The New York Times* called it "a lovely and beguiling little film touched with the magic of romance and the shimmer of masquerade," *Film Daily* placed it sixth on its "Ten Best" list for 1953, and even [H. L. Mencken](https://www.edgepedia.org/h-l-mencken), who rarely saw movies, was persuaded to watch and loved it.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/21342/lili) The film competed at the 1953 Cannes Film Festival and won the Prix International du film de divertissement.[3](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/lili/) The Screen Writers Guild honored it as the best-written musical of 1953.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI)
## Awards
At the Academy Awards honoring 1953 films, *Lili* won the Oscar for Best Score, Bronislau Kaper's only win for the film.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/21342/lili) It received five further nominations: Best Actress (Caron), Best Direction, Best Screenplay, Best Cinematography (Color), and Best Art Direction (Color). Caron lost to [Audrey Hepburn](https://www.edgepedia.org/audrey-hepburn) for *Roman Holiday*; Hepburn was at the time married to Caron's co-star [Mel Ferrer](https://www.edgepedia.org/mel-ferrer).[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) The title song "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo," by Kaper and Deutsch, was not nominated for Best Song.[2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/21342/lili)
## Music
Kaper's score is carried by the signature song "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo," with lyrics by Helen Deutsch, which became an immediate standard and a hit record; it is the only song in the film, repeated several times and performed by the carnival folk, while the dream ballet sequences are accompanied by incidental music.[5](https://torontofilmsociety.com/film-notes/gold-diggers-of-1933-1933-and-lili-1953/) • [6](https://cinemasentries.com/lili-dvd-review-when-is-a-musical-not-a-musical/) For this reason one reviewer has called *Lili* a "non-musical musical": despite its genre billing, it contains no production numbers, and its fantasy sequences are danced rather than sung.[6](https://cinemasentries.com/lili-dvd-review-when-is-a-musical-not-a-musical/)
## Stage adaptation
*Lili* was adapted as the Broadway musical *Carnival!*, which opened on 13 April 1961 starring Anna Maria Alberghetti and [Jerry Orbach](https://www.edgepedia.org/jerry-orbach), with James Mitchell as the magician; sources describe it as the first film ever adapted into a Broadway musical.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/21342/lili) • [7](https://www.filmsite.org/lili.html) The film score, including "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo," was replaced by an original [Bob Merrill](https://www.edgepedia.org/bob-merrill) score featuring the theme song "Love Makes the World Go Round." The musical ran for 719 performances and brought Alberghetti a Tony Award for her portrayal of Lili.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI) • [2](https://www.tcm.com/articles/21342/lili)
## References
1. [Lili (1953), AFI Catalog of Feature Films](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/50912-LILI)
2. [Lili, Margarita Landazuri, Turner Classic Movies](https://www.tcm.com/articles/21342/lili)
3. [LILI, Festival de Cannes](https://www.festival-cannes.com/en/f/lili/)
4. [Lili: A Cold War Parable, Popular Culture Review](https://popularculturereview.org/uploads/1/3/6/5/136597491/20.1.pdf)
5. [Gold Diggers of 1933 (1933) and Lili (1953), Toronto Film Society](https://torontofilmsociety.com/film-notes/gold-diggers-of-1933-1933-and-lili-1953/)
6. [Lili DVD Review: When Is a Musical Not a Musical?, Cinema Sentries](https://cinemasentries.com/lili-dvd-review-when-is-a-musical-not-a-musical/)
7. [Lili (1953), Filmsite](https://www.filmsite.org/lili.html)
8. [Palmer, PhD thesis, University of Warwick (2020)](https://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/id/eprint/153260/1/WRAP_Theses_Palmer_2020.pdf)
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*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Musical and music films (individual works) › Musical films of the 1930s to 1960s*
*Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*
*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*
License: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license