Trailer
Plot summary
Lili Daurier, a sixteen-year-old country girl, arrives in a provincial town to look up a friend of her late father and finds that he has died. A shopkeeper offers her work and then tries to take advantage of her, and she is rescued by Marc, a smooth-talking carnival magician billed as Marcus the Magnificent. Lili follows him to the carnival, where he helps her get a job waiting tables; she is fired on her first night because she spends it watching his magic act. When she asks him for advice, he says she should return to where she came from. Homeless, she talks with the puppet booth's characters, Carrot Top, Reynardo, Marguerite and Golo, unaware of the puppeteer behind the curtain.
Cast
Show all 20 cast
- Jeannine Ducasseas French Girl (uncredited)
- Claude Guyas French boy (uncredited)
- Richard Graysonas Flirting vendor (uncredited)
- Dorothy Jarnacas Specialty dancer (uncredited)
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Lili (1953)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Director Charles Walters skipped the first screening of an unfinished cut of Lili because he was on a ten-day vacation; his friend Keenan Wynn told him the film drew a silent response.
- Harry Brandt, president of the Independent Theater Owners Association, loved the rough cut of Lili, so MGM's Dore Schary accepted his terms and finished the film for a sneak preview.
- According to star Leslie Caron, MGM developed Lili with Italian actress Pier Angeli in mind for the lead before casting Caron.
- Screenwriter Helen Deutsch decided to cast Leslie Caron as Lili only after watching a private screening of Caron's first film, An American in Paris.
- The lyrics for Lili's song "Hi-Lili, Hi-Lo" were written by screenwriter Helen Deutsch for a previously published short story of hers, "Song of Love".
