Presenting Lily Mars

Synopsis: Musical comedy about Lily (Judy Garland), an aspiring actress from a small town in Indiana. In once scene Lily wants to impress a visiting Broadway producer (Heflin) and gives him a mawkish and melodramatic rendition of Lady Macbeth’s sleepwalking scene with her sister proving piano accompaniment as in the silent films. The producer criticises her audition commenting that she plays the role as if she were a schoolgirl playing to her boyfriend in the gallery. He then proceeds to give a more restrained performance of the scene. [With acknowledgement to Douglas Lanier (op cit) for plot details].
Language: English
Country: United States
Medium: Film
Technical information: Black-and-white / Sound
Year of release: 1943
Duration: 102 mins

Director

Norman Taurog

Producer

Joseph Pasternak

Cinematographer

Joseph Ruttenberg

Screenplay

Gladys Lehman; Richard Connell

Music

George E. Stoll

Costume

Howard Shoup

Art Direction

Cedric Gibbons

Cast

Judy Garland	Lily Mars (Lady Macbeth)
Van Heflin	John Thornway

Notes: Available on DVD Region 1 only (9/2008).
General: Based on the novel Presenting Lily Mars by Booth Tarkington.
Reviews: Lanier, Douglas, ‘Film Spin-Offs and Citations’ in Burt, Richard, (ed.) Shakespeares After Shakespeares: an Encyclopedia of the Bard in Mass Media and Popular Culture. 2 vols. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006. (p. 201, entry 826).

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