PRESENTING LILY MARS

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CREDITS

1943, 104 minutes, B&W.
Producer, Joe Pasternak; Director, Norman Taurog; Screenplay, Richard Connell and Gladys Lehman; Cinematography, Joseph Ruttenberg; Music Director, George Stoll; Choreography, Charles Walters.

CAST

Lily Mars, Judy Garland; John Thornway, Van Heflin; Mrs. Thornway, Fay Bainter; Owen Vail, Richard Carlson; Mrs. Mars, Spring Byington; Isobel Rekay, Marta Eggerth; Frankie, Connie Gilchrist; Leo, Leonid Kinskey; Poppy, Patricia Barker; Violet, Janet Chapman; Tommy Dorsey and His Orchestra; Bob Crosby and His Orchestra.

SONGS

Kulebiaka; When I Look At You; Is It Love (Or the Gypsy in Me?) by Paul Francis Webster and Walter Jurmann; Sweethearts of America by Ralph Freed and Burton Lane; Every Little Movement Has a Meaning Of Its Own by Otto Harbach and Karl Hoschna; Where There's Music by Roger Edens; Three O'Clock in the Morning by Dorothy Terriss and Julian Robledo; Broadway Rhythm by Arthur Freed and Nacio Herb Brown; Tom, Tom the Piper's Son by Lane and E.Y. Harburg.

PLOT SYNOPSIS

"Broadway producer John Thornway (Heflin) thinks he's seen it all. Preparing his next show in his hometown, he meets his match in Lily Mars (Garland), a small town girl with a big dream: to star on Broadway. When Lily follows John to New York, the two fall in love and Lily gets her big break. But an unexpected surprise awaits before the curtain rings down on the sumptuous finale to their story."
- Liner Notes from Turner/MGM-UA Laserdisc

NOTES

"Nineteen-year-old Judy Garland starred in Presenting Lily Mars, a cosy homespun tale of an ambitious young singer's rise from small-town anonymity to fame on Broadway. . ."
- Clive Hirschhorn, The Hollywood Musical

"Presenting Lily Mars spotlights Judy Garland and Van Heflin in a stage Cinderella yarn that supplies minor switches to regulation formula, but mainly depends on performances, direction and musical mounting, to carry it through."
- Variety

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