1953 film by Charles Walters
Lili is a 1953 American romantic musical film directed by Charles Walters for MGM. It stars Leslie Caron as a touchingly naïve French girl whose emotional relationship with a carnival puppeteer is conducted through the medium of four puppets. Caron was nominated for Best Actress. Of its five nominations, the film won the Academy Award for Best Original Score, and it was also entered in the 1953 Cannes Film Festival. Lili was later adapted for the stage under the title Carnival! (1961).
Lili's screenplay, written by Helen Deutsch, was based on a short story and treatment titled "The Seven Souls of Clement O'Reilly" written by Paul Gallico, which in turn was based upon "The Man Who Hated People," a short story by Gallico that appeared in the October 28, 1950 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. After the film's success, Gallico expanded his story into a 1954 novella entitled Love of Seven Dolls.
Plot summary adapted from Wikipedia, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0.