With quite a cast and that Lillian Russell was quite a colourful entertainer, 'Lillian Russell' could have been a great film and should have been better than it was. It's certainly not unwatchable, not by a long shot, but it isn't good enough for repeat viewings.The best thing about 'Lillian Russell' is the production values, so good in fact that one feels cheated that they didn't have the rest of a good film to match. Not just that the film is very beautifully and intricately shot, but the settings and costumes are just so exquisitely lavish. Also great are the music and songs, filled with energy and emotion as well as giving a real sense of period.Alice Faye lights up the screen with her allure and she is a real charmer in the acting stakes, injecting enthusiasm and substance despite the script fighting her a lot of the time. Helen Westley and especially Edward Arnold also significantly rise above their material, and Joe Weber and Lew Fields' scene is agreed theatrical magic that makes one pine why the rest of the film wasn't up to the same level.Henry Fonda is as stiff, colourless and as miserable-looking as one could possibly get, if he did indeed hate the film or making it that certainly comes through loud and clear. Don Ameche's role should have been tailor-made for him, but it is so blandly written that he is practically lost at sea. Leo Carrillo and Nigel Bruce are wasted.Crippling 'Lillian Russell' in particular are two big things. The very dreary script, high in clichés and awkwardness and very low on depth. Even more so the over-stretched and bloated story, with an incredibly plodding pace to boot, suffering from trying too cram in too much and too many scenes being over-produced. Despite an eye for detail, 'Lillian Russell' is very lethargically directed too, almost like a lot of care and effort went into the production values and song selection but lost enthusiasm for almost everything else.On the whole, visually exquisite but plodding and bloated, there are few biopics duller. 5/10 Bethany Cox

The actors were brilliant in trying to portray such a complex person in such a complex time. The costumes were beautiful.You do not have to use any imagination to try to figure out the characters and the way they dressed and the way they spoke.Thank you for doing such a wonderful job. This movie is a true treasure. We are surely blessed with such wonderful artists.These are truly gifted actors portraying a special time in our history.The theatre was such a huge part of the American culture. It was the only form of entertainment.It must of been very magical to witness a play by candle light.

Some historical films are totally worthless as guides to the lives and careers of the people they discuss. PARNELL, for instance, is a dismal film about the great Irish nationalist leader. LILLIAN RUSSELL is not a good guide to the career of the the famed singer and entertainer of the 1890s. There are omissions and polite bowdlerizing. For example, her marriage to Edward Solomon the composer(played by Don Ameche) was not ended by his dropping dead from overwork. Effective movie moment that it is, the marriage ended when Lillian discovered her husband was a bigamist with a living first wife. The relationship with Gilbert and Sullivan was not ended on such a sad but friendly note. Lillian did appear in PATIENCE, but she never played IOLANTHE (Gilbert claimed she did not want to rehearse as much as he insisted his performers do; rumor said that Gilbert tried to get Lillian onto the "casting couch" at the Savoy but she said no). Also, it is highly unlikely that Sullivan would have agreed to Lillian singing another composer's song in his operetta (even if between acts).Henry Fonda's Alexander Moore is a bland enough character - handsome and kindly in the film, but not as colorful as rivals Ameche, Edward Arnold ("Diamond Jim" Brady) and Warren Williams (Jesse Lewisohn). In real life he was an important newspaperman in Pennsylvania and the Midwest, and (less acceptable in hindsight) a close friend of Warren Harding and Harry Daugherty's "Ohio Gang" of political spoils-men. Lillian, by the way, died in 1922, in the middle of Harding's corrupt administration.The best things in the film are Faye, as pretty as usual in 19th Century costume, and warbling songs like "Blue Love Bird" in her best voice. That is worth watching. Then there is the color of the theater in the mauve decade. Tony Pastor's, the Savoy Operas, the stage of 19th Century Broadway (back then down near 14th Street and Union Square). My favorite moment: Joe Weber and Lou Fields in costume as their "Dutch" characters of the 1890s, demolishing a game of "Casino". It is a priceless moment of theatrical magic, that briefly tells us more about the real 1890s than the fake movie script for this film. Watch it for Joe and Lou and Alice.

I mostly agree what the others have said about "Lillian Russell", dullest biographical film ever made but Alice Faye is beautiful. "Lillian Russell" is lush, sweet but overly sentimental biography of the famous stage singer through her affairs with Edward Salomon (Don Ameche) and Alexander Moore (Henry Fonda). I'm a big Alice Faye fan and though "Lillian Russell" is throughly unexciting, I kept watching it because of Faye's presence. Her singing was a big plus.