Love of Seven Dolls - Mouche + Michel

So, for the two of you who don't know, I have a bit of an obsession with the 1953 classic film "Lili." youtu.be/heVckJ1Azqs

See my gallery if you need more proof.

It's just too cute to resist!

But this is not "Lili" fanart, technically. This is fanart for the novella "Love of Seven Dolls" which was actually inspired by the film.

Lemme explain!

Paul Gallico wrote a short story called "The Man Who Hated People" about a girl named Milly who falls in love with a disfigured puppeteer named Crake through his little puppets.

That was the inspiration for the film "Lili" -- which told the story of a girl named Lili who falls in love with a crippled puppeteer named Paul through his little puppets.

Gallico loved the film so much, that he reworked and rewrote his short story into "Love of Seven Dolls." (He also went on to contribute to the musical adaptation of "Lili" called "Carnival.") "Carnival" originally starred Jerry Orbach (best known for playing Lumiere in "Beauty and the Beast" and Det. Lennie Briscoe on "Law and Order") as Paul and Anna Maria Alberghetti as Lili. Here's a playlist of the soundtrack. www.youtube.com/playlist?list=…

The novella is much darker than its more cheerful film counterpart, but it definitely follows the key points of "Lili."

The main difference is the man in the book named Michel Peyrot (alias Capitaine Coq.) Unlike the crippled and bitter Paul from "Lili", Michel has no physical handicap. Instead, he's a wicked man "born out of the gutters" with borderline personality disorder who repeatedly abuses and rapes Mouche (the novella Lili) because he hates her innocent nature despite how kind she is to him. Each of the seven puppets he has represents a different personality, and each of the puppets regards him as a different being from themselves. Another difference is that the character Golo isn't a puppet in the novella, but instead is a Senegalese clown who plays music for the puppets to sing to.

Also, Michel has seven puppets instead of four and he's a ginger!

I just finished reading it again, and inspiration struck.

So here's Mouche and Michel with his seven dolls in the background -- Doctor Duclos the penguin, Monsieur Nicholas the toymaker, Alifanfaran "Ali" the giant, Madame Muscat the gossipy widow, Gigi the vain girl, J.L. Reynardo the fox, and Carrot Top the leprechaun. They're all looking toward Michel in fear or irritation.

ENJOY!!

Characters - Paul Gallico
Art - Porcelain-Requiem