Ferenc Molnár (US: FERR-ents MOHL-nar, -ənts -, - MAWL-, Hungarian: [ˈfɛrɛnt͡s ˈmolnaːr]; born Ferenc Neumann; January 12, 1878 – April 1, 1952), often anglicized as Franz Molnar, was a Hungarian-born author, stage director, dramatist, and poet. He is widely regarded as Hungary's most celebrated and controversial playwright.
His primary aim through his writing was to entertain by transforming his personal experiences into literary works of art. While he never connected to any one literary movement, he did use the precepts of naturalism, neo-romanticism, expressionism, and Freudian psychoanalytic theories, so long as they suited his desires. According to Clara Györgyey, “By fusing the realistic narrative and stage tradition of Hungary with Western influences into a cosmopolitan amalgam, Molnár emerged as a versatile artist whose style was uniquely his own."
As a novelist, Molnár is perhaps remembered best for The Paul Street Boys, the story of two rival gangs of youths in Budapest. It has been translated into 42 languages and adapted for the stage and film. It has been considered a masterpiece by many.
However, it was as a playwright that he made his most significant contribution and how he is best known internationally. For Györgyey, "In his graceful, whimsical, sophisticated drawing-room comedies, he provided a felicitous synthesis of naturalism and fantasy, realism and romanticism, cynicism, and sentimentality, the profane and the sublime." Of his many plays, The Devil, Liliom, The Swan, The Guardsman, and The Play's the Thing endure as classics. His influences included luminaries such as Oscar Wilde, George Bernard Shaw, and Gerhart Hauptmann.
Molnár's plays continue to be performed world-wide. His national and international fame has inspired many Hungarian playwrights, including Elemér Boross, László Fodor, Lajos Bíró, László Bús-Fekete, Ernő Vajda, Attila Orbók, and Imre Földes, among others.
He immigrated to the United States to escape the persecution of Hungarian Jews during World War II and later adopted American citizenship. He died in New York City.
Ferenc Molnár was born in Budapest on January 12, 1878, to Dr. Mór Neumann, a prosperous and well-regarded gastroenterologist, and Jozefa Wallfisch, both of German-Jewish heritage. The home in which he lived was opulent but gloomy. Even though he was born into wealth, "It was not a friendly atmosphere for the lively and precocious Ferenc, who constantly had to be warned to keep quiet." Just a year before his birth, his parents' firstborn son and Molnár's brother, László, died. His mother was frail and frequently bedridden. Illness spread throughout the rooms of his house, and young Ferenc was constantly being told to keep quiet. His mother died in 1898 when Ferenc was 20 years of age.
In 1887, Molnár entered the Lónyay Utcai Református Gimnázium, a secondary school (high school) located in Budapest, Hungary, where he was inspired to learn foreign languages and where his talent as a writer began to emerge. At fourteen, he started a periodical, Haladás ("Progress"), which sold only four copies, and a secondary publication, Életképek ("Panorama"), selling only 20 copies. His first dramatic work was A Kék Barlang (The Blue Cave), a controversial play written, directed, and staged in the basement of a friend's house.
Upon completing secondary school, Molnár studied law at the University of Budapest in 1895. Shortly after, he was sent to Geneva by his father to continue his studies at the University of Geneva. While living in Geneva, he began to write frequently, often sending his work to various papers. Molnár also wrote the short novella Magdolna during this time.
He also traveled to Paris to see some of the chic new plays. "The fashionable boulevard comedies of Bernstein, Bataille, Capus, and others left a deep impression on him and later greatly influenced his dramatic style."
In 1896, he abandoned a legal career to pursue a full-time career as a journalist. He covered a variety of topics during his time as a journalist. However, his primary focus was the court trials for Vészi's Budapesti Napló ("Budapest Daily"), a newspaper then edited and published by József Vészi, a Jewish intellectual who dominated Hungarian political journalism. Molnár's first wife was one of Vészi's daughters, Margit Vészi.
Molnár served as a proud and jingoistic supporter of the Austro-Hungarian Empire while working as a war correspondent during World War I. His war reports were so positive that he was decorated by the Habsburg emperor but criticized by some pacifist peers. He would later write Reflections of a War Correspondent, describing his experiences.
Literary and theatrical career
In 1901, Molnár published his first full-length novel Az éhes város ("The Hungry City"). This novel made Molnár's name familiar throughout Hungary. It was "a relentless exposé of the evil effect of money, viewed by a young, idealistic newspaperman."
The year following the release of Az éhes város, Molnár began writing for the theatre, the medium through which he became known internationally. His journalistic work influenced his early works as a playwright. Molnár's first play, A doktor úr (The Lawyer), and the play that followed, Józsi, are both comedies that essentially dramatized newspaper sketches about a spoiled rich child, and were published as a collection of short dialogues.
His personal life formed the basis for many of his works. After separating from his first wife, he became involved with the famous Hungarian actress Irén Szécsi, who was then married to a wealthy manufacturer. Their affair influenced some of his more critically successful works.
In 1907, Molnár wrote Az ördög (The Devil) for Irén, in which he challenged her to leave her husband. It brought Molnár international fame and was performed all over Europe and New York. Hungarian-born American director Michael Curtiz later adapted The Devil into a film; three years later, James Young directed an English-language version.
He wrote Liliom, in 1909; he allegedly sought to regain favor with his wife Margit by portraying her in the role of Juli. The play was initially a failure when presented in Budapest," but became his best-known play when produced on Broadway in 1920 and elsewhere outside Hungary. It acquired even more widespread fame when adapted into a film by Fritz Lang featuring Charles Boyer (Paris, 1934) and then the Broadway stage musical, Carousel (1945; film 1956) by Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein II.