Darling Lili (1970)

Director:

Blake Edwards

Writers:

William Peter Blatty (writer)
Blake Edwards (writer)

Release Date:

24 June 1970 (USA)

Genre:

Drama | Musical | War

Tagline:

For a spy, love is the deadliest enemy.

Plot:

Set during WWI, this movie is a cute spin on the Mata Hari legend.

Plot Keywords:

Spy | WWI | Cancan Dance | La Marseillaise | Submarine

Awards:

Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 1 win & 4 nominations

Cast

Julie Andrews	...	Lili Smith (Schmidt)
Rock Hudson	...	Maj. William Larrabee
Jeremy Kemp	...	Col. Kurt Von Ruger
Lance Percival	...	T.C
Michael Witney	...	Lt. George 'Youngblood' Carson
Gloria Paul	...	Crepe Suzette
Jacques Marin	...	Maj. Duvalle
André Maranne	...	Lt. Liggett
Bernard Kay	...	Bedford
Doreen Keogh	...	Emma
Carl Duering	...	Gen. Kessler
Vernon Dobtcheff	...	Kraus (Kessler's goon)
Laurie Main	...	French general
Louis Mercier	...	French general
Arthur Gould-Porter	...	Sgt. Wells

Runtime:

143 min (with overture and exit music) | USA:107 min (director's cut)

Country:

USA

Language:

English | German

Colour:

Colour (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.20 : 1

Sound Mix:

70 mm 6-Track (70 mm prints) | Mono (35 mm prints)

Certification:

Australia:M | Singapore:PG | Netherlands:AL | Finland:K-12 | Sweden:11 | USA:G

Filming Locations:

Brussels, Belgium

Company:

Geoffrey Productions Inc.

Trivia:

The manager in charge of hiring the extras to shoot a scene in the Palais De Justice (Superior court) in Brussels in lieu of the Paris railroad station gave away a fixed number of tickets and requested the ticket holders to come back for work around midnight. Some of the left wing activists (socialists) bought a roll of the identical tickets and passed them out to mostly students from the nearby University (U.L.B) and asked them to show up before midnight. Because they were there early, they were able to get into the court house with no problem. They were given costumes almost right away, and when the real extras showed up, the guys in charge were puzzled that there were so many in line considering that the huge hall was already half full. It took them minutes before they figured that they had been fooled and outsmarted by the local activists. They were forced to turn away those who had the phony tickets and accept only few of the legitimate hired extras.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex, Drugs and Rock 'N' Roll Generation Saved Hollywood (2003)

Soundtrack:

IT'S A LONG, LONG WAY TO TIPPERARY

Surprised this isn't on tape or DVD

After 35 years, I've seen this film again; the 136 minute version at the Anthology Film Archives in New York City's East Village. They also showed the 114 minute version which, according to their production notes, is darker in tone, since it's missing some of the comedy of the piece. Certainly some of the cutesy comedy, which Blake Edwards, the director/producer/writer, also seems to be enamored of in his Pink Panther movies, could be cut.

The film is an attempt to make a mature, romantic musical and was a big flop at the time. Edwards was married to Julie Andrews, the female star of the movie. Andrews had a great success with "Mary Poppins" a few years earlier, and a phenomenal success with "The Sound of Music." She tried repeating the success with the awful (but, perhaps, commercially successful) "Thoroughly Modern Millie," and had a stinker with "Star!", the Gertrude Lawrence story. "Star!" was an adult musical, but it didn't take, so "Darling Lili" was another try at breaking Andrews' goody-two-shoes image. She says "ass" in the movie twice and "bastard" once! The scenes I remember most from the first screening in 1970 are the striptease by Suzette (Gloria Paul) and the aerial sequences, which are pretty dazzling (except for the obvious process shots). In fact, the whole movie is quite lavish and Andrews is gowned and bejeweled beautifully. Edwards seems to have studied the films of Vincente Minnelli and is better at creating some of the Minnellian tone than George Cukor was with the dull "My Fair Lady." In fact, Minnelli was making a movie - "On A Clear Day..." - at Paramount the same time "Darling Lili" was being produced. "...Lili" went into major cost overruns, which could account for "...Clear Day..." being so lackluster in its modern scenes, since major money was being pumped into the Andrews/Edwards film.

The movie isn't terrible. In fact, it's quite charming, if a little long. But the movie-going public is fickle, and Julie Andrews musicals fell quickly out of favor. Rock Hudson is enormously likable as always, but has little to do. The production design is delightful, and it's fun to see Andrews do her striptease (which may not be in the shorter version, and I'm thinking that must have been the version I saw in 1970, because I think I would have remembered it).

Maybe the movie will come out on DVD now that they are showing two versions in NYC. The print was beautiful, by the way. It even included the overture. The audience was a poignant collection of solitary film nerds, not excluding myself!