Darling Lili

"Often I think this sad old world is whistling in the dark..."
DARLING LILI is a positive delight, though sadly the film was a huge box-office flop and virtually sunk Andrews' film career until "10", S.O.B. and VICTOR/VICTORIA came along a decade later. This film stars Andrews as Lili Smith, a beautiful and adored singing star in England who moonlights as a WW1 German spy. One night, "Uncle Kurt" (Jeremy Kemp) gives Lili her latest assignment: Major Bill Larrabee (Rock Hudson). Lili must make Larrabee fall in love with her, and hopefully let slip some important confidential information that could come in handy for the Germans. Once Lili has Bill firmly in her sights, it becomes clear that this is not her usual "kiss-and-tell" seduction job....she has truly fallen in love with him.

Julie Andrews simply glows as Lili, and delivers a deft performance. Although she indeed plays a spy working for the "Enemy", the audience oddly enough loves her anyway and wants her to escape in the tension-filled final sequence. Rock Hudson is a...

Original vs. Director's Cut -- What are you really getting?
Amazon has two item pages for Darling Lili, that is one for the director's cut (107 min) and the other appears to be for the original release (136 min). The picture showing the Director's Cut reads "Director's Cut" directly below the Movie Title. The page for the original does not say Director's Cut in the picture. Under product information for the original it states: ""Studio: Paramount, DVD Release Date: October 25, 2005, Run Time: 136 minutes, ASIN: B000ANVPT2 (the number for Director's Cut is different)."

I checked out the Director's Cut edition from the library and watched it. It was okay but it seemed choppy and I kept feeling like I was totally missing parts of the movie (it really jumped around in a bad way). I assumed that was the way the movie was made but I did some research and found out it was originally 136 minutes. It seemed to me 29 minutes was a lot to cut out of a movie and maintain any kind of flow so I started looking for the 136 minute version...

One of my favorite films.
I was working at RCMH when this film opened. The Music Hall did great business with it probably because in those years you got a stage show as well. They say the film flopped in general release but i loved it. Great songs, great story, great acting and one of Rock Hudson's best films and seeing this film in 70mm and 6-channel stereo sound was the best. This is a great musical which is also beautifully filmed and shot in many locations in Europe. Enjoy this classic.

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