Darling Lili [DVD]

Thank you Paramount UK for finally giving us this beautiful film in it's entirety. Living in the US, I was extremely disappointed by the butchered 2005 release of this gem in my country. But now I have it, even though I have to watch it on a multi-region DVD player. The transfer and sound are gorgeous. Better than you would ever expect for a film of this age. Here for all to see are the musical numbers, complete and unedited. You can also enjoy the complete seduction scene in the country inn and appreciate Julie's impeccable comedic timing. I just wish they had included the production short, "Darling Julie," prepared at the time of this film's production. Also, a still gallery would have been nice. For you American's reading this, owning this treasure is worth every penny of your investment in buying a multi-region DVD player. For you Brits, run out and buy this beauty. And, can anyone explain to me why Paramount released a cut version to the US and the complete version to Europe?

Long forgotten by almost all but Julie Andrews fans, Darling Lili was the box-office disaster that not only nearly killed Andrews and director Blake Edwards' careers but nearly destroyed Paramount as well (grossing only $5m against a then massive $25m budget) and even inspired two films - Blake Edwards' thinly-veiled version of his side of the film, S.O.B., and, of all things, The Godfather Part III (it seems the studio were partially baled out by investors who turned out to be, ahem, friends of Italian opera and who were particularly difficult to dislodge). Part of the last burst of absurdly expensive epic musicals that followed in the wake of the Sound of Music's success, it was never originally intended to be an all-out musical - instead, Edwards saw it as a period romantic comedy vehicle for his wife. Unfortunately, since his wife was Julie Andrews, the studio thought it might be a better investment to turn it into a musical - her character is a musical hall singer who moonlights as a spy for the Germans in the First World War after all. The film ended up spending more than a year-and-a-half in post-production as new scenes and musical numbers were added (it's not too difficult to spot them, since Hermes Pan's staging is far more confident than Edwards', who tends to be unsure of quite how to showcase Andrews at times, though a bizarre burlesque striptease number seems spectacularly out of place) and various lengths were tested before a 143-minute roadshow version opened to much derision or indifference. Edwards subsequently re-edited the film for US TV to one of the few director's cuts that's substantially shorter than the theatrical one, in the process turning it from a misfired musical romantic comedy to a slightly darker misfired romantic comedy with a few songs instead.

The biggest problem is that not only is there no chemistry between Andrews and Rock Hudson (who reportedly loathed each other) but they share surprisingly few actual scenes - much of the early stages of their romance are played out in montages while he has little dialogue in many of their scenes: not altogether surprising with Andrews' husband directing. Indeed, for much of the first half of film, the badly photographed and made-up Hudson barely registers as the air ace she's assigned to uncover military secrets from only to find herself falling in love with him. He's fine when he actually gets something to work with, but that's not until a lengthy failed seduction scene also involving a pair of bumbling French detectives watching from a rainy rooftop before inevitably falling unnoticed from a great height (something of a signature Blake Edwards gag).

Unfortunately, Edwards' and William Peter Blatty's script never really provides enough laughs to compensate for the lack of sparks between the leads. The film gets particularly messy at the end, with the final scene unbelievable in all the wrong ways even as fantasy (no-one on the Allied side seems to mind in the slightest that she was a German spy), but there are compensations en route. The eternally typecast Jeremy Kemp does his best urbane German aristocrat routine again and, a few clumsily inserted back-projection shots aside, Anthony Squire's aerial sequence boasts some truly remarkable dogfight footage that puts films like Flyboys to shame. Shot in Ireland with many of the planes collected for The Blue Max, it's both beautifully shot and boasts some remarkable `for real' stunt sequences. On the balance the film is more good than bad, but not quite good enough.

While the Region 1 NTSC DVD is the shorter 107-minute director's cut with some (but not all) of the deleted scenes included as extras, the Region 2 PAL DVD is the roadshow version complete with overture. Boasting a decent widescreen 2.35:1 transfer, the only extra is a teaser trailer largely made up of still photos.

Forget the critical condemnation of this film. It really is special. I first saw it at it's UK original release at the Odeon in the Haymarket, London. At the time Julie was totally out of fashion. No doubt her none appearance at the UK premiere of STAR! at the Dominion Cinema did little to help. She was too busy filming Darling Lili in Ireland. A poor excuse and one that led to her disappearance from the screen for quite a few years. Her film career was ruined. But Darling Lili is well worth seeing. It is beautifully produced and very fine entertainment.