Darling Lili (short edition)

 

Picture: B-     Sound: B-     Extras: C     Film: C+

 

 

Though two longer versions exist, Paramount has decided to release Darling Lili in the shorter “serious” 104 minutes cut.  The film was another in a series of box office disappointments Julie Andrews found herself in the wake of the double hits Mary Poppins and The Sound Of Music in the mid 1960s.  After mixed success with Alfred Hitchcock’s Torn Curtain (1966), she racked up the disappointment of Hawaii (1966, reviewed elsewhere on this site), mixed success of Thoroughly Modern Millie (1966) and major bomb Star! in 1968.  This was meant to be a comeback, but the 1969 production became a 1970 release and bombed promptly.

 

Originally shot as a Comedy/Musical in the mode of something like Those Magnificent Men & Their Flying Machines (1965), this was the end of that cycle for so many reasons.  Blake had come up with The Great Race that same year with hit results.  One was that it was beyond played out, two were cultural changes, third was realism coming more into films and four was television.  This may have been a bit more serious, but in a strange twist, the film was cut into a “Drama” by director Blake Edwards in this current version.  It has a cult following, but it is beyond obvious that the acting was done in service to comedy and the result is a mess.  It is like they did not know what genre to stick with in the worst way.

 

Andrews is the title character, a British spy who is undercover as a popular stage performer.  It was like adding Torn Curtain and Star! as if they were asking for trouble, tempting fate or trying to vindicate the previous films.  Even for its time, the rear projection is lame, what comedy remains is odd, the drama never clicks, the music is somewhat memorable by Henry Mancini with Johnny Mercer, the great MGM legend Hermes Pan does offer some good choreography and fellow cast members like Rock Hudson and Jeremy Kemp seem out of their element throughout.  If anything, with its plastic production look, it will play like a variant of Hogan’s Heroes, but set in World War I.  It would take 10 more years before Andrews resurfaced in a hit film and it was one of the last films of its kind before Robert Evans really took over Paramount in full.  Oddest of all, Edwards co-wrote the script with William Peter Blatty, two years away from immortality for The Exorcist.

 

The anamorphically enhanced 2.35 X 1 image was shot in real anamorphic Panavision and even made in 70mm blow-up prints.  It was even a three-strip Technicolor film in its original release.  This print has good color often, if not that good, while cinematographer Russell Harlan, A.S.C., did some good work here despite the result.  Harlan had been shooting films since the early 1930s, going up to classics like The Thing (1951), Witness For The Prosecution and To Kill A Mockingbird (the latter two reviewed elsewhere on this site).  This was his last film work.  The Dolby Digital 5.1 mix is an interesting remaster of the 6-track 70mm magnetic stereo blow-up sound, with limited surrounds and a soundfield that never totally works.  The original sound would have had 5 tracks behind the screen, so expect traveling dialogue and sound effects, more apparent in the airplane sequences.  Extras include the original trailer and 20 deleted scenes that are the cut scenes.  They ultimately made no difference.

 

 

-   Nicholas Sheffo