Darling Lili: The Director's Cut

Not to be missed by any of those who appreciate a well written & witty script, great chemistry between Julie Andrews & Rock Hudson & beautifully appointed extravagant & gorgeous estate homes , fabulous costumes , & nostalgic reminders of our history during WW2 handled in a lighter hearted way .The music performed with fabulous talent by Julie Andrews featured hits such as 1) It’s a Long Way to Tipperary 2) Keep the Home Fires Burning 3) No Man’s Land etc. — which many May remember their parents singing during our very early childhoods after the trauma of the war . This music created to bolster spirits during a horrific period in world history can still lift hearts today & remind us of just how lucky we are now .This is a charming feel good movie directed , acted & performed with elegance & precision providing the viewer with wonderful entertainment . 🌷🌷High praise for the speedy delivery & perfect condition of the DVD .

Light comedy with memorable songs

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 comical and romantic delight as Larrabee. The support cast includes Lance Percival, Gloria Paul, Jacques Marin, Doreen Keogh and Bernard Kay.The musical score by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer is truly beautiful, one of the best of the entire decade. When Andrews emerges out of the blackness in the first scene to sing "Whistling Away the Dark", it is indeed one of those chill-inducing moments. Andrews' musicality in this film was quite accomplished; she sings with a smokey timbre in her voice which she rarely displayed before or after DARLING LILI. Other choice moments come in the Music Hall-schmaltz of "I'll Give You Three Guesses" and the sobering "Girl in No Man's Land". Costume designer Donald Brooks decks Julie out in a splendid array of period-perfect ensembles (he also costumed Julie in STAR!).The film was nominated for 3 Academy Awards that year: Best Costume Design (Donald Brooks); Best Song "Whistling Away the Dark" (music Henry Mancini, lyrics Johnny Mercer); and Best Music Scoring (Henry Mancini).I simply adore this film. DARLING LILI was never made available on videocassette, and appeared only rarely on cable. Director Blake Edwards, in a bid to make the film more palatable for audiences following it's disastrous theatrical release, re-cut the film in a "Director's Cut", and that is the version you get on this DVD. The original theatrical length was 136 mins (the "Director's Cut" runs for a brisk 107 mins, not counting Overture and Exit Music sequences). The transfer is very sharp and the audio is offered in both 5.1 and 2-channel stereo. The cut scenes are all offered as bonus material, so in effect the entire film is here, albeit in pieces. Paramount might hopefully release the uncut LILI one day, but until then, you could do a lot worse than the "Director's Cut". Highly-recommended from this corner.POSTSCRIPT (29th May 2007): DARLING LILI is now available in it's original uncut form, via the new Paramount DVD editions from the UK and Australia.

I must have bought the only new copy of this film as an import left and I got from one of my most reliable sellers for a steal price of $5.00 plus shipping. I am so glad I did as it was the original 137 min. version as the film was originally released. I am not quite certain now why the film was a flop, as it was a major work by producer/director Blake Edwards from 1970. He co-wrote the script with William Peter Blatty, and it had very much Blake Edwards's stamp. Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer wrote some wonderful songs for it: the Oscar-nominated "Whistling in the Dark," "I'll Give You Three Guesses," "Smile Away Each Rainy Day" and the title tune among them. There are a lot of military-themed old standards used in the score by Mancini like "It's a Long Way to Tiperrary" and such. Perhaps that is my chief complaint is the typical jolly time the characters seemed to have while playing spy vs. spy during wartime. The movie has pretty much the "Mata Hari" kind of premise. With matters ever darkening in the news and all the politician's today looking to boost our war efforts and our military, I looked from a distance, but acquiesce to the humor. Julie Andrews, because the film was such a costly flop, lost her box office clout, but she seemed ready for a change, if possible. Rock Hudson was cast opposite her, and he seems adequate. Jeremy Kemp has third billing as her seductive Nazi "uncle." You can certainly see pieces of "The Great Race" and "The Pink Panther" series and later efforts like "Victor/Victoria" in it and I was very happy with the PAL playing Paramount disc as the newer "Director's Cut" on the market, more expensive and, according to reviewers who claim the edited film is too choppy to almost unintelligible without the missing footage, I would have wished to see the full film. I seriously doubt Blake Edwards would prefer the shortened version given that the 137 min. film would have been more appreciated, In color with Dolby Digital sound.

I read the negative reviews about the director's cut, but I saw this movie so long ago that I could only recall snippets of it, about Julie Andrews playing a German spy. So, the directors cut didn't bother me. Granted, I found the film boring at the beginning because I'm not a fan of slap-stick comedy. But, when the car chases and dog fights started, I sat up and totally enjoyed everything, including the comedy. Conclusion: If you're viewing it with fresh eyes or for the 1st time, I suspect that you'll enjoy it.

I was moved to buy this film to complete my 6os/70s movies with Julie Andrews featuring music by Hank Mancini. (Offbeat, I know, but I spend quite some time with his music in my head). It was a bit of a stretch at first thinking of Julie being with the bad guys but it was downplayed at first and then she fell for Rock Hudson. The showpieces were quite well done and I like the title song but there was just something off. The show seemed a little bit long for me also and so the 3-star rating. It may very well be someone's first introduction to JA (like my 1-year old granddaughter) and they'll love it...good!

How much more lovely this film is than I had any expectation of! One might suspect that a war thriller such as this one was only forced to have songs in it because of Julie Andrews's presence, rendering it a patchy musical thriller. What a misgiving that is; it's not a musical in any sense, doesn't try to be, and as far as thriller goes it clearly does not aspire to be one saturated with mystery either.It really is a romance set in the time of war, with romance first and war as the circumstance. It is not the sweetest love story ever told, but it is crisply told. Granted, the writing is not always of the highest quality, but it fairly consistently is. It quite clearly is intent on not being a war suspense story, but it is not completely void of intrigue, and whatever there is certainly left me wondering, neither alternative glaringly patently the truth. In fact the film never (or did I miss it?) reveals what Operation Crepe Suzette is at all, and how was Major Larrabee passing any vital military information through Lili to the German when everything we see him telling Lili is verified as lies in the film?If you want masculine suspense thriller then "Darling Lili" is not the place to look for it. It's the tangle with wartime espionage that the romance between Lili and Larrabee gets into that is the heart of this film. I regret that I find Julie Andrews too radiant a match for Rock Hudson, and although Dame Julie is completely natural as a lover Hudson seems wooden - neither convincingly sophisticated nor subtle. Once again Dame Julie Andrews really does literally carry the film. I think she was a little too old by this time for the strip-tease scene - but if you hadn't done it before it'd be better not to leave it until too late no?The music instrumental or vocal is, simply put, unbelievably gorgeous. Some authentic WWI songs are featured, adding authentic touches of historical atmosphere to the film. The new songs written for the film feel strangely tame when one identifies Dame Julie with supple and effortless vocal acrobatic, but nonetheless sparkle. All musical numbers, if you can call them that at all, except one, as in "Star!", appear in the context of performance. Only the film's main theme song, "Whistling Away the Dark", which becomes Lili's theme music (much more so than the more superficial eponymous theme "Darling Lili"), really has direct pertinence to the main story. For musical haters the presence of songs should not matter; neither are songs used to tell the story nor are they draggingly long. They are not staged in the grand manner of musicals, the uncluttered instrumentation plenteously spacious to showcase Dame Julie's performance and the choreography never gets larger-than-life. They add to the atmosphere of the film and Dame Julie performs as well as at any other time.Visually the film serves up some very beautiful pictures. The set is consistently beautiful. The same costume designer as for Dame Julie's wardrobe in "Star!" worked for this film, and the period costumes are just as dazzling and nostalgic, only more subdued. Their colours certainly are employed to the best result in the chromatic dynamic of the film's visual. The three most beautiful - very different - sequences (well actually four) that come to mind are the music hall performances of "Whistling Away the Dark" at the beginning and the end of the film, Lili's waking up to a house of red roses and when Lili and Larrabee join a school of children walking hands in hands in crocodiles singing a patriotic-sounding French songs in the French countryside. On the whole the air fight scenes are the most dire, the action generally feeling dragged and the scenery looking uncannily British for battles that are supposed to be taking high above the fields of Flanders.I felt the film could do very well without its Pink-Panther-esque comic, especially of the two French Army Intellingence officers, which, however slight, leaves the film lacking in the grit that would make it so much better. However, noone should allow that to dissuade him from this neat little weaving of a war romance.The DVD doesn't come with much, just a trailer. Yet I commend its neat and clean design throughout - the case, the menus. The naming of scenes is really a nice little thing.

I was very disappointed that this DVD was PAL encoded. This was not mentioned in the description and I cannot play it on any of my machines due to this.

Il n'y a rien d'autre à ajouter... Pas assez connu, dommage, mais grand chef-d'oeuvre qui devrait sérieusement fait parti des classiques célèbres aux yeux du grand public ! Soyez curieux, et courez ventre à terre le (re)voir !Et dans le meilleur de Blake Edward, naturellement Victor Victoria, Breakfast at Tiffany's (Diamants sur canapé) et The Party !!

Natürlich.Gibt es einen Film in den Julie Andrews nicht gut ist? Selbst das Musical "Star" das nun kaum noch einer kennt machte sie zum Julie Andrews Film! Darling Lili ist ein ähnliches Schicksal wiederfahren. Schlecht ist der Film nicht aber man merkt dem Film oft an das Blake Edwards eigentlich einen anderen Film machen wollte aber wohl nicht durfte. Wer Blake Edwards filme kennt, weiß das der große Regisseur neben all den Musik Nummern und Humor in seinen Meiterfilmen stets auch einen sehr klaren Blick für seine Helden und Antihelden hatte,insbesonderes für die Zeit in der diese Lebten. Und zur Zeit wo der Film spielte gab es wenig zu lachen,geschweige dem zu singen.Ansatzweise gelang es Edwards im Zusammenspiel mit seiner Ehefrau Julie Andrews die ernshaftichkeit jener Zeit durchblicken zu lassen.Jedoch merkt man sehr offt das dies nicht die Filmversion ist welche Edwards,zusammen mit Autor William Peter Blatty(alleine letzerer ist bekannt für seine Einblicke in düstere Charakteren) angestrebt hat. Zum Glück gibt es einige Szenen welche den Typischen Blake Edwards Humor haben und wo man merkt dass es eine Edwards Film ist! Die Songs sind durch die Bank klasse was man aber auch von einen Henry Mancini nicht anderes erwarten könnt.(Die Anfangsszene und der Song sind einfach toll)Julie Andrews Stimme markelos und Ihre Aussprache(die DVD hat nur englischen Originalton). Der digitale Download bei Amazon hat hingegen beide Sprachfassungen. Deutsch/Englisch. Der Fan wird lieben!!!Es soll noch eine Schnittfassung geben welche Blake Edwards Jahrzehnte später erstellte und die auch ernster und tiefgründiger sein soll, so wie er den Film schon zu Jenner Zeit haben wollte. Einen sogenaten Directers Cut. Ob der jedoch jemals veröffentlicht wird liegt wahrscheinlich an Dame Julie Andrews.Sie hat das große Erbe der Blake Edwards Filme welche einer Nachwelt erhalten werden müssen