DrTuvok

'Darling Lili' marks the largest turning point in director Blake Edwards' career in many ways. It's his first collaboration with wife Julie Andrews, (who would star in many of his subsequent films) and his last written in collaboration with William Peter Blatty, who just a few years later would leave comedy behind completely and find global success with 'The Exorcist'. This film, however- - -a war drama musical/romance with comedy elements- - - had a troublesome production and became notorious as one of old Hollywood's overbudgeted massive bombs excreted out in its death throes. Edwards, a director who could basically do no wrong in the 60s, never recovered until the Pink Panther sequels. (Apparently the film suffered so much studio interference that it should put to rest the cliche movie buff myth that the early 70s were a golden age when directors could do whatever they wanted).

But does 'Darling Lili' hold up today? 'Hello Dolly' is another infamous example of the late period extravagant musical bomb, yet that film remains delightful with its witty script, memorable songs, and a career-best performance from Barbara Streisand. Could this be another such gem?

I thought maybe so, but half an hour into watching it realized I was wrong. It's a romance film first and foremost, concerning Julie Andrew's Mata Hari-esque German spy (don't worry, this is WW1) and her affair with an RAF pilot played by Rock Hudson. Eventually her attempts to seduce information out of him lead to true love, but her role as a double agent starts to jeopardize their relationship, bringing her to question her loyalty. The romance element, which takes up most of the opening act of the movie, is played completely straight. That certainly isn't a bad thing, but it's far outside director Blake Edwards' usual slapstick wheelhouse, and even he seems somewhat bored, using slow focus pulls almost lazily. The whole tone may have been an attempt to cash in on Andrews' unprecedented success with the equally sincere 'Sound of Music', but the romance story is too basic to compare. I would chalk it all up to the aforementioned studio interference, except for the fact that several decades later Edwards released a drastically shortened director's cut which apparently cut out most of the humorous moments, leaving probably these scenes, mostly.

And speaking of the humorous moments: they are there, and it's only through them that the film occasionally sputters to life. Had Edwards made the film into a pure farce it probably would have played like gangbusters, and there are isolated scenes which would seem to hint at that intention. The Julie Andrews striptease scene is an equally hilarious and awkward sendup of her previous roles, yet it has absolutely no plot relevance. There are two bumbling French detectives trying to find the German spy in their ranks, and if that sounds like Edwards and Blatty's previous work with Inspector Clouseau in 'A Shot in the Dark'- - -don't count on it. Neither of the actors can bring the personality or sense of injured dignity that Sellers did, and the romantic focus of the film does not concern them. Had they a larger role to play in the plot the film might have been a massive improvement. Goofy Frenchmen rarely miss.

Outside of the comedy and romance there are the war scenes, depicting the classic WW1 ariel dogfights. These scenes look fantastic (and very expensive) but like the comedy scenes they are dramatically weightless and often redundant. Unlike the comedy scenes they are long. Why does this romantic musical feel the need to make itself into some kind of 60s version of Top Gun Maverick? Watching Rock Hudson and his goofy British pilot buddy firing down enemy planes starts to feel indulgent after a while.

How about the music? Longtime Edwards collaborator Henry Mancini is here to provide a classy soundtrack, and decent if not too memorable songs written by Johnny Mercer in his final musical. It's...all right, but still slight compared to most classic musicals. With such a skilled set of people behind the scenes it's too bad the results weren't better, which one could say about the movie as a whole.

The great comedy pioneer Leo McCarey spent the latter half of his career making serious religious/political films, so not only is the awkwardly titled 'Rally Round the Flag, Boys!' his final foray into his primary genre, but it was basically his first one since the seminal 1937 screwball 'The Awful Truth', twenty years earlier. Nearly all of his later films ('Good Sam', 'Once Upon a Honeymoon', etc) still had occasional comedic elements among the more serious elements, but could he recapture the full out comedy glory of his 'Duck Soup' or Laurel and Hardy days?

Regrettably not quite. There are several positive elements of this scattered satire/screwball, but it's ultimately too haphazard to work. Scenes are piled together...the domestic farce, military satire, teenager spoofing, the pageant, the rocket ship. None of these subplots really works more effectively than another; they are essentially all hit and miss.

This is the first time I've seen Paul Newman in a comedy film (Butch Cassidy, despite its smirking irony, doesn't really count), and it looks like from the start of his career this isn't quite his forte. For much of the film he goes around with an odd smile on his face, almost as if he's embarrassed to be there. Once he started leaning into his method actor persona he probably would be. His character is a bit of a Jack Lemmon-type, dealing with marital strife and a seductive neighbor (Joan Collins) in a small village that becomes host to a top secret military/government project. His wife is more devoted to town meetings and committees than to him, which, if a funny concept, never quite coheres into a satire of small town activism. As previously stated, the film is mostly too scattered to focus on one idea for too long.

Some of them, do work, however. The best sequence involves a two way phone call between an unwilling Newman and the seductive Collins, the pretense of which is threatened by a drunken general on one end and Newman's suspicious wife on the other. The anarchic structure and pacing of this scene recall McCarey at his comedic best, but it's a shame this success is never quite replicated. Other set pieces like the drunken swinging from chandeliers and Newman's Hollywood-esque sexual fantasies are too obvious to be that funny.

The grand screwball climax involves a Fourth of July pageant descending into chaos due to the town's teenagers (depicted as beatnik spoofs) jealously lashing out at the military soldiers for stealing their girls. It's funny to a certain degree, and also somewhat subversive since the teenagers are performing as the 'Indians' and the military men as the 'Pilgrims'. At the time this probably played as an irreverent ribbing at the sacredness of the American founding, but viewed now it comes across more as a parody of political correctness. In that respect, at least, McCarey's film has improbably aged decently.