The Rock Hudson Blogathon – Darling Lili (1970)

This is the second of three posts dedicated to The Rock Hudson Blogathon being held over at In The Good Old Days of Hollywood and Love Letters to Old Hollywood.

Tnx Crystal and Michaela for letting me take part!

“Nice to see you up and about again… even though you are… sitting down. ” – T.C.

Number of Times Seen – 1 (15 Nov 2018)

Brief Synopsis – In Paris during World War I, a singer who is part British and part German is recruited by the Germans to spy on an American pilot in order to gain information about the plans of the Allies.

My Take on it – I was actually looking forward to seeing this film because I’ve always been a fan of Julie Andrews and hoped that she and Rock Hudson would have great screen chemistry together.

Unfortunately, the exact opposite is true.

They are horrendous together and it’s so difficult to actually believe that they are meant to e madly in love with each other.

They try too hard to use the story of Mata Hari as the basis for this film, but it just doesn’t work at all and it fails miserably throughout.

The film is filled with numerous songs and they help drag things along too much.

It unfortunately seems as if these parts are added to the film by the director Blake Edwards (Andrews’ husband) just to spotlight her amazing vocal abilities.

Unfortunately, this film is way too long and is not easy to get through because it is so boring they entire time.

Bottom Line – Terrible film that tries to use the idea of Mata Hari and fails miserably. Andrews and Hudson have horrendous chemistry together and it’s quite hard to believe that they are meant to be madly in love. The songs drag out the story much ore than needed and it seems more like a ploy by Edwards to spotlight his wife and her amazing vocal abilities.  This film is too long and was a chore to actually get through because it was so boring.

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – The manager in charge of hiring the extras to shoot a scene in the Palais De Justice (Superior court) in Brussels in lieu of the Paris railroad station gave away a fixed number of tickets and requested the ticket holders to come back for work around midnight. Some of the left wing activists (socialists) bought a roll of the identical tickets and passed them out to mostly students from the nearby University (Université Libre de Bruxelles) and asked them to show up before midnight. Because they were there early, they were able to get into the court house with no problem. They were given costumes almost right away, and when the real extras showed up, the guys in charge were puzzled that there were so many in line considering that the huge hall was already half full. It took them minutes before they figured that they had been fooled and outsmarted by the local activists. They were forced to turn away those who had the phony tickets and accept only few of the legitimate hired extras. (From IMDB)

Rating – Razzie Worthy (2/10)

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