Darling Lili (1970)

Lili Smith (Julie Andrews) is Britain’s favourite singing entertainer and the darling of the Tommies on leave in London from the First World War battlefront. She is also a German spy.

Before travelling to Paris to entertain Allied troops and, ironically, to receive the French Legion of Honour, her colleague and confidante in German Intelligence, Kurt Von Ruger (Jeremy Kemp), gives her a new assignment – to find out exactly how the Allies are using their military aircraft (since the war is moving into the air).

Major William Larrabee (Rock Hudson) is the American Squadron Commander of the Allies SE 51’s, and Lili cooly aims her seductive wiles at him.

Larrabee responds with lavish entertainment, dozens of roses – and lots of military information.

Lieutenant Liggett (André Maranne) and Major Duvalle (Jacques Marin) of French Army Intelligence suspect Larrabee of passing information to the enemy and ask Lili to help check on him.

A critical piece of information slips out when Larrabee’s drunken flying friend T.C. (Lance Percival) mentions “Operation Crepe Suzette” in Lili’s presence.

Later, a war-weary Larrabee meets Lili at her theatre and tells her of his most recent air battle with Baron von Richthofen (Ingo Mogendorf).

They retreat to a country inn, watched, as usual, by the suspicious Peter Sellers-type French agents Liggett and Duvalle. Lili is beginning to lose her usual unemotional approach to spying, and the atmosphere is dangerously romantic.

But a call from von Ruger shatters the idyll. He tells Lili that Larrabee has not been fighting the Red Baron and questions the existence of “Operation Crepe Suzette.”

Either it is especially top secret or does not exist at all. Maybe, he suggests, Suzette is another woman in Larrabee’s life.

Lili and Larrabee quarrel, and later, while Larrabee and T.C. are flying daring missions against the Germans, Lili and the French Intelligence agents visit a club where Suzette Maldue (Gloria Paul) performs her striptease.

The French suspect she is a German spy.

Later, Lili trails Larrabee to Suzette’s flat. Jealous and set on revenge, Lili arranges to have her German spy code book discovered under Suzette’s mattress.

Larrabee and Suzette – who he had gone to see for a final time – are arrested. To save Larrabee, Lili plans to give herself up.

Von Ruger, who has discovered that a rival in Germany has accused him of treason and is threatening Lili’s life, rescues Lili from the steps of French Military Headquarters just as she is shot at by a German agent.

Von Ruger is injured, but they escape on a Swiss-bound train.

Larrabee, who has been released, realises the danger Lili and von Ruger are in from the German airforce who strafe the escape train and leads Allied airmen to counter-attack the Germans and drive them off.

Lili and Larrabee meet again after the war at a charity concert.

Filming went way over budget, and the movie was a box office flop when it was released. Blake Edwards subsequently used the experience of making this movie as the inspiration for the script to S.O.B. (1981).

Lili Smith
Julie Andrews
Major William Larrabee
Rock Hudson
Colonel Kurt Von Ruger
Jeremy Kemp
T.C. Carstairs
Lance Percival
Lt. George Youngblood Carson
Michael Witney
Crepe Suzette
Gloria Paul
Major Duvalle
Jacques Marin
Lt. Liggett
André Maranne
Bedford
Bernard Kay
Emma
Doreen Keogh
General Kessler
Carl Duering
Otto Kraus
Vernon Dobtcheff
French General 1
Laurie Main
French General 2
Louis Mercier
Sergeant Wells
Arthur Gould-Porter
Baron Manfred von Richtofen
Ingo Mogendorf

Director
Blake Edwards