The Dryden will screen Darling Lili (Blake Edwards, U.S. 1970, 136 min., 16mm) as part of the WWI series.

In a belated attempt to cash in on the popularity of Julie Andrews and The Sound of Music, Paramount produced this beautiful and wickedly funny spin on the Mata Hari story. Andrews plays an undercover German spy doubling as a famous British music hall singer, employing her irresistible charms to seduce high-ranking Allied soldiers and extract information from her. But her devotion to German motherland is challenged when she falls hopelessly in love with one of her victims, a dashing American flyer played by Rock Hudson in the final great role of his career. Cowritten by William Peter Blatty (of Exorcist fame) and scored by Henry Mancini, Darling Lili is one of the very last classical musicals produced by Hollywood.

[source: George Eastman Museum, 2017-Sep-18]