GarnettTeenage The film was still a fun one that will make you laugh and have you leaving the theater feeling like you just stole something valuable and got away with it.

Myron Clemons A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Sabah Hensley This is a dark and sometimes deeply uncomfortable drama

Mehdi Hoffman There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.

mark.waltz Julie, Barbra and Liza all had musical film genius, but unfortunately, they came too late in the game. Julie managed a few years, while Barbra turned to comedy and Liza to concerts and Broadway to stay marketable, but other than Liza in "Cabaret", by the time this musical farce was made, musicals were really only for the gays and the grays. Fortunately, tides have turned, but for a while, it appeared that Julie was finished in film.Realizing that the tides were turning in film themes, Julie wisely took on the opportunity to be a little more naughty. She was fun, but temperamental, as the real life stage legend Gertrude Lawrence in " Star!", and spoofs her goody goody image in this World War I spoof, playing a British singing star who is secretly (God forbid!) a spy for the Germans. But will love and jealousy for American pilot Rock Hudson change her tune? It's a friggin' Julie Andrews movie, so that answer is obvious!Always ladylike even when showing off her boobies, Andrews gets to bare almost as much here. A gorgeous opening with the award winning song, "Whistling in the Dark", sets up her character, and she's soon calming down an audience with war standards. Julie sings more, and after a Disney like production number, "I'll Give You Three Guesses", is forced to burlesque it because of the raunchy act who might steal Hudson from her.The flaws here are mainly some really dated comic stereotypes, reminding me of veteran European character actors such as Felix Bressart, Herman Bing and S.Z. Sakall, with one very close to the nefarious looking Conrad Veidt. Sometimes the farce is just too forced, like a man in a wheel chair suddenly flying by Julie as she finishes a song and two spies on the roof in the rain keeping an eye on Julie and Rock as they have a fight. Jeremy Brett has a few amusing moments as Julie's German contact, but as predicted, it gets a bit complicated and ends too smoothly. Director Blake Edwards needed to try a bit more subtlety, but for the most part, World War I films have generally been a hard sell.

marcslope Famous big-flop from the Bluhdorn era at Paramount, and it shares some aspects with that other big Paramount flop of the era, "Paint Your Wagon." Both are essentially square musicals that try to be hip. This one tries by messing with Julie Andrews' image: She's a World War 1 spy for the Germans, and she's looser than the Maria von Trapp standard she set: When Rock Hudson, as the flyer who's romancing her, suggests she might be a virgin, she slaps him. Blake Edwards, about to marry her, must have loved the thought of giving the world a new Julie Andrews, but he made some serious mistakes. I find her chemistry with Hudson, counter to some other commenters, just fine. But making her a Mata Hari-type spy leaves us unsure of whom to root for. There's never any mention of how many Allied plots she reported to the Germans, how many Allied deaths she might have caused. And to maintain a persuasive cover, she's always entertaining the Allied troops. But the character is not a heroine, and the ending--she devotes herself to entertaining and raising money for the Allies--is impossible. We wouldn't just forgive Mata Hari, we'd put her before a firing squad. Edwards lengthens the movie with some exciting aerial sequences, a pair of sub-Clousseau French detectives, and much footage of Rock and Julie kissing. It's shot beautifully, and some nice songs are scattered about, including "Whistling in the Dark," a typically lovely minor-key Mancini melody set to an uncharacteristically pointless Mercer lyric. It keeps the eye and ear occupied, but never engages the heart.

davidjudeallen I found this at a DVD sale and I'd never heard of this movie before. The description on the DVD case sounded fun and pacey - what a fallacy! After a very arresting opening scene, the movie devolves into the most wet and infantile romance story with no rhyme or reason to its plot and more montage sequences than you can poke a stick at. Neither Andrews or Hudson have more than a dozen lines in the first hour and when they finally do get any dialogue of significance you're past the point where you care to hear it. Andrews' songs are all identical (with the exception of an inexplicable strip sequence towards the middle) and while she is, as usual, vocally flawless, she is completely disconnected to her material and her co-stars. Hudson has no capacity opposite her to appear the powerful leading man he had in past movies. A minor amount of comic relief is offered with some stock Blake Edwards material - two bumbling French inspectors and a drunken flight captain. Beyond that this movie is badly put together, horrendously developed, badly scored (the same endlessly sappy violin riff throughout) and poorly costumed with little attention to detail or to period. Andrews looks sterile throughout, firing up a few times for some fight scenes that fall flat for the simple reason that they, like every other plot point in this movie, are given little to no background. The aerial dog-fighting sequences are very grandly shot but have no stakes whatsoever rendering them a pointless distraction. Edwards later claimed the studio interfered a great deal with this movie in development - honestly I don't buy it. This plot was rotten to the core. Having seen the full 133 minute cut I can well understand why a lot of editing went on. ANYTHING to make this dog have some pace or punch!

moonspinner55 Julie Andrews satirically prods her own goody-two-shoes image in this overproduced, uneven musical comedy-drama; but, if Andrews approaches her role with aplomb, she's nearly alone in doing so. Blake Edwards' film about a woman who is both music-hall entertainer and German spy during WWI doesn't know what tone to aim for, and Rock Hudson has the thankless task of playing romantic second-fiddle. Musicals had grown out of favor by 1970, and elephantine productions like "Star!" and this film really tarnished Andrews' reputation, leaving a lot of dead space in her catalogue until "The Tamarind Seed" came along. I've always thought Julie Andrews would've made a great villain or shady lady; her strong voice could really command attention, and she hits some low notes that can either be imposing or seductive. Husband/director Edwards seems to realize this, but neither he nor Julie can work up much energy within this scenario. Screenwriter William Peter Blatty isn't a good partner for Edwards, and neither man has his heart in this material. Beatty's script offers Andrews just one fabulous sequence: a raucous striptease--though this is done in nudging satire, so we in the audience will understand it's all a put-on. A cop-out is more like it. ** from ****