What's Up, Tiger Lily?

[StevePulaski]

What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966)
Directed by: Woody Allen and Senkichi Taniguchi

Woody Allen in the closing moments of What's Up, Tiger Lily?.

Rating: ★★
NOTE: Part of "Woody Allen Mondays," an ongoing movie-watching event.

I once held the belief that time had no effect on a film. I believed that a film that was viewed as good, or even great, upon its initial release would and should hold up in quality in the modern day. Of course external elements like impact and effect would vary, but in the most basic sense, I thought a film would retain its quality regardless of how distant it was from its release date.

What's Up, Tiger Lily? is a film I would've loved to experience in a theater upon its initial release and even on home video years after. It was probably a very funny movie at the time without the burden of stylistic familiarity encroaching its existence. The film is often cited as Woody Allen's directorial debut, although that detail is a tad misleading, being that the film is a work of cinematic revisionism. Allen took a Japanese spy film by the name of International Secret Police: Key of Keys from 1965 and completely re-dubbed it with original dialog and a unique voice-cast that gave the film a plot unrelated to the original film.

Rather than a film about goons trying to stop anti-government forces from funding vicious gangs, Allen created a violent yet flagrantly silly James Bond clone about the theft and subsequent retrieval of the recipe for the world's best egg salad sandwich. In true Godardian fashion, Allen toys with structure by manipulating chronology and film-stock along with populating the dialog with his wry brand of sarcastic and intellectual humor that would become a staple of his work for the next 40+ years.

The result is a project that recalls the familiar pop culture staples in the form of Mystery Science Theater 3000, its offspring Rifftrax, and The Nostalgia Critic, all spawned thanks to lackluster films and television shows that beg to be parodied for their lack of quality. Because of how recognizable and uniformly well-produced these works are, What's Up, Tiger Lily? appears like a film's students rendition of such in the modern day and, perhaps unintentionally, reflect Allen's insecurities about being a young filmmaker (31) and forced to commit his own unique ideas to celluloid.

He even goes as far as to manipulate the film's soundtrack, enlisting in the help of the all-American rock-band The Lovin' Spoonful to take over the film's score, and outsource a unique ending that has nothing to do with the film's plot. The conclusion of the film involves Playboy playmate China Lee, the then-wife of Mort Sahl, one of George Carlin and Allen's idols and biggest influences, performing a softcore striptease while Allen lie listlessly on a couch in the background, chomping on an apple. Oddly enough, it's the most memorable scene in the film and echoes the sometimes absurd comedy that would become recognizable in films such as Love and Death.

What's Up, Tiger Lily? actually fits in pretty well with Allen's filmography of the late-sixties and early-seventies, which was defined by ribald slapstick (Bananas), wacky attempts at social commentary (Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex *(But Were Afraid to Ask)), and crafty experimentation (Sleeper). Ultimately, it's a time-capsule of an artist's growth and should be viewed as such. In addition, it's a film that's more fun to debate and discuss than it is to watch, despite being a slight 80 minutes. If it in any way at all influenced the later masterpieces Allen would come to conceive, than I suppose it was worth it in the long-run.

Directed by: Woody Allen.