What's Up, Tiger Lily? is a 1966 American comedy film directed by Woody Allen in his feature-length directorial debut.
Allen took footage from a Japanese spy film, International Secret Police: Key of Keys (1965), and overdubbed it with completely original dialogue that had nothing to do with the plot of the original film.[2] He both put in new scenes and rearranged the order of existing scenes, producing a one-hour movie from the 93 minutes of the original film.
He completely changed the tone of the film from a James Bond clone into a comedy about the search for the world's best egg salad recipe.[3]
During post-production, Allen's original one-hour television version was expanded without his permission to include additional scenes from International Secret Police: A Barrel of Gunpowder, the third film in the International Secret Police series,[2] and musical numbers by the band the Lovin' Spoonful. The band released a soundtrack album. Louise Lasser, who was married to Allen at the time, served as one of the voice actors for the "new" dialogue soundtrack, as did Mickey Rose, Allen's writing partner on Take the Money and Run (1969) and Bananas (1971).[3] In 2003, Image released the film on DVD, with both the theatrical and television (called "alternate") soundtracks.
The plot provides the setup for a string of sight gags, puns, jokes based on Asian stereotypes, and general farce. The central plot involves the misadventures of secret agent Phil Moskowitz, hired by the Grand Exalted High Macha of Rashpur ("a nonexistent but real-sounding country") to recover a secret egg salad recipe that was stolen from him. The recipe, in the possession of gangster Shepherd Wong, is also being sought by rival gangster Wing Fat, and Moskowitz, assisted by two female Rashpur agents, temporarily teams up with Wing Fat to steal the recipe from Wong.
The movie has an ending credits scene unrelated to the plot, in which China Lee, a Playboy Playmate and wife of Allen's comic idol Mort Sahl who does not appear elsewhere in the film, does a striptease while Allen (who is also on-screen) explains that he promised he would put her in the film somewhere.
The soundtrack album to What's Up, Tiger Lily? was released in 1966. It contains music by the Lovin' Spoonful. The audio engineer at National Recording Studios was Fred Weinberg, who went on to produce and engineer many other films and albums. It was re-released on CD along with You're a Big Boy Now, the Spoonful's soundtrack for the 1966 filmbyFrancis Ford Coppola.[9] It reached No. 126 on the Billboard Pop Albums charts.
The reviews were mixed upon the film's release. Expressing disappointment in the movie, The New York Times stated that "the peppery English sound track wears thin as the action churns around in absolute chaos."[10]Variety wrote, "The production has one premise – deliberately mismatched dialog – which is sustained reasonably well through its brief running time."[11]
Aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reports 81% approval of the film from 26 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10.[12]
The film is considered Woody Allen's directorial debut, although Allen distanced himself from it in a 2020 interview.[13] It has been noted that it is not Allen's voice we hear at the end of the movie. In an interview with Brett Homenick, S. Richard Krown – the credited film editor – admitted that the voice was his own.[14]
Boone, Steve; Moss, Tony (2014). Hotter Than a Match Head: My Life on the Run with The Lovin' Spoonful. Toronto: ECW Press. p. 113. ISBN978-1-77041-193-7.: "We weren't due back in a recording studio until June, but just before we were to depart to Europe, an interesting offer came in that was too good to pass up.... The timing was not good – we'd basically have two days to record the soundtrack before we left for an important tour overseas..."
Moriarty, Daniel J. (1966). What's Up, Tiger Lily? (Liner notes). The Lovin' Spoonful. Kama Sutra. KLP 8053.: "The Lovin' Spoonful have never written a movie score and they're leaving for England on Wednesday. Today is Monday."
Anon. (April 7, 1966). "News of the Pops: For 'Ready, Steady Go'". The Runcorn Guardian. p. 6 – via Newspapers.com.: "A POPULAR American group, The Lovin' Spoonful, will visit Britain for the first time next month. They will arrive on [Wednesday] April 13 for a general promotion visit..."
^Woody Allen interviewed by Alec Baldwin (2 june 2020)Archived October 22, 2020, at the Wayback Machine, Alec Baldwin Podcast, uploaded, June 2, 2020 (LSSC YouTube channel) Baldwin: "Tiger Lily is the first film you direct, correct?" Allen: "No. That was an odd little abhorrent project. Some guy called me and said he bought a Japanese film and would I dub it with comic American? I don't count that as anything. I was even going to sue to keep that from coming out because I thought it was such junk. It was successful so my manager at the time said, 'Shut up and go with the flow and don't make a fuss.'"
