# What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966)

### reviewed by
Shane Burridge

    What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966) 80m

Early experiment by Woody Allen laid the groundwork for MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 and the improvised soundtrack dubbings on the UK TV series WHOSE LINE IS IT ANYWAY? - consequently it doesn't appear nearly so unique nowadays. We've probably all talked over the top of a movie on TV and added our own soundtrack or commentary (a group of friends and I managed to invent a most amusing pornographic narrative for BATTLESTAR GALACTICA one time), but Allen realizes the idea wholly. By taking a serious Japanese thriller, KAGI NO KAG, and re-editing it with new, irrelevant comic dialogue, Allen invented a new way of getting a product into cinemas with relatively little expense. If WHAT'S UP, TIGER LILY? (titled to cash in on the previous year's WHAT'S NEW, PUSSYCAT?) helped get his future projects off the ground, then its addition to the Allen oeuvre is more than justified. Fortunately, it has the distinction of also being very funny.

Consider the way Allen was to approach his task: he obviously had to keep a cohesive narrative throughout his film without sacrificing humor to exposition. To this end, he employs a motif - a recipe for egg salad - that becomes the justification of all that happens in the film. Having set up a running gag, the jokes in TIGER LILY then take on two forms - they either bear some relevance to the events happening onscreen, or they are totally off-the-wall (e.g. one early exchange has a young half-dressed beauty approach the film's hero, only to deliver the line "Name three presidents" ). It's the latter humor that is most characteristic of the Woody Allen we know from magazine articles, where his wild, offbeat lines are truly hilarious. Perhaps TIGER LILY is most reflective of this writing style because, like a magazine piece, it allows Allen distance from the project - he appears not as an actor (or even voice) but as an observer. It's a curious attitude, because after this project Allen's films were to become more and more intertwined with his life and persona. Watching TIGER LILY today, one can't help think of his self-critiquing STARDUST MEMORIES, in which characters complain that he is no longer interested in making the "early funny stuff". I hope Allen does not disown this film, as so many maturing artists do of their fledging work - it may lack the sophistication of his later films, but there is still "funny stuff" at hand here (I find the 'Hollywood impressions' sequence hysterical). It's surprising how well the absurd dialogue actually synchs up with the actors in the original film! Some filler is provided with Inserts of 60s group The Lovin' Spoonful - they don't add anything to the story.

sburridge@hotmail.com

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