Review of What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966) by Jonathan H — 20 Mar 2011

Woody Allen's directorial debut was an interesting experiment at the time: redubbing International Secret Police: A Barrel of Gunpowder and ISP: Key of Keys (two pre-existing Japanese James Bond-esque films) with comedic English dialogue (a definite early precursor to Mystery Science Theater 3000).

The film on screen, of course, is utterly ridiculous, and Allen conjures up some good lines such as, "It's a great film! It's got rape and looting," and "I have nude pictures that I will send to every grade school in Tokyo.

Unless you're confident with your body, you're in for trouble", and there's even some clever participatory lines such as "Applaud so the gun will magically have more bullets," but the novelty wears off pretty quickly.

In the end, it's hard to escape the fact that, even with the new dialogue, an audience still has to sit through the movie on screen. There are some awkward and bizarre musical interludes from The Lovin' Spoonful (which happened without Allen's consent, and propelled him to insist on musical control over his films) and their inclusion, both sonically and visually, is completely nonsensical.

It appears as if he and his collaborators had a few good ideas here and there, but sporadic ideas does not a movie make.