Lily la tigresse

If you like *Mystery Science Theater 3000,* chances are you'll get a kick out of this mildly amusing Woody Allen farce. Although the concept is ingenious (22 years before the misadventures of the Satellite of Love), the jokes are not as funny as they could or should be, and there is far too much emphasis on Allen's sexual hang-ups. There are a lot of scenes that could have been hysterical, but which turn out to be uncomfortably unamusing. Still, for its campiness and originality, you should try to catch this film sometime.

What’s up Tiger Lily: 7 out of 10: Long before Airplane or Mystery Science Theater 3000 or even my own mix-up of an uncut bootleg of Chōjin densetsu Urotsukidōji and Led Zeppelin II (Blows Pink Floyd and the Wizard of OZ out of the water.) there was What’s Up Tiger Lily.

A very young Woody Allen acquired the rights of a Japanese James Bond knockoff called Kokusai himitsu keisatsu: Kagi no kagi (Literal English title International Secret Police: Key of Keys) and dubbed in his own dialogue.

The film starts with some non-dubbed footage involving bondage, a shootout, and a circular saw. Then Woody appears with an interviewer what he has done with the film. The film then restarts Woody’s dubbing in place and with the exception of two short interruptions by Woody (both very funny) It is the Japanese import with a new script and story.

The dub itself is quite funny and well done. One can definitely see the roots of some of Woody Allen’s comic themes in this work. The overall story of the world’s greatest egg salad recipe is quite well done and the voice work is applicable and fits the on screen characters well.

What’s Up Tiger Lily benefits from good source material to work with. Longtime fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 know that even the best riffing can suffer from deadly boring source material. (Red Zone Cuba for example). What’s Up Tiger Lily’s source material is colorful, action packed, and has a very attractive cast. In fact I would love to see the original source material.

On the down side, since the film is dubbed, when the movie has no dialogue the experience can drag. Unlike an Airplane or a Mystery Science Theater 3000 riffing session, What’s Up Tiger Lily isn’t a 10 jokes a minute affair. Even more detrimental the Lovin Spoonful show up periodically to present an unrelated music video. This both dates the effort horribly and kills the flow of the humor.

What’s Up Tiger Lily is a must see for fans of Mystery Science Theater 3000 and of Woody Allen’s early comedy. (And fans of the Lovin Spoonful I guess).

One should pay respect to ones elders and it is a very fun time.

What's Up Tiger Lily? is one of the absolute funniest movies I've ever seen, although I think I'm the only 14-year-old on the planet whose ever even heard of it. It's highly original, side-splittingly funny, and has a great soundtrack (from The Lovin' Spoonful, a band I'm sure I've never heard of but probably would've if I were older), although the only drawback is that the two five-minute dance scenes, while somewhat funny at first, drag on and on to the point of having to fast forward. And have the remote handy; you'll have to stop some of the scenes right in the middle because you'll be laughing too hard to hear them. A movie I'd highly recommend, especially to anyone who's ever seen MST3K.

A woman steps into the room wearing a towel. She and her lover gaze longingly at each other. "Name three presidents!" she says.

In the wake of his early successes as a writer, Allen obtained the rights to an extra-cheesy Japanese spy thriller, threw out the entire soundtrack, then wrote and dubbed in a new script. Mix in a "what has this got to do with anything?" soundtrack by the folk-rock 60s group The Lovin' Spoonful and a few new scenes, and the result is the infamous WHAT'S UP, TIGER LILY? And it is one of the most bizarre movies you're likely to see this lifetime, a film which has attained cult-movie status of the highest order.

The movie is uneven--but that is actually part of its charm. Where else can you see big-haired 60s mamas get down like psycho killers to the innocuous music of The Lovin' Spoonful? Or tacky special effects, inept hop-and-chop fighting, and ridiculously bad cinematography reworked into the story of a bunch of spies on the track of a recipe for the world's best egg salad? And some of the lines are a hoot and a half. My own favorite: "Bring plenty of dynamite. It's a big mother!" Hardcore Allen fans, who often approach him as if he were God, will probably be embarrassed by this movie. Allen himself is pretty embarrassed: he's been trying to live it down for years. But if you have a taste for the bizarre--not to mention some good, I mean REALLY good egg salad--TIGER LILY is the movie for you. Recommended to egg salad junkies, bad hop-and-chop movie watchers, and cult-film enthusiasts everywhere.

Gary F. Taylor, aka GFT, Amazon Reviewer

What's Up, Tiger Lily? was Woody Allen's directorial debut. Kind of.

Bear with me on this one, the film is basically the Toho movie Kokusai himitsu keisatsu: Kayaku no taru (Key of Keys) from 1964 with a comedy dub over it. And by comedy dub I mean totally over the top silly stuff, yet somehow someway it works.

I don't like Woody Allen, I find his movies boring and pretentious but this was an unexpected surprise and nothing like I've seen from him before (Probably because it's not technically one of his movies).

It takes a lot to get me laughing out loud especially in hysterics but What's Up, Tiger Lily? managed it several times. Sure a lot of it is really silly and makes you wonder quite what in the blue hell you're watching but when it's funny it's very very funny.

I found myself unleashing with a hearty belly laugh multiple times throughout the film and I honestly can't remember the last time a film managed that. Sure the really funny moments aren't exactly frequent but when they arrive you know about it.

If you like low brow humor, like really really low brow humor you might get a kick out of this.

The Good:

Some real belly laughs

A very novel idea

The Bad:

Stupid musical interludes

Some stuff just too silly to be funny

The "Hand" scene