''What's Up, Tiger Lily?'' is a 1966 American

comedy film The comedy film is a film genre that emphasizes humor. These films are designed to amuse audiences and make them laugh. Films in this genre typically have a happy ending, with dark comedy being an exception to this rule. Comedy is one of the o ...

directed by

Woody Allen Heywood Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American filmmaker, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades. Allen has received many List of awards and nominations received by Woody Allen, accolade ...

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. 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 The ''James Bond'' franchise focuses on James Bond (literary character), the titular character, a fictional Secret Intelligence Service, British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels ...

clone into a comedy about the search for the world's best

egg salad Egg salad is a dish consisting of chopped hard-boiled or scrambled eggs, mustard, and mayonnaise, and vegetables often including other ingredients such as celery. It is made mixed with seasonings in the form of herbs, spices and other ingredi ...

recipe. 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, and musical numbers by the band

the Lovin' Spoonful The Lovin' Spoonful is a Canadian-American folk-rock band formed in Greenwich Village, New York City, in 1964. The band were among the most popular groups in the United States for a short period in the mid-1960s and their music and image influ ...

. The band released a

soundtrack album A soundtrack album is any album that incorporates music directly recorded from the soundtrack of a particular feature film or television show. The first such album to be commercially released was Walt Disney's ''Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs ( ...

Louise Lasser Louise Lasser (born April 11, 1939) is an American actress, television writer, and performing arts teacher and director. She is known for her portrayal of the title character on the soap opera satire '' Mary Hartman, Mary Hartman'', for which sh ...

, who was married to Allen at the time, served as one of the voice actors for the "new" dialogue soundtrack, as did

Mickey Rose Michael "Mickey" Rose (May 20, 1935 – April 7, 2013) was an American comedy writer and screenwriter. Life and career Rose was born in Bedford–Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, and spent his childhood there and in Crown Heights in the same borough of New ...

, Allen's writing partner on ''

Take the Money and Run Take the Money and Run may refer to: Songs * "Take the Money and Run" (Bunny Walters song), 1972 * "Take the Money and Run", by Crosby & Nash from ''Wind on the Water'', 1975 * "Take the Money and Run" (Steve Miller Band song), 1976 * "Take the M ...

'' (1969) and ''

Bananas A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – berry (botany), botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large treelike herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa (genus), Musa''. In some countries, cooking bananas are called pla ...

'' (1971). In 2003, Image released the film on DVD, with both the theatrical and television (called "alternate") soundtracks.

Plot

The plot provides the setup for a string of sight gags,

pun A pun, also known as a paronomasia in the context of linguistics, is a form of word play that exploits multiple meanings of a term, or of similar-sounding words, for an intended humorous or rhetorical effect. These ambiguities can arise from t ...

s, jokes based on Asian

stereotype In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalization, generalized belief about a particular category of people. It is an expectation that people might have about every person of a particular group. The type of expectation can vary; it can ...

s, and general

farce Farce is a comedy that seeks to entertain an audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, ridiculous, absurd, and improbable. Farce is also characterized by heavy use of physical comedy, physical humor; the use of delibe ...

. 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 China Lee (born Margaret Lee; September 2, 1942) is an American model and actress. She was '' Playboy's'' Playmate of the Month for the August 1964 issue and the first Asian American Playmate. Her centerfold was photographed by Pompeo Posar. A ...

, a ''Playboy'' Playmate and wife of Allen's comic idol

Mort Sahl Morton Lyon Sahl (May 11, 1927 – October 26, 2021) was a Canadian-born American comedian, actor, and social Satire, satirist, considered the first modern comedian. He pioneered a style of social satire that pokes fun at political and current e ...

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.

Cast

Both female leads appeared the following year as legitimate Bond girls in the Japan-based '' You Only Live Twice''.

Soundtrack album

The soundtrack album to ''What's Up, Tiger Lily?'' was released in August1966. It contains music by

. 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 ''You're a Big Boy Now'' is a 1966 American comedy film written and directed by Francis Ford Coppola. Based on David Benedictus' 1963 novel of the same name, it stars Elizabeth Hartman, Peter Kastner, Geraldine Page, her spouse Rip Torn, Kar ...

'', the Spoonful's soundtrack for the 1966 film by

Francis Ford Coppola Francis Ford Coppola ( ; born April 7, 1939) is an American filmmaker. He is considered one of the leading figures of the New Hollywood and one of the greatest filmmakers of all time. List of awards and nominations received by Francis Ford Coppo ...

. It reached No. 126 on the

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertis ...

Pop Albums charts.

Track listing

All tracks written by

John Sebastian John Benson Sebastian (born March 17, 1944) is an American singer, songwriter and musician who founded the rock band the Lovin' Spoonful in 1964 with Zal Yanovsky. During his time in the Lovin Spoonful, Sebastian wrote and sang some of the ban ...

Joe Butler Joseph Campbell Butler (born September 16, 1941) is an American drummer, singer and actor. He is best known as a member of folk-rock band the Lovin' Spoonful, where he was their drummer and later lead vocalist, the group had seven top 10 hits ...

Steve Boone John Stephen Boone (born September 23, 1943) is an American bass guitarist and music producer, best known as a member of the American folk-rock group the Lovin' Spoonful. Boone co-wrote two of the groups' biggest hits, " You Didn't Have to Be So ...

and

Zal Yanovsky Zalman Yanovsky (December 19, 1944 – December 13, 2002) was a Canadian folk-rock musician and restaurateur. Born in Toronto, he was the son of political cartoonist Avrom Yanovsky and teacher Nechama Yanovsky (née Gemeril), who died in 1958. ...

, except where noted. Side one # "Introduction to Flick" (

, Lenny Maxwell) – 2:03 # "Pow (Theme From 'What's Up, Tiger Lily?')" (Sebastian, Butler, Boone, Skip Boone, Yanovsky) – 2:28 # "Gray Prison Blues" – 2:15 # "Pow Revisited" (Sebastian, Butler, Boone, Yanovsky, Skip Boone) – 2:30 # "Unconscious Minuet" – 2:05 # "Fishin' Blues" (trad., arrangement by Sebastian) – 1:58 Side two # "Respoken" (Sebastian) – 1:48 # "Cool Million" – 2:20 # "Speakin' of Spoken" (Sebastian) – 2:40 # "Lookin' to Spy" – 2:30 # "Phil's Love Theme" – 2:15 # "End Title" – 4:05

Reception

The reviews were mixed upon the film's release. Expressing disappointment in the movie, ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' stated that "the peppery English sound track wears thin as the action churns around in absolute chaos." ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' wrote, "The production has one premise – deliberately mismatched dialog – which is sustained reasonably well through its brief running time." Aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

reports 81% approval of the film from 26 reviews, with an average rating of 6.9/10. The film is considered Woody Allen's directorial debut, although Allen distanced himself from it in a 2020 interview. 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.

References

External links

* *
DVD review and film's production history
{{Authority control 1966 films American International Pictures films American parody films American spy comedy films American collage films Films directed by Woody Allen Films with screenplays by Woody Allen Self-reflexive films 1960s spy comedy films 1960s parody films 1966 directorial debut films 1966 comedy films Japan in non-Japanese culture Alternative versions of films 1960s English-language films 1960s American films