What's Up Tiger Lilly?

I can’t remember who told me about it, but someone somewhere in a smoky beer smelling haze many grad parties ago, recommended that I watch “What’s Up Tiger Lilly?” since I am a fan of Woody Allen. This silly film happens to be Woody’s first. Basically, he dubs his own dialogue and story line over a bad Japanese spy thriller. There’s an interview in the beginning where some guy interviews Woody and they add intellectual pauses between sentences that go on for far too long. At one point, he describes the film as turning a “bunch of people running around raping and killing each other” into something less offensive. And that it is. He turns it into a search for the perfect egg salad recipe. The dialogue also helps to lighten the mood: for instance, “this special camera takes your picture without your clothes on. If you don’t back away, I will peddle it in every schoolyard, and children will laugh at your chubby thighs.” While Woody Allen’s dialogue and the splicing of a white, flower-child band into the shots of Japanese dance clubs are entertaining, the film is mostly a testament to Woody Allen’s eye for the ridiculous. Without the dubbing, the movie would still be funny, just for the awkwardness of the actors, the dressing up of the villain’s right hand henchman in African garb, and an intricate plot involving so many infrequent characters that the actors themselves begin to appear confused. Really, even without any Woody Allen antics, I would thoroughly enjoy watching this film. If you want to understand what this film is like, imagine a not-so-subtle James Bond movie. That’s right, it accomplishes the impossible by making 007 films look like adaptations of Henry James novels. The opening shot doesn’t consist of silhouettes of naked dancers, but actual nude girls. In keeping with the spirit of bowdlerization, however, Woody Allen is gentlemanly enough to personally perform the equivalent function of a black box by stretching his own suggestively shaped caricature across the bared bosoms.