What's Up, Tiger Lily? is a 1966 American comedy film directed by Woody Allen 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 clone into a comedy about the search for the world's best egg salad 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,

| venue =

| studio = National, New York City

| genre =

  • Folk rock
  • instrumental rock

| length =

| label = Kama Sutra

| producer = Jack Lewis

| prev_title = What's Shakin'

| prev_year = 1966

| next_title = Hums of the Lovin' Spoonful

| next_year = 1966

The soundtrack album to What's Up, Tiger Lily? was released in August1966. It contains music by the Lovin' Spoonful. 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, the Spoonful's soundtrack for the 1966 film by Francis Ford Coppola. It reached No. 126 on the Billboard Pop Albums charts.

Track listing

All tracks written by John Sebastian, Joe Butler, Steve Boone and Zal Yanovsky, except where noted.

Side one

  1. "Introduction to Flick" (Woody Allen, Lenny Maxwell) – 2:03
  2. "Pow (Theme From 'What's Up, Tiger Lily?')" (Sebastian, Butler, Boone, Skip Boone, Yanovsky) – 2:28
  3. "Gray Prison Blues" – 2:15
  4. "Pow Revisited" (Sebastian, Butler, Boone, Yanovsky, Skip Boone) – 2:30
  5. "Unconscious Minuet" – 2:05
  6. "Fishin' Blues" (trad., arrangement by Sebastian) – 1:58

Side two

  1. "Respoken" (Sebastian) – 1:48
  2. "Cool Million" – 2:20
  3. "Speakin' of Spoken" (Sebastian) – 2:40
  4. "Lookin' to Spy" – 2:30
  5. "Phil's Love Theme" – 2:15
  6. "End Title" – 4:05

Reception

The reviews were mixed upon the film's release. Expressing disappointment in the movie, The New York Times stated that "the peppery English sound track wears thin as the action churns around in absolute chaos." Variety wrote, "The production has one premise – deliberately mismatched dialog – which is sustained reasonably well through its brief running time."

Aggregator Rotten Tomatoes 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.

See also

  • List of American films of 1966
  • Mad Movies with the L.A. Connection
  • Kung Pow! Enter the Fist
  • Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid

References

  • DVD review and film's production history