A young Woody Allen's directorial debut, What's Up, Tiger Lily? is certainly a unique experience: Allen found a terrible Japanese con movie, removed the entire soundtrack and all the dialogue, and replaced it with his own. The new premise: three different people are on a very dangerous search mission to own a top-secret egg salad recipe. Hilarity ensues.
What makes the movie work so well is that the source material (the Japanese film sans soundtrack) is awful. At one point, the movie stops and a man asks Allen if he can explain what's going on because it's a little hard to awful. That's an understatement. There are so many characters who have absolutely no discernible purpose in the film. One man at one point throws what looks like an oxygen tank full of pink smoke down a boat hatch. It makes even less sense as you're watching the film. There's also a guest appearance by The Lovin' Spoonful. I'll have to get back to you on that, too.
P.S. The real premise of the movie seems to be the retrieval of some sort of secret code. Maybe. This is also open to discussion and I will hear all sides.
The actual film, the Allen film, is a bit like MST3K, but with the jokes built in. There are parts that had me rolling ("20...30...40..." "Are you going to go through the entire alphabet"?) but some are very hollow and don't ring like they've held up well. A quick glance at IMDb tells me that there may be more than one version of the film, perhaps an older version that was funnier, and a newer DVD version with some obvious changes that isn't quite as good. I couldn't tell you which one I watched, but it certainly was absurd.
This is not one I believe I'd ever watch again (especially since there's a good 35+ other Allen movies I'd like to get to), but at least it was, for the most part, enjoyable.
Score: 7/10
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