comedy film
A comedy film is a category of film which emphasizes humor. These films are designed to make the audience laugh through amusement. Films in this style traditionally have a happy ending ( black comedy being an exception). Comedy is one of the o ...
directed by
Woody Allen
Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...
in his feature-length directorial debut.
Allen took 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. By putting in new scenes and rearranging the order of existing scenes, he completely changed the tone of the film from a
James Bond
The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors hav ...
clone into a comedy about the search for the world's best
egg salad
Egg salad is a dish made primarily of chopped hard-boiled or scrambled eggs, mustard, and mayonnaise, often including other ingredients such as celery.
It is made mixed with seasonings in the form of herbs, spices and other ingredients, bound ...
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 an American rock band popular during the mid- to late-1960s. Founded in New York City in 1965 by lead singer/songwriter John Sebastian and guitarist Zal Yanovsky, the band is widely known for a number of hits, including ...
. 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 Marie 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.'' She was ...
, who was married to Allen at the time, served as one of the voice actors for the "new" dialogue soundtrack, as did Mickey Rose, Allen's writing partner on ''
Take the Money and Run
''Take the Money and Run'' is a 1969 American mockumentary comedy film directed by Woody Allen. Allen co-wrote the screenplay with Mickey Rose and stars alongside Janet Margolin. The film chronicles the life of Virgil Starkwell, an inept bank ...
'' (1969) and ''
Bananas
A banana is an elongated, edible fruit – botanically a berry – produced by several kinds of large herbaceous flowering plants in the genus ''Musa''. In some countries, bananas used for cooking may be called "plantains", distinguis ...
'' (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 paronomasia, 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 the intentional use of homophoni ...
s, jokes based on Asian
stereotype
In social psychology, a stereotype is a 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 be, for exampl ...
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 humor; the use of deliberate absurdity o ...
. 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. Ac ...
Mort Sahl
Morton Lyon Sahl (May 11, 1927 – October 26, 2021) was a Canadian-born American comedian, actor, and social satirist, considered the first modern comedian. Sahl pioneered a style of social satire that pokes fun at political and current event t ...
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
Soundtrack album
The soundtrack album to ''What's Up, Tiger Lily?'' was released in 1966. It contains music by
the Lovin' Spoonful
The Lovin' Spoonful is an American rock band popular during the mid- to late-1960s. Founded in New York City in 1965 by lead singer/songwriter John Sebastian and guitarist Zal Yanovsky, the band is widely known for a number of hits, including ...
. 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, Rip Torn, Karen Black, ...
Francis Ford Coppola
Francis Ford Coppola (; ; born April 7, 1939) is an American film director, producer, and screenwriter. He is considered one of the major figures of the New Hollywood filmmaking movement of the 1960s and 1970s. Coppola is the recipient of five ...
. 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 adverti ...
Pop Albums charts.
Track listing
All tracks written by
John Sebastian
John Benson Sebastian (born March 17, 1944) is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist and harmonicist who founded the rock band The Lovin' Spoonful. He made an impromptu appearance at the Woodstock festival in 1969Joe Butler, Steve Boone and
Zal Yanovsky
Zalman Yanovsky (December 19, 1944 – December 13, 2002) was a Canadian folk-rock musician. Born in Toronto, he was the son of political cartoonist Avrom Yanovsky and teacher Nechama Yanovsky (née Gemeril), who died in 1958. He played lead guit ...
, except where noted.
Side one
# "Introduction to Flick" (
Woody Allen
Heywood "Woody" Allen (born Allan Stewart Konigsberg; November 30, 1935) is an American film director, writer, actor, and comedian whose career spans more than six decades and multiple Academy Award-winning films. He began his career writing ...
The reviews were mixed upon the film's release. Expressing disappointment in the movie, ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'' 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-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, and Stephen Wan ...
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
This is a list of American films released in 1966.
'' A Man for All Seasons'' won the Academy Award for Best Picture.
A–B
C–H
I–R
S–Z
See also
* 1966 in the United States
References
External links
1966 filmsat the Internet ...