What's Up Tiger Lily?

I don't think anyone is out there making the case for this as a classic and it is easy to see why. The concept: take a Japanese pulp film, add wisecracking dialogue and a few postmodern twists, and display to an audience. The ace in the hole: Woody Allen running the project. The idea: quite funny as an idea and original at the time (but done to death now 44 years on).

Perhaps he hoped he would make a fusion of Dragnet and His Girl Friday to keep an audience chuckling. This was not the outcome. Woody Allen was a deservedly very successful stand-up when he assembled this first feature (basically an editing job). The film starts well, with 10 minutes of action packed schlock not a million miles from Tarantino's output in a strange way.

This is then interrupted with a very funny skit where Allen explains the enterprise and absurdly claims Gone With The Wind as a precursor. By this point I was laughing out loud at Allen's wit (including flashes of the crazed humour that punctuated his earlier, knock-about films).

The film then does what Allen claimed, welding gags to footage. Only the gags don't really work or seem tired now and the 60s sensibilities intrude somewhat obtrusively. By the time Allen pops up in person (or rather silhouettes) again to suggest he has stepped in front of the projector with an amorous usherette the film is beyond redemption and I was fighting sleep.

Its jokes have influenced other comedians, that is undeniable, but with so much water under the bridge a film that wasn't even particularly special in it's heyday looks even drabber now. If you want to laugh out loud try Bananas or Take the Money and Run instead/