What's up, Tiger Lily?

[mrbaseball]

In discussing Love and Death and thinking about Woody Allen's earlier works I couldn't help but think about this movie (his first). For those of you who don't know about it, he took some obscure Japanese action film and redubbed it in english into a comedy. A sort of spy spoof about a stolen egg salad recipe.

I haven't seen it in a while but I remember parts of it are extremely funny. I'm sort of wondering why this type of thing hasn't been tried more often? With today's technology almost anyone could do it with there home computer. One of the funniest things I ever saw was this technique on the old SCTV show in the late 70's. For the entire episode they just took an old Cisco Kid episode (very bad 50's TV show) and redubbed it into pure hilarity. I haven't seen that episode since but remember I was laughing very loudly and very often.

Another movie I liked with a unique approach was "Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid" which spliced in old film noir clips into a Steve Martin film noir comedy. I also wondered why this approach was never really expanded upon? Both seem like they would be much easier with today's technology.

Also just wondering what loungers think about these different type of approaches? Personally I like them.

[Phat Mack]

I thought Tiger Lily was hilarious when it came out, but I haven't seen it since 1969 and don't know how well it has aged. As I remember it, it was better than 90% of Allen's films. He can be quite funny when he isn't self absorbed.

There used to be a TV show called Fractured Flickers that would take old movies and invent new plots and dialog for them. It was a favorite of mine, as is this format in general. I don't know why we don't see more of it, it seems that it would be relatively inexpensive to produce.

[fyodor]

I rewatched this about a month ago. Yesterday I was watching the Good German and thought it would be a good idea to do it to that flick. I so liked the black and white video but the dialogue was just so bad I wanted it to go away.

[Blarg]

For me it got slow sometimes, but parts were hilarious.

[diebitter]

Holy Moley the last time I watched Tiger Lily was about 8 years ago at about 3 in the morning, when I was confined to the sofa after some argument with 'er indoors. It's pretty funny. I have a long train journey tomorrow, and I have it on DVD to watch, I might dig it out and watch it. Cool!


And strangely enough, me and a pal considered doing this several years' ago to a video game - Doom in fact (remember Doom?). The levels were so predictable, we figured we could right a script of the first person shooter talking to his 'controller' (comedy was the aim) as he ran around shooting these monsters. It would have been dirt cheap, but we couldn't figure out how to capture the game on a video card.

[Moneyline]

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don't know why we don't see more of it, it seems that it would be relatively inexpensive to produce.

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There was at least one company that was doing this with films in the public domain fairly recently, and I'm pretty sure they went out of business. This was a mildly hot discussion topic among fans of genre cinema at the time, and the reaction was almost entirely negative. The consensus seemed to be that watching films just to mock them is an insecure and annoying reaction. In the late '60s, I have no doubt that the approach taken in WHAT'S UP TIGER LILY was inventive and fresh. Also, it helps to have someone as talented as Woody Allen helming the production. Nowadays, the cult of irony has played out, and when this approach was attempted by people less talented than Allen, it failed.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
Holy Moley the last time I watched Tiger Lily was about 8 years ago at about 3 in the morning, when I was confined to the sofa after some argument with 'er indoors. It's pretty funny. I have a long train journey tomorrow, and I have it on DVD to watch, I might dig it out and watch it. Cool!


And strangely enough, me and a pal considered doing this several years' ago to a video game - Doom in fact (remember Doom?). The levels were so predictable, we figured we could right a script of the first person shooter talking to his 'controller' (comedy was the aim) as he ran around shooting these monsters. It would have been dirt cheap, but we couldn't figure out how to capture the game on a video card.

[/ QUOTE ]

People did that a bunch with Quake movies.

[diebitter]

Just watched it, patchy but very funny in places. I laughed especially at a guy with a Peter Lorre voice whing about his dead cobra 'you killed my snake! Where am I gonna find a long thin coffin?', and at one of the lovely Japanese girls doing stretching in a bikini and saying 'I'm a great piece!'

You had to see it.

[GrandmaStabone]

[ QUOTE ]

I haven't seen it in a while but I remember parts of it are extremely funny. I'm sort of wondering why this type of thing hasn't been tried more often?


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If you mean legally - there are a lot of copyright issues. That is why MST3K (one of my favorite shows) had a hard time on air and why a lot of the movies they did have never (and will never, in some cases) end up on video/DVD.

In many cases when a show acquires rights to the movie they are 'spoofing', it is only temporary. To keep distributing the work, the rights have to be periodically renewed. which is both expensive and a hassle..

MST3k did a lot of Sandy Frank movies, and he refuses to renew the rights due to both $$ issues and being a target of jokes on the show.

[Blarg]

I remember loving two parts especially: when the guy was looking through the keyhole at the bathing beauty while making the most unbelievably over the top masturbatory noises, on and on ... I was just howling there. And another part where he's talking to a girl and doing some weird gesturing, and the translation is, "Would you like to see my collection of obscene Italian hand gestures?", which is immediately followed by a slap. I still wonder what the heck he was talking about and supposed to be doing in the original Japanese.