The Lovin' Spoonful stuff is just weird, and not in a good way. They could have tried to work the clips into the narrative, or at least made a joke about how they didn't bother. I'd be willing to bet any amount of money that Woody never owned a single one of their albums. This used to appear on TV (usually on Sunday afternoons) a lot when I was a kid and I enjoyed it then, When it finally came out on DVD, I hafta admit I didn't even smile once. The concept is better than the execution, and it really doesn't hold up for feature length. It's a cute novelty, but I'd recommend his comedy LPs over this for anyone curious about the early years. Still, if Twilight Time ever get around to issuing it on BluRay, I'd at least consider it.
I nearly mentioned the stand up albums in contrast to "What's New Pussycat?" To me, "Tiger Lily" comes much closer to the mark of the wit of those albums than "WNP?" The character in "Tiger Lily" who has the country that's not a country yet because it's on the waiting list (they have their population stored in boxes) is as funny to me as Woody's father and his "piece of land" that he cherished so much in "Love and Death".
WUTL is essentially a great sketch waaaaay overextended to feature length. But there are enough good moments ("Mom?"; "Name 3 presidents") to keep it from being considered a failure. Someone refresh my memory -- is the "locker room" scene ("Go out there and beat SMU!") is the actual film or an outtake? I can't remember, Re WA's standup: IMHO this was his greatest achievent -- with his brilliance as a joke writer perfectly matched to the comic character he created. He mastered the standup form in a way he never did comic filmmaking. Who here has seen the sitcom pilot WA wrote, THE LAUGHMAKERS (1963)? Set in a Second Cityish improv club (Alan Alda in the supporting cast), Has a few great lines although the premise is somewhat awkwardly set up and the male lead is pretty bland.
The "half time locker room speech" is in the film (at right around the half way mark, of course). If anyone is a fan and HASN'T heard the stand up albums, you really should, they're great. I've never seen "The Laughmakers" - if it's online out there and someone has a link, please help a brother out.
I was really excited when I found out that What's Up Tiger Lily had made it to DVD with two different audio tracks, featuring many different jokes. This many years later, I can't say which one I first saw on cable back in the '80s. Having watched the film with both tracks, I am left with the feeling that whereas there are some great jokes in here, it's not at all the laugh-a-minute exercise we would soon see in Woody's upcoming comedies. There's a lot of downtime here, particularly in one of the tracks. While certainly enjoyable and recommendable, it's not a great example of what Woody could really do.
"Midnight In Paris" was the last Woody Allen movie I saw. Although I wasn't expecting much I really enjoyed it. AND, Marion Cotillard! Stunning!
Forgot I also saw "To Rome with Love". Interesting moments but lacked the charm of Midnight. Felt somewhat like a homage to Fellini.
I'm seeing Bananas in tonight at The Paramount here in Austin... It's not a "quote-a-long" though I certainly could play that game on this flick! Jeff
Yeah, 'To Rome' was done in the style of Fellini, whereas 'Stardust Memories' pretty much stole the plot of '8 1/2.' Kind of like what he did with Bergman; making 'Interiors' in his sytle and stealing the plot of 'Wild Strawberries' for 'Deconstructing Harry.' When he appropriates, he appropriates in twos: once for style and once for content.
While I always enjoy hearing perspectives on Woody, let's keep in mind the OP's very clear and direct wishes, from Post #1:
A brief intermission; In 1967 Woody was a writer on, and "appeared" in, a pilot for an animated Hanna-Barbera program: "The World: Color It Happy". The clip on YouTube has the opening and closing credits ... but no actual show! The pilot went unsold, and Woody went back to movies.
1967 - Woody appears in "Casino Royale" My mother always said if you can't say anything nice don't say anything at all, so ...
My god, slow down Ray! What's the hurry? I actually spent an excruciating 80 minutes last night watching Tiger Lily, which I haven't done in years. That's something I'd be likely to do with more of these films in the coming months, even the good ones (can't recall when I last watched Love & Death, for example). But if we'll be at Manhattan a week from Friday, I'll just lose interest. C'mon everyone else, gang up on Ray and tell him to slow the pace! Anyway, back to Tiger Lily. Like I said, I found it to be a pretty rough 80 minutes - I might prefer Pussycat (although I don't remember it that well, either). I probably had about 6 audible "HA!" moments and another 15-20 smirks/smiles, but I have a hard time envisioning this being comic gold, even way back in '66. Picking a movie that starts with so much "action", and so little dialogue seems like an inherent flaw to me. I'd think picking a film that starts smaller, where one could establish the voice/characters and really run with some absurdist dialogue would be more effective. One of my favorite bits no one has mentioned is when they're up in the tower and the woman says to our hero how handsome he is and that she wants to make violent love to him right there. So he moves in for a kiss and she pushes him away, saying something like "Why are you always thinking about sex, Phil?" Some of the manic dubbed laughter was amusing, and I also enjoyed the Mormon Tabernacle Choir joke ("but they had no motive"). The vast majority of the movie, though, had me watching the clock, wondering how soon it would end.
I'm trying to go slowly. I wasn't planning to move on from "Tiger Lily" just yet. The two "intermission" pieces were items that I thought would generate little or no discussion (especially since it's likely no here has ever SEEN "The World: Color It Happy), so I wanted to slip them in. I must say I am surprised that I stand more or less alone in the "Tiger Lily" fan club. Maybe there is just something to this style of humor that appeals to me more than others (a kind way of saying I may have the mentality of the guys who ask Alvy Singer for his autograph outside of the movies). In the same scene you mentioned, the joke about the obligatory shot of the director ("Egomaniac!") gets me every time. As does "I killed her with the pretty smoke!"
Fair point.. The "pretty smoke" line was pretty good, I admit. And I also enjoyed, right after the woman pushes "Phil" away from her (above) when she looks at a boat and says, "Wow, look at the smokestack on THAT ship!". Btw, I'll have my own "asking Alvy Singer for an autograph" story when we get up to Jade Scorpion! But not till then! NOTE: I found this article on the show that @JozefK mentioned upthread: http://splitsider.com/2012/12/a-rare-look-at-woody-allens-unaired-pilot-about-an-improv-comedy-team/ There's also at least one (dubious?) website offering a dvd of it, and other unrelated shows, for a mere $7.49, with free shipping, if anyone is feeling adventurous...
I probably like Casino Royale better than most here, WA has some very funny moments (the firing squad) which he apparently wrote himself, although IIRC he received no screen credit. Some lines are obviously WA, such as Niven's "We never should have sent him to progressive school". True, the non-WA scenes are mostly an unfunny mess, due in large part to Sellers leaving (quit? fired?) in midproduction, Niven was added to the cast and the script rewritten in hopes of salvaging the Sellers footage. Maybe someday someone will write a book about the production of CS, with all its subplots (Ben Hecht starting the script as a serious thriller, Sellers refusing to appear with Orson Welles even though they had an important scene together, etc...). Woody Allen could have shot all his scenes in a week, but ended up staying on the chaotic shoot in London for six months. This got him to thinking: what if his parents were stuck in a foreign country? That idea was ultimately the seed for his play 'Don't Drink The Water'.
The "Laughmakers" pilot sounds good. “I don’t want an otherness. I have a thisness" is about 20 years ahead of its time for the sitcom world.
Thank you for supplying all this wonderful background information. I've seen almost every Woody movie numerous times, but "Casino Royale" was a "When will this be over so I can tick the 'watched' box?" experience for me.
