Then From the time it began broadcasting twenty-four hours a day, ITV has had a habit of hiding in the middle of the night the more interesting cinema that is packaged with the blockbusters they acquire for Christmas. The Deerhunter is receiving this treatment on Saturday – though that’s so long with adverts it’s beginning before midnight. But can there be many people who’ll stay up for the duration, drifting to bed at 3 am? It’s under these circumstances I first watched What’s Up Tiger Lily? in the late 80s, just before we bought our first video recorder. Needless to say I don’t remember too much about it. In fact I think I might have slept for an hour in the middle.
Now What these days would be uploaded to YouTube ready to be embedded virally on a thousand blogs was in 1962 a major studio release heralded with an article in Playboy. Allen and friends edit together sections of two Japanese films and overdub them with their own voices (see also On The Waterfront’s The Flashing Blade).
To an extent it's a project of it's time. You couldn't imagine Jack Black trying something similar with a Takeshi Kitano film without some implication of racism or cultural tourism. But aren't those many thousands of Downfall videos doing much the same thing albeit replacing the subtitles rather than the words? Has anyone asked the original producers of the film what they thought of Woody's version?
Retrospective history has it that The Lovin’ Spoonful’s contribution (filmed some time later) was hacked into the film by the producers without Woody’s permission – he would go to court to try and stop the film's release but eventually dropped the action when he realised it was pointless and simply spent the rest of his career saying nasty things about it instead.
The inclusion of the songs makes about as much sense as the soft porn gratuitously chopped into Tinto Brass’s Caligula (Brass disowned his film too). I wonder if fans of the band might consider this their equivalent of A Hard Days Night or Help! It's mentioned in the biography on their official website. The Spoonful were a great band. I'm just not sure this was the best venue for their talents, pitching up as though they're in a surf film.
The film drags terribly in places, particularly when the plot is needlessly asserting itself. I didn't laugh often. When I did laugh it was usually when the director was either on screen ("Death is my - death and danger are my various breads and various butters") or making direct interventions and playing up the incongruities of the venture, the dialogue directly commenting on the naffness of the on-screen action ("Don't tell me what I can do, or I'll have my mustache eat your beard.").
The funniest moment, at least for me, especially considering this project and the one that came before it, happens in an observation tower in Yokohama Harbour Phil (as the dubbed Japanese protagonist is, well, dubbed) says “This is the obligatory scene. The director always has to walk through with his wife”, just as a Hitchcock lookalike shuffles past.
Ludicrously the film was dubbed over again for the international market. Here's the trailer in German. Have they translated Woody's jokes or made up some of their own? Answers welcome.
No comments:
Post a Comment