Rebels Are We: The Early Genius of Woody Allen

Starting his career as a joke writer at an early age, and then perfecting his craft as a stand-up comedian through the early half of the 1960s, Woody Allen developed a personal comic style that combined social satire with religious paranoia and cultural references ranging from Freud to Pygmalion, a cross between Lenny Bruce and Dennis Miller, without the controversy or the F-bombs. Dabbling a bit in Hollywood, penning the fluffy but successful What's New, Pussycat? and appearing in the strange pseudo-James Bond experiment Casino Royale, Woody had gained enough clout and experience to go behind the camera, almost in a defensive response to the way his screenplays were being mishandled by directors and editors. An avid observer of both people and film, Allen saved all of his best material for just that moment.

What's Up, Tiger Lily? (1966)
One of the first truly independent films ever made, the concept of the picture might be more clever than its actual content. The producers bought a low-budget Japanese 007 knockoff and Woody and some other actors and comedians dubbed a newer, funnier soundtrack. Later made popular by cult favorite Mystery Science Theater 3000, the completely license-less realm of possibilities stimulated Woody into giving the voiceover work his own brand of joke-kernel humor. The film achieved a bit of a cult status and put Woody on the funny map, even though it had its hits and misses, humor-wise. The film might be remembered more now for the film's closing scene of Woody with a Japanese stripper (shades of Soon-Yi) than it is for the conjured egg salad plot.

Most notable about Tiger Lily is that it begins Allen's obsession with the fine line between fantasy and reality. At some points, the dubbed storyline and dialogue seem more believable than what the actual source text may have sounded like. It also marks the beginning of Woody's desire to break in and out of the fourth wall, to have real people invade filmed events, and filmed people invade reality.