A Glimpse of Tiger

In the late 1960s, 19-year-old Janice McAllister runs away from her home in Indianapolis after an argument with her parents about her future and comes to New York City, where she is taken in by Luther, a playful con artist and bohemian.

As the story progresses, it becomes apparent that Luther is the beneficiary of an enormous trust fund set up by his wealthy parents, and that his lifestyle is a result of boredom rather than necessity.

Luther's segments take the form of letters, journal entries, and even direct addresses to the reader, as he documents his attempts to win back Tiger's affections.

Tiger becomes a secretary at a law firm, where she befriends several of her coworkers and is briefly promoted to the personal assistant of a prominent attorney, who demotes her after she rebuffs his sexual advances.

In his first-person accounts, Luther indicates that the two pornographers have moved out of his apartment and that his electricity has been shut off, and he begins to obsess over his sudden tendency to wet the bed.

After refusing the manager's request to leave, Luther sparks a small riot after he begins rapidly switching personas and starts throwing patrons' food at them.

Luther later wonders why he didn't simply leave the restaurant after being found out by the manager, per his grifter's code of always escaping a bad situation when caught.

In his final address to the reader, Luther's narration deteriorates into incoherent rambling, rants against Christianity, and an anecdote about once breaking his nose on New Year's Eve.

[2]A source close to the film later said in 1984: Whether it was from drugs, or the influence of the young woman now his wife [Jennifer Bogart, 15 years his junior, whom Gould has married twice, in 1974 and 1978], or his friend Keith Carradine, who was always around, Elliott went crazy.

[2]Producer Paul Heller, a Warner Bros. executive on the set later said: It was a shame—a delicious screenplay, perfect for Elliott, and it would've established him for years to come.

[2]It has been claimed that Warner Bros. reworked the idea into the film What's Up, Doc?, changing the lead from a male to a female and casting Barbra Streisand (Gould's ex-wife) and Ryan O'Neal.

The film's director Peter Bogdanovich has minimized this, saying, "The only thing we took from A Glimpse of Tiger—and I don’t remember it very well—was the idea that the leading character had been to a lot of different colleges.

[4] In a 2014 oral history of A Glimpse of Tiger on Hidden Films,[5] Gould explained that his main issues were with Anthony Harvey's "directing before I even show up," for instance, making decisions about his and Kim Darby's costumes without his consent.

Several sources interviewed said that, in addition to Gould, then-couple David Carradine and Barbara Hershey, who were also briefly on set, were disruptive to the production and combative with Harvey.