User reviews

'Get to Know Your Rabbit' is far from a great movie, but it's a quirky film that tells an unusual story in an original way. Best of all, there's a very sexy performance by Katharine Ross, plus good performances by Orson Welles and several other cast members. I'm surprised that this hasn't become a cult movie. (One of the cast members is Allen Garfield: there seems to be an unwritten commandment that every movie with Allen Garfield in the cast must develop a cult following.)

Rising young executive Donald Beeman (Tommy Smothers) abruptly decides that high wages and corporate prestige are not what he really wants, so he quits his job with high-powered boss Turnbull (the brilliant John Astin) and sets forth in a new career as a tap-dancing magician, mentored by the mysterious Dell'assandro (Orson Welles, giving one of the best performances of his career as a dodgy parlour-tricks conjuror: a role which is clearly dear to Welles's heart). Dell'assandro tutors Beeman in the rules of magic: the title of this movie is one of his trade secrets.

There aren't a lot of job opportunities for tap-dancing magicians, so Donald performs his act in seedy little nightclubs and juke joints all over the country. The production quality is slipshod all through this film: throughout the movie, Donald is supposed to be performing in many different venues, but it's obvious that all of these sequences were filmed on the same set. The idea of someone tap-dancing and performing magic tricks both at once is very funny, but this film drops the gag. In one sequence, we see Dell'assandro (played in this shot by Welles's body double, with his back to the camera) tutoring a roomful of students in the dual art of conjuring and tap-dancing simultaneously ... this would have been very funny if Welles's double and the others were actually tap-dancing: instead, they're just clomping up and down in crude unison while they do some very simple tricks with handkerchiefs and rings.

While Donald takes his act on the road, he meets a gorgeous young woman who takes a romantic interest in him, and vice versa. She is played by Katharine Ross, who is meltingly beautiful here ... and wearing one of the sexiest outfits I've ever seen on any woman, anywhere, in any film. The only flaw in her outfit is a ridiculous pair of floral-print hot pants: she'd look a lot sexier if she got rid of those hot pants. (Phworr!) Ross gives a good performance but her role is badly and thinly written. Her character doesn't seem to be a person in her own right: she only seems to exist to fulfil Donald's romantic fantasies of having a girlfriend. The fact that Ross's character has no name (she's listed in the credits as 'the terrific-looking girl') only emphasises the skimpiness of her character.

John Astin gives a brilliant performance, hilarious and yet touching, as Donald's boss whose business fails after Donald's departure, and who attempts to start his executive career all over again with only a desk and a paper clip. The scene in which Astin explains the significance of a paper clip to Tommy Smothers is truly a splendid piece of acting, with Astin balancing comedy and pathos remarkably. When I met John Astin (at the dedication ceremony of the Lucille Lortel Theatre, in New York City) he told me that this was one of his favourite roles.

There are good performances by George Ives (whom I fondly recall from the 'Mister Roberts' TV series) and King Moody in small roles, and a splendidly deadpan performance by Bob Einstein (the under-rated brother of the over-rated Albert Brooks). There's also a very fine performance by veteran character actor Charles Lane as Smothers's father. Lane gave small but gem-like performances in a huge number of important films (the opening shot in 'Mr Smith Goes to Washington' is a close-up of Charles Lane ... and that one shot is Lane's entire part in the film) but he gives one of his best performances here. Unfortunately, Tommy Smothers is only barely competent as the story's central character. Smothers was never one of my favourite comedians, yet I recognise his considerable skill as a comedian and a musician. But he's no actor, and the casting of Smothers in the lead role seriously compromises this movie.

I usually dislike Brian De Palma's movies, due to his penchant of 'borrowing' images and devices from much more talented directors. 'Get to Know Your Rabbit' is one of De Palma's more original efforts, and so it's one of his better films. (I've heard an unconfirmed rumour that De Palma directed less than half of this film.) There's one pretentious camera angle early in the movie, pointing straight down from the ceiling of Donald Beeman's flat, to show Tommy Smothers as a prisoner in a labyrinth ... but it raises a laugh and it's valid to the character on screen.

Katharine Ross is incredibly sexy in this movie, but she has almost nothing to do except stand there and look sexy. I'll rate 'Get to Know Your Rabbit' 4 points out of 10.

Business executive Donald Beeman (Tom Smothers) is tired of his job and quits. The bombing doesn't help. His boss Mr. Turnbull (John Astin) is desperate to get him back. Instead, he's more taken with being a magician. He learns from Mr. Delasandro (Orson Welles) to become a Tap Dancing Magician.

Brian De Palma is not known for comedies. It's four years before Carrie when he can put comedies behind him. This is more quirky than actually funny. It's a lowkey satire. Katharine Ross hits it over the head with a sledgehammer in her MPDG performance. It's strange that Tom Smothers becomes more the straight man. The plot is rambling. The story takes some weird turns. It would be fine but I'm getting lost. The jokes are scattered and weakly constructed. I have to put all that on De Palma. It's not his genre.

One of Brian De Palma's least-known films - also one of his least-successful. The premise is actually relateable and plausible in its absurdity (corporate executive quits his job to pursue his dream of becoming a tap-dancing magician!), but the film does very little with it. It's also hopelessly unfunny. Occasional use of split-screen is just about the only indication of De Palma's later virtuosity. Orson Welles is at least enjoying himself performing magic tricks, while Katharine Ross is indeed "a terrific-looking girl". *1/2 out of 4.

Get to Know Your Rabbit remains to this day one of the hardest of Brian De Palma's films to track down on video (it was released in the 80s, never on DVD), but it may be understandable as to why. It has no real "name" stars save for Orson Welles and maybe Katharine Ross (Tom Smothers is a Smothers brother, so there's that, but they're not well known today), and it hasn't really found an audience for itself as a cult film like Hi, Mom or Phantom of Paradise (arguably still De Palma's best satires). It's an oddity of a find, and not just because of its title or cover art. This movie is just a big bag of weird, but there's enough that makes it work, and enough that's funny, to say that it's worth trying to find if you are one of those movie geeks that likes to track down every work, minor or otherwise, a particular director has made.

It's about, in the simplest of terms (as if in a pitch) a businessman played by Smothers decides to leave his mundane job to become a magician- and not just that, but a tap-dancing magician tutored by the great Delasandro. He breaks up with his kind of bi-polar girlfriend and gets his magician "license", traveling on the road - but then an old boss at his old job is broke and in trouble, and then gets to idea to market him... with insane results. Everything with Orson Welles is golden, pure awesome, and there's some really inspired camera tricks even for De Palma (of course we get split-screen but there's other stuff as well that will surprise you). But what works for the movie best is also it's biggest 'what-the-hell' factor: the script. This is such an original piece of work that one can see why De Palma, working from the material or creating and building on it more, got fired towards the end of production: one cannot imagine a studio like Warner Brothers bankrolled or OK'd what this movie is, which is an insane and kind of jolly satire on magicians and corporate interests.

But, for all its faults (and some of it is just the mind-boggling kind), it's very entertaining, maybe more than it has any right to be. It's not a "holy-grail" lost gem, and at the same time you wont hopefully feel too cheated if you already like De Palma's warped sense of humor, especially in his pre-Carrie days.

Another film in my project to watch everything Orson Welles appeared in.

This film sees Tommy Smothers play a character who quits his job to become a magician. I see no particular reason for a Brian de Palma fan to watch this. It felt flat and dull most of the time. Orson hams it up this time, playing a magician who mentors Tommy for about five minutes. Its a cool scene, and has a resonance with Orson's life considering he was a life-long practicing magician.

The film had good comic potential, but Tommy is clearly not a good leading man or actor. He was hilarious on the Smothers Brothers show, but was just not up to the task here. And it felt like de Palma was asleep at the wheel. Not dreadful, just dull, which actually is worse. Dreadful movies are quite fun to watch, dull ones are torture. In summary, don't spend a fortune finding this one.

Tom Smothers of 'The Smother's Brothers Fame' plays high flying executive & magician Donald Beeman, who is destined for fame as Beeman the Marvelous. Trained in magic by the odd Mr. Delasandro(Orson Welles) and issued his own rabbit, Donald finds fulfilment and a special admirer (Katherine Ross of Butch Cassidy & the Sundance kid fame )while wowing locals at strip clubs. There are lots of shades of early Brian De Palma in this one, clever use of overhead shots which Martin Scorsese would use to great effect at the climax of 'Taxi Driver' & also clever use of SPlit screen which De Palma uses to better effect in his later pictures.

This is one of DePalma's least-known films and deservedly so. An unfocused, unfunny, would-be satire starring a smug, dimensionless Tommy Smothers who quickly becomes tiresome, and like Will Ferrell in Stranger Than Fiction(2006) you may just want to slap him. The film shows DePalma merely marking time and wasting ours. Visually the film is monotonous and DePalma's earlier films Greetings(68) and Hi,Mom!(70)are more inventive, anarchic and free wheeling. Even appearances by Katherine Ross and Orson Welles do nothing to liven things up. You may not get to know your rabbit, but you may get to know your tolerance for films that aren't nearly as clever as they think they are. DePalma has done better:Sisters(73),Carrie(76),Casualties of War(89).

Director Brian De Palma's first film for a major studio (Warner Bros.), who ultimately dismissed De Palma from the project and kept him out of the editing process. It is surely an effort he'd like to erase from his resume--and his eclectic cast of character actors might want to follow suit. A business executive ditches his high-paying but life-depriving job to study at a school for tap-dancing magicians; after graduating, he takes his act on the road. Absurdist, episodic comedy leaves a lot of talented people looking helpless on-screen, although Orson Welles, sending himself up, appears blithely indifferent to the deadpan lunacy. Allen Garfield is once again an inscrutable nut, this time as a salesman who knows all there is about brassieres. In the lead, Tom Smothers has an open face and an affable, low-key manner that is appealing, but he's been stripped of a personality; his goofy grin and incredulous wide eyes eventually grow tiresome without something going on underneath. As his love-interest, Katharine Ross has it even worse. John A. Alonzo's handsome cinematography includes a snazzy overhead tracking shot at the beginning that shows off De Palma's flair. Unfortunately, the 'story' from screenwriter Jordan Crittenden, designed (I presume) to be a head-scratcher, is a chore: unfunny and uninvolving. * from ****

Ironically, Brian De Palma's GET TO KNOW YOUR RABBIT... an anti-corporate, counter-culture comedy... is a lot like the previous decade's I'LL NEVER FORGET WHAT'S'ISNAME, and both feature Orson Welles, first as a boss who doesn't want to lose his top young employee and here a magic instructor that this film's star, Tom Smothers of Smothers Brothers fame, takes lessons from after quitting his job as executive John Astin's problem-solving underling...

Welles has a total of ten-minutes screen-time, and upon graduation asks Smothers' Donald Beeman if he had been like a father to him, wherein Tommy's expression... the signature dimwitted naiveté more of an irked, stonewall glib... shakes his head, "No" which is one of several problems since this offbeat character, played by an offbeat comic actor on his own, doesn't seem game for this particularly strange and completely random road comedy...

Replete with episodic beyond plot-driven scenarios, especially from Smothers (turned into a sex symbol here) bedding various hot girlfriends, from moody nymph Susanne Zenor to perfect magician's assistant Katharine Ross... and yet no matter who or what passes through... from quirky character-actors Allen Garfield to M. Emmett Walsh but mostly the corporate-comeback-seeking Astin... RABBIT gets weirder for the sake of not being typical...

Which it's obviously fighting against as director De Palma was still in 1960's hippie-dropout GREETINGS to HI, MOM mode before resurrecting Hitchcock-horror beginning with SISTERS the next year... plus there's a relaxing quality to Smothers, a pretty good pawn if lazy leading man, going from location to location... but since everything's so extremely surreal, it all winds up feeling rather ordinary and mundane somehow.

Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Donald Beeman (Tom Smothers) is a successful businessman who decides to give up his great career and try to become a tap-dancing magician. His girlfriend (Katharine Ross) thinks he's crazy but Beeman has high hopes after meeting Mr. Delasandro (Orson Welles).

Brian De Palma made some pretty weird comedies early in his career before going for the darker thrillers. Stuff like THE WEDDING PARTY, GREETINGS and HI MOM! aren't your typical comedies but all of them seem like the most normal movies ever made when compared to GET TO KNOW YOUR RABBIT. Comedy is certainly a very subjective thing and I must say that I only laughed a couple times with this film.

I can honestly say that the film made very little sense to me. Or, should I say, I'm really not sure what the point of the movie was as it really didn't seem like a comedy at all. I'm going to guess some are going to support it due to it featuring Smothers and while he actually gives a good performance here there's still very little that he can do when the material itself is just so poor. There are a couple times that I laughed in the movie but the majority of the running time just doesn't have any humor.

Not only did the film not make me laugh but it honestly had this weird vibe about it and it really came across as a film that they didn't even try to make funny. The supporting cast helps keep the film moving and this includes John Astin and Ross. The scene stealer is of course Welles who turns in a good and fun performance in his small bit.

Tom Smothers quits his job as an executive under John Astin to become a tap-dancing magician under the tutelage of Orson Welles.

This absurdist comedy looks like a vanity project. It is expertly directed by Brian De Palma, and there are some very good performances in it. Astin goes to pieces, until he becomes Smothers' manager and is a fine example of peribathos. Welles is hilarious playing his role absolutely straight. Katherine Ross is the girl with whom Smothers fall in love with while on the role, is beautiful and bubbly. Yet the movie hammers so hard at its anti-Establishment themes, that it seems to go on forever.

De Palma is reported to have had a bad time directing it. Warner Brothers fired him, and he did not work with the studio again until THE BONFIRE OF THE VANITIES. Whoops.

Based on the first fifteen minutes of this film I would say that comedy dodged a veritable heat seeking missile when DePalma decided to work exclusively in the horror genre.

That's really all I have to say but IMDB has this idiotic new 600 character minimum rule so I'm gonna do a verbal tap dance and just add that there is nothing particularly funny about a piano tuner who comes to the wrong address and is then asked to serve breakfast to the owner even if the owner is Tom Smothers. I mean I guess I could lay the blame on scenarist Jordan Crittenden for writing such mirthless crap but DePalma presumably gazed upon Crittenden's screenplay and pronounced it risible so he has to shoulder a lot of the blame. Can I stop now, IMDB minders?

A guilty -- but perhaps not all that guilty -- pleasure. A small comedic indie made by Brian De Palma way back in his Greetings and Hi, Mom! days, it still retains a charming, if somewhat adolescent, absurdism. Tommy Smothers plays a corporate dropout in a loveless relationship who yearns to become a tap-dancing magician, taught by none other than Orson Welles's Mr. Delasandro in full pretentious mentoring mode. Add Katherine Ross as the adoring new girlfriend, Allan Garfield as a brassiere maker in search of his perfect woman, and especially the wonderful John Astin as a laid off executive-turned-derelict-turned-executive and you have the sort of bizarre, off-kilter type of fun movie you would have seen as a college student at some midnight showing in theaters during the late 60's/early 70's. Innocently subversive.

And can any movie that bills (correctly) an early Katherine Ross as "Terrific-Looking Girl" be all that bad?

I think I first ran into this film on cable. Later, I paid over $18.00 for a VHS copy.

Tonight, in a fit of nostalgia I decided to search for a DVD copy and found, to my dismay, that there are none.

Guess I'll have to nurture my VHS copy until I can transfer it to a DVD for preservation along with HBO's 'Disco Beaver From Outer Space', 'The Traveling Executioner', 'Run For the Sun', 'On The Run', and 'Looping'.

Some excellent films are very, very hard to find.

The Smothers Brothers were a very popular comedy team on television in the 60's. This film and 'Pandemonium' in 1982 set Tommy apart as he performed alone with wonderful results.

Not great films...but a lot of fun to watch. And you'll watch them more than once!

This is one of those notorious films in which Orson Welles agreed to play a part because he needed money badly, and here he submits himself to maybe the silliest plot in his life. He is the manager of a queer school for stepping magicians, and could you possibly imagine anything more silly than a stepping magician? Nevertheless, this is a comedy and it constantly grows more hilarious. John Astin is the personal manager of Tommy Smothers, and his character is very similar to that of Gomez in the Addams family of the 60s - you recognize him immediately. What saves the film though is Katherine Ross, always a joy to behold on the screen, and here she enters just in time for the comical climax of the film. It's very unusual to encounter a comedy by Brian de Palma, but you recognize his special cinematographic style immediately. The comedy is absurd, but it definitely succeeds in making you laugh and heartily, for the silliness of the intrigue and its complications transcends all limits of reason while at the same time it consistently remains realistic, as Tommy Smothers actually succeeds in remaining dead serious all through in his absurd mission. It's a kind of Buster Keaton sort of comedy, all dreadfully laughable without the main character ever losing his face.

In this review I am going to mention recreational drugs, Please don't construe my mention as an endorsement. It's actually an historical reference.

I first heard of "Get to Know Your Rabbit" when it was released in 1972 (the year that I turned 20). The buzz on it was strong at the time. It played in some select theaters and college campuses for a limited time and POOF! Vanished. It was always the one that got away.

I waited for 50 years to see it when it finally aired on TCM. Were I to rate it from the vantage point of the 21st century I'd probably give it two stars. Had I rated it in 1972 it probably would have gotten (at least) 8 stars.

Once upon a time it was fun to get high with a group of friends and stumble into a movie theater. We'd sit there with saucer-like eyes as we marveled at "2001," "Fantasia" (which Disney re-released in that era), "Yellow Submarine" or other mind-blowing films. I remember a couple of guys that I knew sitting all day through repeated showings of "Patton" while high.

Under such circumstances the surreal non-sequiturs of "Get to Know Your Rabbit" would have been hailed as riveting. Now? Meh.

This movie is firmly rooted in the time and culture of its release. I would only suggest checking it out when you've mastered time travel.