Get To Know Your Rabbit

I few months back I started posting my top ten favorites from filmmakers I enjoyed. I liked doing this, but in hindsight it was kind of a bad idea. My tastes sometimes change after revisiting a movie, and in some cases, I might not have seen all of that director's work. Case in point, Brian DePalma. I'm a huge fan of his, and my picks of his work was a popular blog with some of my followers. But, there was some of his films I still needed to catch up on. Today I was able to do that with one of his earliest endeavours, 1972's Get To Know Your Rabbit.

Tom Smothers stars as a pencil pusher who decides to quit the rat race and pursue his dream of being a tap dancing magician. He takes on a mentor, Orson Welles, to show him the ropes, even though his former boss, John Astin, doggedly pursues him to come back to his old life.

This was DePalma's first studio outing which turned out to be a disastrous endevour for the director. Both the studio, Warner Brothers, and the star thought DePalma might be too green too handle a studio picture. He even butted heads with Welles. When Welles showed up on set without having his lines memorized, DePalma would have him do take after take until he could do it word for word. Warner was so unhappy that they ended up firing DePalma and shot the ending and re edited the film to their liking. Even after taking the reigns over they still shelved the film for two years before dumping it into a few theaters without any press. Even though he didn't have final cut, you can still tell that this is a DePalma flick. It includes a lot of the touches he is known for including the split screen and the anti establishment feel of his earlier comedies. DePalma returned to the world of indies after this and didn't do another studio picture until Carrie in 1976. It took him even longer to work with Warner Brothers again, but he returned in 1990 for The Bonfire Of The Vanities. Another project that would find him butting heads with studio brass. And even though he cut his teeth in comedy, DePalma wouldn't do another one until 1986's Wise Guys.

With all of the turmoil that surrounded this project, I still enjoyed it. The cast is pretty great. Smothers, fresh from his legendary but cancelled Smothers Brothers tv show is likable in the lead. He basically plays the straight man to all of the craziness that surrounds the character. Welles and Astin seem to be having a lot of fun in their roles. Katherine Ross makes an appearance as a groupie to Smothers' but her role is sadly under written.

Get To Know Your Rabbit wouldn't make my top ten of DePalma films, but if you are a fan of his work it's worth a look.

It's available on dvd thru Warner Archive.