Get to Know Your Rabbit

Get to Know Your Rabbit is a 1972 American comedy film written by Jordan Crittenden and directed by Brian De Palma. It stars Tommy Smothers, Orson Welles, John Astin, Katherine Ross and a gaggle of other recognizable players of the period.

It is a strange film that certainly never received much attention. I read about it years ago and was finally able to see it on a big screen in college.

Smothers and Welles

Corporate executive Donald Beeman (Smothers) is fed up with corporate America where he has been successful. He has a beautiful girlfriend and a great apartment - but something is missing. 

He quite impulsively quits his job and decides to hit the road as a very unlikely tap-dancing magician. He has been studying with Mr. Delasandro (Welles). Delasandro is impressed by Donald's sincere desire to learn but tells him it is very important to "get to know your rabbit" which is bestowed upon him when he graduates the program.

His former boss Mr. Turnbull (Astin) is determined to convince him to return to his office job, but Donald won't go back. When Turnbull shows up out of work and seemingly lost and homeless, Donald feels bad, and as he heads out on the road he makes Turnbull his manager so that he will have something to do.

Most of the film is about his adventures on the road where he is actually successful as a magician. He meets at one nightclub Katherine Ross' character, billed only as "Terrific-looking girl" (which I wholeheartedly endorsed when I first saw the film). He loves his act and volunteers to come on stage for his escape sack trick. The trick fails but they end up wrapped up together and despite her date's objections and chase, they escape to Donald's hotel, where they talk all night and then make love.

On a postcard to Turnbull, Donald writes that is is finally "living life at gut level." This inspires who has regained his business attitude to put out an ad for Tap Dancing Magician, Inc., "a seventeen-day drop-out plan for tired executives." 

SPOILER ALERT (but not really) The company becomes a huge success going global. When Donald returns he finds himself in charge and the icon for many execs who have taken the magician course (no longer offered by Delasandro) and taken their 17-day escape from the corporate rat race.

Donald finds himself feeling the same way he did when he originally quit his job. Can he escape again?

Tommy Smothers was known as half of The Smothers Brothers musical duo and as co-host of their own TV variety show.  Orson Welles was a filmmaker who couldn't get funding to make the films he wanted to make despite having made Citizen Kane and a few other great and now classic films. He was also an avid magician. John Astin will always be remembered as Gomez, the patriarch of TV's The Addams Family. Katherine Ross had already made The Graduate and Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. The last scene of the film shows Ross sitting in the back seat of a bus, a reference to the final shot of The Graduate.

Director Brian De Palma had made the 1968 underground comedy Greetings and Hi, Mom! which were both successful little films and well-reviewed. Get to Know Your Rabbit was a third comedy for him and it was considered to be absurdist satire. Crittenden's screenplay is filled with oddball characters and bizarre situations. But satire is tough and not everyone gets it.

Tommy Smothers was not confident in De Palma's direction but that may have been more about his own limited acting experience. According to De Palma, Smothers so disliked the film that he disappeared for several shooting days and refused to return for retakes.

Warner Brothers was not satisfied with De Palma's cut of the film. It was taken from him and recut with additional footage by Peter Nelson (credited onscreen as executive producer). Despite that, the studio still held onto the film for several years and when it was released it had very little promotion and quickly disappeared from theaters. De Palma refused to work for a major studio again for several years and then turned, quite successfully, to themes of suspense and obsession starting with his film Sisters. 

The film was certainly not an Oscar contender but it was the 1973 Nominee for a WGA Award for Best Comedy Written Directly for the Screen for Jordan Crittenden. 

It is an uneven, odd, perhaps cult, film, but I like it. It shows up sometimes on the TCM channel and is also available on Amazon Prime but I recently rewatched it on YouTube (see link below).