Il rinoceronte

Tom O'Horgan's "Rhinoceros" is based on Eugène Ionesco's play. An exercise in the theater of the absurd, the play was intended as an indictment of Nazism, showing how everyone simply acquiesces to events around them. I guess that the movie doesn't really focus on the political aspect as much, but it's still a funny movie. Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder basically reprise their roles from "The Producers", only this time it's a world in which all the people are turning into odd-toed ungulates. Nothing can stop the transformations!

Admittedly, it's a totally outlandish idea. But, that's a characteristic of the theater of the absurd. We don't actually see any members of the family Rhinocerotidae, we just hear their snorts. Nonetheless, I was laughing almost the whole time. Wilder is particularly funny as the uptight office clerk who falls apart as he watches all his acquaintances change. Zero Mostel's transformation is the best, while Karen Black's character is the most dynamic in the whole movie.

Pretty neat.

I saw this movie thinking it would be a wacky comedy because it had Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder in it (they were both in The Producers so I figured it would be that level of comedy with slapstick and obvious jokes). Instead this movie is not like that at all, it was a complete surprise with a bizarre story line. Gene Wilder plays a guy who starts hallucinating and seeing the people around him in his life and in his town actually turning into rhinoceroses (or is it rhinoceri I have no idea?) It is definitely strange to watch and it is definitely more of a satire and drama and a comment about society at the time in the 1970s than it was a straight up comedy but it's definitely worth watching and good, it will stick with you.

OK, this is one weird film that I caught very late one night, I only decided to see it because it had Gene Wilder in it, who is one of the funniest men in history. I was totally surprised by how bizarre it was. The plot is about Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder talking and all these people turn into (unseen) rhinoceros'. Later on the story goes from zany comedy to mild horror as our 'heroes' try to stop themselves from turning into rhinoceros'...If you're in a good mood you could find some enjoyment out of this, but if you like your films straightforward then avoid this like the plague.

As with others that commented on this film, I first saw Rhinoceros because it starred Gene Wilder. At the time, in the mid 1970's, Wilder was near the peak of his popularity. The film was a complete surprise to me. Very bizarre, nothing that I expected. Years later, I remember that I was quite disappointed with the movie and wondered just what it was that Wilder was doing. Years later, however, I find that the memory of this film has never left me. The premise of the movie, that of all the towns-people turning into Rhino's, escaped me. Today, I relate this film, in some ways to the novel 1984. I see the resemblance of the Rhino to sheep and/or cattle. This Wilder film is not comical. It is, however, a strangely unsettling satire that is difficult to forget. I, for one, am looking to purchase a copy of this film on DVD. I'm sure that it's meaning will be more apparent to me today than it was when first viewed 40 years ago.

A hungover Stanley (Gene Wilder) meets his pompous and condescending best friend, John (Zero Mostel), at a restaurant. John's inevitable criticisms about Stanley's drinking and dishevelment are interrupted by a rhinoceros charging through the street outside. This provides the staff and the patrons some amusement until the creature charges through the restaurant and destroys everything. At the office, Stanley arrives late as the boss and the other workers are having an argument about the absurd news reports regarding these animals. The attractive but not overly bright Daisy (Karen Black) insists she saw the rhinoceros with her own eyes. Stanley says the same thing, but it's not until a coworker on the street below changes into a rhinoceros before their eyes that they grasp the importance, and absurdity, of what is happening. Soon, everyone is becoming a rhinoceros, and Stanley is feeling the pressure to conform.

"What you are about to see," reads the introductory title card, "could never take place. Several eminent scientists have assured us of this fact, for, as they are quick to point out... the world is flat."

Are they? That dismal attempt at irony is an omen for the rest of the movie. Whatever value Eugène Ionesco's absurdist play may have had on stage, this film adaptation is a leaden allegory, filled with room-wrecking slapstick, that is exhausting, exasperating and tedious. Zero Mostel, who won a Tony for playing the same role on Broadway in 1961, has a transformation scene that is fascinating for its sweaty excess, but his antics can be better appreciated in "The Producers" (1968) in which he and Gene Wilder are actually funny. In this film, the two play off each other just as well, but it doesn't come to much.

No rhinoceroses appear, which might sound like admirable restraint (if not an impoverished budget), but the movie already opened up the play considerably and added a dream sequence and a lot of Keystone Comedy antics. Not showing us rhinoceroses just seems irritatingly coy.