O Homem de Duas Vidas

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?

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.

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.

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.