RUMORED FOR THIS SUMMER...
When Warner Bros. opened up its archive vault last March, making many of its overlooked films available via on-demand DVDs for $19.95 each (or $14.95 for a digital download version), I put in a request for Brian De Palma's Get To Know Your Rabbit, a 1972 WB release that has never been available on DVD. Looks like we won't have to go the on-demand route after all-- according to a posting on GreenCine's Twitter page, Warner Bros. plans to release Get To Know Your Rabbit on DVD this summer (and, mind you, today is officially the first day of summer). If true, this will complete the availability of each of De Palma's feature films in the DVD format, in one country or another (Dionysus In '69 has only been released on DVD in France). Get To Know Your Rabbit was made right after De Palma's Hi, Mom! in 1970, but, after the studio fired De Palma and completed the film with another uncredited director, it sat on a shelf until Warner Bros. dumped it into theaters in 1972 as part of a double bill. De Palma ran afoul of the studio when he suggested a new ending which would see star Tommy Smothers' tap-dancing magician escape the dual traps of conformity and commodification by appearing to make a bloody mess of a live rabbit on the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. Smothers also got nervous about De Palma's direction, and since the whole project was conceived as a vehicle for the star, De Palma was locked out. Despite the compromised vision, though, what remains in the bulk of the film is a comedy that flows with De Palma's sardonic sense of the absurd, as a continuation of the countercultural indifference on display in Greetings and Hi, Mom!. There are some nice recent evaluations of the film by Daniel Kremer at conFluence Films and (from 2006) Nicolas Rapold at Reverse Shot.
Updated: Monday, June 22, 2009 1:45 AM CDT
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