Rabbit Test

Rabbit Test
April 9, 1978
Laugh or Die Productions [These are the choices?]
Comedy, Romance
VHS
C+

Like Sextette, this shows how tacky the late '70s could get, but it's less enjoyably bad.  It does admittedly have more of a plot, the complications (medical and otherwise) faced by the world's first pregnant man, played by a young Billy Crystal, around the time he was making TV history as a gay main character on Soap.  The movie has a very slight resemblance to Miracle of Morgan's Creek, in that the unwed pregnancy shocks the whole world, but the reaction is more mixed here.  Also, like Trudy K., Crystal's Lionel Carpenter gives birth on Christmas, but it's a lot more blasphemous here, since the baby is possibly a Saviour.  (A deep-voiced star says, "Oh my God, it's a girl!!")  But then the whole movie is tasteless in just about every way imaginable, while Morgan's knew how to be suggestive without being PG-raunchy.

Then again, Joan Rivers (writer/director/over-actress in the role of a nurse) is no Preston Sturges.  If you're going to have a joke where an African waitress in rabbit ears and a swimsuit says, "I'm your jungle bunny," you've got to make it so outrageously funny that the viewer can't help but laugh, even if it's guiltily.  It's the same with jokes about (to take a few examples among many) incest, abortion, and urine.

Oddly enough, while there's none of the good-natured sweetness of Sextette (which loved even those it mocked), there is somehow a not bad romance here, between Crystal and his Russian Gypsy girlfriend, played by Joan Prather, who would find more success as Janet on Eight Is Enough.  And Doris Roberts, in the Doris Roberts Role of Crystal's mother (cf. Angie, Everybody Loves Raymond), is much better than her material.

There are two genuinely funny things in the movie: Richard Deacon's very phony toupee and a routine about a commemorative stamp.  Likely if you dare to watch this movie, it's going to have to be for the cast. Seemingly, nearly every actor and actress from the '70s you've heard of (or haven't) was in this flick, from a young Michael Keaton to Valerie Curtin and Suzanne Zenor from the first Three's Company pilot.  Rivers's Hollywood Squares colleagues (or at least game-show stalwarts) include George Gobel (as the President of the US), Fannie Flagg (as the First Lady), Peter Marshall (as himself), Jimmie "J. J." Walker (as an African ventriloquist), and Mr. Center Square himself, Paul Lynde, as the doctor whose rabbit dies.  Alice Ghostley is Lynde's nurse.  Billy Barty is Walker's black-face dummy.

This time Charlotte Rae plays Cousin Claire.  Roddy McDowall has a dual role, as the Gypsy grandmother and as Dr. D & C Fishbine.  (Hardy har har!)  Imogene Coca and/or Norman Fell plays his child.  (It's hard to tell in this movie.)  Hamilton Camp is some relation.

Ben Frommer, who's Mr. Sanchez, was "Man" in Plan Nine from Outer Space.  (Luckily, this isn't the extent of his resume.)  Intern William Callaway was a party guest in Annie Hall.  The role of the Japanese doctor was one of a handful that Rollin Moriyama would have in my late '70s movies.

Hospital visitor Tommy Madden would be One-Eyed Midget in The Muppet Movie.  May Boss, "Frail Old Lady," would be Adele Miller in Americathon.  (She was far from frail in real life and in fact was a stuntwoman, even up to 2003.)  Adam Anderson, the "Sobbing Sailor," would be a pilot in The Nude Bomb.  Rod Haase, who's the surfer on the bus, would be Wally in The Gong Show Movie.  Rosey Grier, who's the taxi driver, would be himself in The Gong SM.  Raymond O'Keefe, Bronco here, would be a man at the hospital in Nine to Five.  Shelley Morrison, who plays Mrs. Borzoni, would be Rosa the Maid in Troop Beverly Hills.

The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band

The One and Only, Genuine, Original Family Band
March 21, 1968
Disney
Musical, Comedy, Drama, Romance
VHS
B-

Now that we're getting into the movies that are younger than I am (though it'll be awhile till we reach any I actually saw on first release), I feel like I should attempt to explain what the deal is with these long, sometimes full-sentence-or-question, and sometimes crazy titles.  (And I don't even own The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-Up Zombies.)  I have a couple overlapping theories.  One is that these titles catch the eye and the attention, even if they take up a lot of room on the marquee.  (From here on out, I'm abbreviating this movie as The...Family Band.)  Another theory is, well, it was the '60s (the trend might have started with Dr. Strangelove's full title in '63), and everything was getting more and more colorful and larger than life.  That some of these movies-- this one and John GoldfarbPCH spring to mind-- actually have title songs only adds to the craziness.

Although the family band plays that title song and others-- including a recurring salute to Grover Cleveland!-- the family isn't fully fleshed out.  (There are four younger girls, and I couldn't really distinguish them, except by hair color.)  Mostly, we see Grandpa Walter Brennan, who rails against "Ree-publicans," and his lovely eldest granddaughter, played by 21-year-old Lesley Ann Warren.  There are a couple other notable family members though, Buddy Ebsen (only 14 years younger than Brennan but playing his son), returning to his dancing roots, and an always smiling 16-year-old Kurt Russell, who would soon sort of replace Tommy Kirk as the campus-hijinx lead in Disney movies like The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes.  (I find them mostly boring, although Computer does have a catchy title tune.  I'm more of a Barefoot Executive kinda gal.)

This film, based on a book by Laura Bower, is set in 1888, when Cleveland was defeated by Harrison.  (And, although no one mentions it, Cleveland in turn would later defeat Harrison.)  The stuff about the electoral college looks even more ironic after the 2000 election, but even in '68 it would take only a few months for the election-day "riot" in this film to seem bizarrely mild, compared to the ugliness surrounding the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.  Yes, it's Disney, but even so, the message that we can put aside our political and other differences must've been a hard one to swallow.

The Republicans are mostly represented by Ebsen, Richard Deacon, and 26-year-old John Davidson.  Davidson's character is courting Lesley AW.  He also urges everyone to move to Dakota, where most of the film is set.  He combines his interests when he sings about the Territory, with a line about "virgin fields" waiting to be "ploughed," sung right at Warren.  Their romance is mostly sweet, although I don't like it when he forces a kiss on her near the end and then makes her join him on a wheelbarrow ride, although she stops being mad when he gives her a wedding ring, so we're supposed to just find it funny and charming.  The two of them try to make each other jealous, he with "Giggly Girl," played by none other than Kurt Russell's future wife, 22-year-old Goldie [Jeanne] Hawn, whose Laugh-In premiered a couple months before this film was released.

Ben Frommer would be in Where Were You When the Lights Went Out?, as would Larry J. Blake, who was in Sunset Blvd.  Delivery boy Hank Jones was in Girl Happy and would be in The Barefoot Executive.  Dakota townsman Peter Renaday would be the roller derby ticket-taker in The Shaggy D.A.  Nine-year-old Pamelyn Ferdin (Laura Bower) would provide the voice of Fern in Charlotte's Web, while nine-year-old Bobby Riha (Mayo Bower) would voice Chinook in Santa and the Three Bears.  Vest Dancer Guy (The Swinger, et al.) shows up, in a period-appropriate vest (far right, below).

John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!

John Goldfarb, Please Come Home!
March 24, 1965
Fox
Comedy
VHS
C-

While I can't recommend this movie, even as a so-bad-it's-goodie, I suppose some might want to see it to just to say they've seen it.  (Or they have seen it, and can't believe what they saw.)  Briefly, Shirley MacLaine (much much shriekier than in The Apartment, including on the title song*) plays a frigid journalist at Strife Magazine (hardy har) whose editor Charles Lane assigns her to write a story on a harem.  Meanwhile, the title character, played by Richard Crenna, is a sort of combination of pilots Douglas Corrigan and Francis Gary Powers, with the nickname "Wrong Way," and he accidentally lands in the Arabian country of Fawzia while trying to reach Russia.  The King of Fawzia, played by Peter Ustinov, starts a football team for his son, who's been kicked off the Notre Dame team for not being Irish.  (Wouldn't they have noticed right off?)  Oh, and there are various government officials who are trying to spin the situation.

That last aspect was what I liked best, particularly since it involves the sitcom vets Jim Backus as Miles Whitepaper, Fred Clark as Heinous Overreach, Richard Deacon as Charles Maginot, and Harry Morgan as Deems Sarajevo.  Morgan gets the most memorable lines, like the one about the Russians having a case of the cutes, and his reply to Dick "Please don't squeeze the Charmin" Wilson's announcement, "Either Fawz U beats Notre Dame or John Goldfarb goes to Moscow": "Is that an ultimatum or a musical comedy title?"  I'm not saying this stuff is Dr. Strangelove level satire, but it did make me chuckle.  And it's much more palatable than the shrew-taming we get of MacLaine's character, including the "ha ha, the king wants to rape her" subplot.

The script (based on his own book), by none other than William Peter Blatty, later of The Exorcist, is remarkably sexist and anti-Arab, even for its time.  This is not just 21st-century political correctness; contemporary critics hated the movie.  Notre Dame even sued over it!  I realize that I may've made you more interested in seeing the film, so I may as well go on to list some more of its unique cast.

The harem girls include Teri Garr (I don't know under what name); Gari Hardy, who would be "Dumb Blonde" in Speedway; Paula Lane, who was in Dear Brigitte, here playing Polly Benson; Irene Tsu, who was Miss Wu in Take Her, She's Mine and would shortly be a native girl in How to Stuff a Wild Bikini; and Jane Wald, of Take Her and Dear Brigitte.  "Specialty dancer" Nai Bonet would have a more prominent role as a king's belly-dancer in the softcore Fairy Tales (1978).  The football players include James Brolin (as a quarterback); Kent McCord (later of Adam-12), who would do Girl Happy; and Red West, who was in Palm Springs Weekend and would soon be in Girl Happy.

Billy Curtis, who was a Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz, is "Little Football Player."  Chick Collins, who was a fencer in Singin' in the Rain, plays a Bedouin here.  Fred Catania, who was Wheeler's bodyguard in The Girl Can't Help It and a used car salesman in Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter, has a minor role here.  Jim Shane, who was Dave in Palm Springs Weekend, is Chiang here.

Jackie Coogan (yes, Uncle Fester, here playing Father Ryan); Bedouin Jim Dawson; Milton Frome, here an Air Force general; and Olan Soule, who plays the second editor, would shortly do Girl Happy.  Telly Savalas (yes, Kojak) is Macmuid, the harem recruiter, and would be El Sleezo Tough in The Muppet Movie.  

Patrick Adiarte, who plays Prince Ammud, isn't in any of my of my other movies, but I have to note that he was both David in the Hawaiian episodes of The Brady Bunch and Ho-Jon on M*A*S*H.


*The theme pops up repeatedly in the movie, especially during the big football game at the end.  John Williams, yes, that John Williams, was the conductor.