People always want to know how much money I make writing this site if I put this much work into it. Yes, there are times when I put forty or more hours a week in and get nothing in return. Well, everything else in my life is for commerce. Sometimes, you need art. I make something more important than money.
This movie made me consider that. Corporate executive Donald Beeman (Tommy Smothers) is sick of work. So sick of it that he quits his day job and becomes a traveling tap dancing magician as he studies under Mr. Delasandro (real life magician Orson Welles).
Meanwhile, his old boss Mr. Turnbull (John Astin) wants him to come on back to the nine-to-five life and he convinces Donald to help other businessmen with Tap Dancing Magicians, a course - and corporation - that will teach them what he has learned. It's a success, a wild success, but Donald is back to being a rat in a maze.
Directed by Brian De Palma and written by Jordan Crittenden, this was a Warner Bros. Movie made after Easy Rider in the days when studios were looking to the film brats and young people to save their bottom line. The studio - and Smothers - felt uneasy about De Palma's experience. Smothers so disliked this movie that he disappeared for several days and refused to return for retakes. Making matters worse was that executive producer Peter Nelson recut it and added a new sequence to the film, which the studio had no idea how to promote and one that they dropped as fast as they could.
While the movie ends with Smothers alive and well after his final escape trick, it was originally supposed to end right after the trick, implying that Smothers may have committed suicide. Even wilder, De Palma wanted to end it with him killing his rabbit live on TV to ruin his career and pull off a bigger escape.
I've always struggled with De Palma's comedies, so when he moved into obsession and strange behavior with Sisters, all was right with the world.
This movie made me consider that. Corporate executive Donald Beeman (Tommy Smothers) is sick of work. So sick of it that he quits his day job and becomes a traveling tap dancing magician as he studies under Mr. Delasandro (real life magician Orson Welles).
Meanwhile, his old boss Mr. Turnbull (John Astin) wants him to come on back to the nine-to-five life and he convinces Donald to help other businessmen with Tap Dancing Magicians, a course - and corporation - that will teach them what he has learned. It's a success, a wild success, but Donald is back to being a rat in a maze.
Directed by Brian De Palma and written by Jordan Crittenden, this was a Warner Bros. Movie made after Easy Rider in the days when studios were looking to the film brats and young people to save their bottom line. The studio - and Smothers - felt uneasy about De Palma's experience. Smothers so disliked this movie that he disappeared for several days and refused to return for retakes. Making matters worse was that executive producer Peter Nelson recut it and added a new sequence to the film, which the studio had no idea how to promote and one that they dropped as fast as they could.
While the movie ends with Smothers alive and well after his final escape trick, it was originally supposed to end right after the trick, implying that Smothers may have committed suicide. Even wilder, De Palma wanted to end it with him killing his rabbit live on TV to ruin his career and pull off a bigger escape.
I've always struggled with De Palma's comedies, so when he moved into obsession and strange behavior with Sisters, all was right with the world.