“He’s gotta do this thing again”: The legendary actor Brian De Palma called “sloppy”
His stock may have plummeted dramatically throughout the 21st century, but at the peak of his powers, Brian De Palma was one of the most provocative, thrilling, and celebrated directors of his era, something his gradual slide from grace will never be able to take away from him.
It’s been a very long time since he made an inarguably excellent film, which was either Carlito’s Way, Mission: Impossible, or Snake Eyes, depending on how any given viewer feels about the crime drama, blockbuster espionage epic, or mystery thriller. Since then, it would be fair to say that De Palma has been keeping himself plenty busy without ever coming close to the lofty heights he used to occupy.
Of the six features he’s helmed since the turn of the millennium, five of them have tanked at the box office, and the most recent – 2019’s Domino – didn’t even see the inside of a cinema in the United States. It’s been a tough run, but let’s not forget this was the same guy who oversaw Carrie, Dressed to Kill, Blow Out, Scarface, Body Double, and The Untouchables in the space of little over a decade, an incredible hot streak that will endure long beyond the current downturn as his legacy.
De Palma was already well on his way up the industry ladder by the early 1970s, where he ended up encountering a formidable talent who was on their own way down. In an eerily similar vein to the filmmaker’s future travails, Orson Welles is always going to be remembered fondly for his contributions to cinema, even though the last couple of decades provided significantly more misses than hits.
1972’s comedy Get to Know Your Rabbit finds Tom Smothers’ high-flying executive, Donald Beeman, grow weary with corporate life, so he decides to quit his job and become a tap-dancing magician, where he’s hoping to pick up the tricks of the trade from Welles’ enigmatic Mr. Delasandro. Not only does he succeed, but he ends up founding a course for businessmen-turned-magicians, which puts him right back in the professional mire he started in.
It’s a strange movie, but as tended to be the case any time later when Welles showed up on a film set, he wasn’t fully prepared and oozing professionalism. In fact, despite his tender years and the pedestal occupied by the Citizen Kane writer, director, and producer in the annals of history, De Palma wasn’t above taking him to task whenever scenes weren’t going according to plan.
Going full Brando, the director shared how “we had cue cards all over the place and I’d never seen this before” because Welles could never remember his lines. It wasn’t an approach he was familiar with or accustomed to, leaving him increasingly exasperated. “You just look at it and you say, ‘This isn’t right. This is sloppy.'” Regardless of his actor’s achievements, De Palma was forced to dish out some tough love.
Understandably, he was left incredulous by the way he was “telling Orson Welles he’s gotta do this thing again,” but that was part of the gig. Nobody remembers Get to Know Your Rabbit as one of his finest, and the same applies to Welles, but at least De Palma showcased that he wouldn’t be overawed by star power.
