Main Cast: Billy Crystal, Joan Prather, Alex Rocco, Doris Roberts
Release Year: 1978
Country: US
Run Time: 86 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
In this, Joan Rivers' first attempt at film direction, a young virgin male (Billy Crystal) is engaged to be married when he finds out he is pregnant! Using the film as a vehicle for her acerbic humor, director Rivers may as well be on stage, for interspersed throughout this questionable plot is an unending onslaught of sarcastic slams pointed at just about every sector of society. Ms. Rivers even makes a cameo appearance. Other big names in this film are Tom Poston (as a minister), Roddy McDowall (in several roles), and George Gobel as the U.S. President. ~ All Movie Guide
Review
Although Rabbit Test has gained a certain cult reputation over the years, it's a "so-bad-it-must-be-seen" cult following. There really is no plot to Rabbit Test, only a premise, which is used as an excuse for screenwriter/director Joan Rivers to hang jokes upon. Many will find most of these jokes extremely offensive, but their real crime is not that they are in bad taste but they simply are not funny. The story drifts from one situation to another, never really gaining anything in momentum, and for someone who has made a living as a comedienne, Rivers's directorial timing is seriously lacking (as is any discernible visual sense). The cast is undeniably talented, but most are done in the material and the inexperienced direction. Billy Crystal comes off the worst, mainly because he is called upon to carry this mess of a picture. Only Alex Rocco is able to rise above the material to create a genuinely funny characterization, although Paul Lynde, Larry Gelman and (surprisingly) Rosey Grier do have their moments. Obnoxious and often irritating, Test fails on almost all levels. ~ Craig Butler, All Movie Guide
Robert Kinoshita - Art Director, Joseph M. Ellis - First Assistant Director, Joan Rivers - Director, Stanford C. Allen - Editor, Mike Post - Composer (Music Score), Frank Denson - Composer (Music Score), Pete Carpenter - Composer (Music Score), Lucien Ballard - Cinematographer, Edgar Rosenberg - Producer, Joan Rivers - Screenwriter, Jay Redack - Screenwriter
Directed by Joan Rivers, Rabbit Test stars Billy Crystal as Lionel Carpenter, a night school teacher who has bad luck with women, remaining a virgin until his brash cousin Danny (Alex Rocco) sets him up with a one-night stand. Soon after this, Lionel starts feeling nauseous and throwing up, eventually doing so onto Segoynia Savaka (Joan Prather), one of his immigrant students. This turns out to be a blessing in disguise, as it gives him an excuse to ask her out on a date, and a romance develops.
When Lionel meets Segoynia's fortune-telling grandmother (played by Roddy McDowall in drag), she intuits that he is the world's first pregnant man. The rest of the film is a series of gags relating to his pregnancy and people's reactions to it. One sideplot has Lionel being pursued by the army, as the president is afraid of what effect the widespread ability of men to conceive will have on population growth.
The film
This was the first theatrical film directed by Joan Rivers, and only film as of February 2009. It was also Billy Crystal's first starring role.
This was one of the first feature films to be shot on videotape, then transferred to film stock.
Joan Rivers has a cameo appearance as a comic nurse. Her daughter Melissa Rivers has a bit part.[1]
In the ending sequence, which is patterned after the Nativity, Lionel finally goes into labour. The camera rises to heaven where God announces to the viewers the successful delivery: "Oh my god... it's a girl!"
Whereas the similarly plotted Junior (1994) explains how its male protagonist gets pregnant (injection of a fertilized embryo into the abdominal cavity), in Rabbit Test this area is never delved into; Lionel simply has sex (he's on the bottom) and becomes pregnant.
Billy Crystal's character has an Esperanto flag on his wall.
