Director – James Landis, Story – Jim Critchfield & Arch Hall [Sr], Producer – Nicholas Merriwether [Arch Hall Sr], Photography – William [Vilmos] Zsigmond. Production Company – Rushmore Productions.
Cast
Mischa Terr (Mischa Lowzoff/Lightning Moon O’Brien), Arch Hall Jr. (Britt Hunter), Melissa Morgan [Liz Renay] (Cecilia Solomon), William Watters [Arch Hall Sr] (Marshall Malout/Malcolm McKinley), Hal Bizzy (Heinrich Krueger), Jack Little (Maxwell Stoppie), Sharon Ryker (Jackie Gavin), Ray Vegas (Pancho Gonzales), John Akana (Colonel Kobayashi), Hal Boker (Gavin), [uncredited] Richard Kiel (Ranch Foreman)
Plot
Russian agent Mischa Lowzoff is sent ashore from a submarine on Operation Nasty Rabbit, a top secret mission to release a rabbit that wears a pendant containing a deadly bacteria that will kill everybody in the US within five days. Mischa arrives at the Killdeer Dude Ranch where he pretends to be cowboy Lightning O’Brien. Assorted counter espionage agents, including Agent Y, who has a civilian identity as rock‘n’roll singer Britt Hunter, also arrive at the ranch trying to stop Mischa.
Nasty Rabbit was one of the films of Arch Hall Sr (1908-78). Hall Sr had an interesting life working as everything from a cowboy to a pilot during World War II and a stuntman, before he turned to making a series of B movies, all of which starred his son Arch Hall Jr. These began with the nudie Magic Spectacles (1961) and include The Choppers (1961), Eegah! (1962), Wild Guitar (1962), Nasty Rabbit and Deadwood ’76 (1965), as well as Hall Sr writing the screenplay for Ted V. Mikels’ The Corpse Grinders (1971) and producing Ray Dennis Steckler’s The Thrill Killers (1964). Director James Landis made a handful of films around this era, including directing Arch Hall Jr in the psycho film The Sadist (1963).
Nasty Rabbit falls into the 1960s fad for Spy Films. These were massive at this time due to the success of the James Bond films. That said, rather than giddy silliness and playboy exploits of the numerous Bond copies, Nasty Rabbit plays more in the vein of a classic 1930s or earlier comedy. It has surprising similarities to the subsequent madcap comedy The Russians Are Coming, The Russians Are Coming (1966).
Nasty Rabbit is also a comedy that is excruciating to watch. Everything plays to ethnic caricatures – the Russians are blustery incompetent buffoons in uniform who drink vodka a lot and there is a team of counter-espionage agents – a Mexican in a giant over-sized sombrero, a Japanese soldier in uniform who carries a bayonet and has coke bottle glasses, and a German who has a monocle and wears a Stalhelm helmet. Every character in the film with the exception of Arch Hall Jr’s rock‘n’roll spy is played as stupid. Even the rabbit delivers smartass commentary in a high-pitched cartoon voice.
Arch Hall Jr as rock‘n’roll spy Britt Hunter
Into the bargain, there is also a dwarf outfitted as a cowboy wearing two oversized guns in holsters. Famous stripper Liz Renay appears as a floozy spy who oozes all over Russian agent Mischa Terr. Arch Hall Jr, looking like a pretty boy rocker who just took a punch in the face, turns up with his band and sings a number, while romancing the ranch owner’s daughter (Sharon Ryker). The 7’2” Richard Kiel, later famous as Jaws in the James Bond films The Spy Who Loved Me (1977) and Moonraker (1979), appears uncredited as a ranch hand.
The entirety of Nasty Rabbit consists of idiot characters played at a level of shrill hysteria that is wound to 14 on the dial. That and an endless parade of pratfalls that always come accompanied by cartoon whistles or bird twittering effects every time someone is clonked. There are assorted shenanigans trying to use a bottle of vodka to lure Mischa Terr to walk into a pit trap. The Japanese spy spends the entire time in a tree and falling out of it every time we see him. The assorted spies engage in a mind-boggling sequence where they get to completely trash a motel room – one where the tv cabinet is opened up and the dwarf’s head is revealed to be looking out through the screen for some reason.
Nasty Rabbit climaxes on a round robin as everybody goes around clonking each other on the head. This is followed by a car chase where people get into vehicles and drive around in circles in undercranked motion. It is just like a series of Keystone Kops routines, which was you suspect the inspiration for the film. This is a really a majorly painful watch.
