A hungover Stanley (Gene Wilder) meets his pompous and condescending best friend, John (Zero Mostel), at a restaurant. John's inevitable criticisms about Stanley's drinking and dishevelment are interrupted by a rhinoceros charging through the street outside. This provides the staff and the patrons some amusement until the creature charges through the restaurant and destroys everything. At the office, Stanley arrives late as the boss and the other workers are having an argument about the absurd news reports regarding these animals. The attractive but not overly bright Daisy (Karen Black) insists she saw the rhinoceros with her own eyes. Stanley says the same thing, but it's not until a coworker on the street below changes into a rhinoceros before their eyes that they grasp the importance, and absurdity, of what is happening. Soon, everyone is becoming a rhinoceros, and Stanley is feeling the pressure to conform."What you are about to see," reads the introductory title card, "could never take place. Several eminent scientists have assured us of this fact, for, as they are quick to point out... the world is flat."Are they? That dismal attempt at irony is an omen for the rest of the movie. Whatever value Eugène Ionesco's absurdist play may have had on stage, this film adaptation is a leaden allegory, filled with room-wrecking slapstick, that is exhausting, exasperating and tedious. Zero Mostel, who won a Tony for playing the same role on Broadway in 1961, has a transformation scene that is fascinating for its sweaty excess, but his antics can be better appreciated in "The Producers" (1968) in which he and Gene Wilder are actually funny. In this film, the two play off each other just as well, but it doesn't come to much.No rhinoceroses appear, which might sound like admirable restraint (if not an impoverished budget), but the movie already opened up the play considerably and added a dream sequence and a lot of Keystone Comedy antics. Not showing us rhinoceroses just seems irritatingly coy.

I loved this film. I was trying to find it to buy it, just for the scene between Wilder and Mostel, priceless. I laughed so hard mostly because of how brilliant Mostel was at portraying his transformation. I told my children about this film and they wanted to see it. I recall reading once that Wilder himself, didn't like the film but I don't have his perspective. The tension between Mostel and Wilder in that particular transformation scene is palpable, Wilder's reactions, Mostel's intensity, I laugh at just recalling this scene. I don't recall much else about the film except this particular scene. I highly recommend this film to all Wilder and Mostel fans.

As with others that commented on this film, I first saw Rhinoceros because it starred Gene Wilder. At the time, in the mid 1970's, Wilder was near the peak of his popularity. The film was a complete surprise to me. Very bizarre, nothing that I expected. Years later, I remember that I was quite disappointed with the movie and wondered just what it was that Wilder was doing. Years later, however, I find that the memory of this film has never left me. The premise of the movie, that of all the towns-people turning into Rhino's, escaped me. Today, I relate this film, in some ways to the novel 1984. I see the resemblance of the Rhino to sheep and/or cattle. This Wilder film is not comical. It is, however, a strangely unsettling satire that is difficult to forget. I, for one, am looking to purchase a copy of this film on DVD. I'm sure that it's meaning will be more apparent to me today than it was when first viewed 40 years ago.

I stayed up very late one night to see this film, largely because the idea interested me and also because it had Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel in it(The Producers is another of my favourite films). I was pleasently surprised,as the TV guide had slated it. In a nutshell, this film concerns a town which is overrun by a plague of sorts, which causes people to turn into Rhinoceroses (Rhinocerii???). Why this is happening is never properly explained, though at least one explanation is implied.This film presents the central themes of conformity and pack mentality pretty well, and becomes quite powerful towards the end. However, its main flaw is trying to present some segments of it as a comedy. This does not work, it is a piece of absurdism, and just does not work as a farce. The whole thing could have done with being played far more deadpan, for instance, the scene where the woman's husband (now a rhinoceros) besieges the office, and the scene where Gene wilder and the girl(whose name escapes me)are in the flat together, near the end. Still, despite all this, it manages to be a very good and underrated film. Gene Wilder and Zero Mostel both give excellent performances, especially Mostel. His descent into Rhinocerosness and the loss of his dignity mange to be funny and horrifying at the same time.