Fritz the Cat (film)
For the comic book character created by Robert Crumb, see Fritz the Cat.Fritz the Cat is a 1972
animated film written and directed by
Ralph Bakshi. Based on the comic books by
Robert Crumb, the film was the first animated feature film to receive an
X rating in the United States. The film is a
satire on
American college life of the 1960s: while Fritz doesn't attend any classes during the movie, he participates in major social upheavals based around the popular college protest movement of the time.
The film made $25 million in the United States, and $90 million worldwide.
[IMDb Box Office and Business] The film's success led to a slew of other "X rated and animated" films, including
Dirty Duck and Bakshi's own film
Heavy Traffic. There was also a sequel called
The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat, which neither Crumb nor Bakshi had anything to do with. In 2004,
Fritz the Cat landed at number 56 on
Channel 4's list of the
100 Greatest Cartoons.
Producer
Steve Krantz saw potential in Bakshi's vision for animated films specifically for adults. Having sold Krantz the production and distribution for what was to become the 1973 Bakshi feature,
Heavy Traffic, Krantz told Bakshi to make a film adapted from another author's work before moving on to his original work. Bakshi agreed, and the two searched for the perfect project.
In 1969, Krantz discovered a large paperback book containing three stories from Robert Crumb's
anthropomorphic 1960s comic book
Fritz the Cat, a character Crumb partially based on himself. Later that year, Krantz and Bakshi got in touch with Crumb and paid his way from his home north of San Francisco to New York, in order to talk with him about getting the film rights to the characters.
[FUNNYWORLD REVISITED - The Filming of Fritz the Cat]After several meetings, Krantz received a contract, signed by Crumb, in the mail, and that in return Crumb received twelve thousand five hundred dollars, which was supplemented by a percentage of the film's gross proceeds. With the rights to the character, Krantz and Bakshi set out to find a distributor. "When I say that every major distributor turned it down, this is not an exaggeration," remembers Krantz.
[FUNNYWORLD REVISITED - The Filming of Fritz the Cat]In the spring,
Warner Bros. agreed to distribute the film and to provide money for making the picture. Late in November, Bakshi and Krantz had made a presentation reel containing a few minutes of finished animation, pencil tests, and shots of some of Bakshi's storyboards made to show to Warner Bros, who wanted movie stars' voices for the characters and also wanted him to tone down the material, removing the explicit sex in a scene with Fritz and Bertha the crow. Bakshi and Krantz left Warner Bros., taking their project with them. The distribution and financing problems were also cleared up late in 1970, when Cinemation Industries attached themselves to the project and
Fantasy Records agreed to help fund the film.
[FUNNYWORLD REVISITED - The Filming of Fritz the Cat]When Crumb saw the final product, he was displeased. Crumb tried to sue the film's distributors to have his name taken off of the credits
[Internet Movie Databse Trivia], but failed. He later claimed in interviews that the project was "an embarrassment to him,"
[Quoted from the 1994 documentary Crumb, directed by Terry Zwigoff.] that he never wanted the film made, and that "I wrote them a letter telling them not to use any more of my characters in their films."
[FUNNYWORLD REVISITED - The Filming of Fritz the Cat] Still, despite Crumb's objections,
Fritz the Cat was a box office smash hit, drawing in audiences as much for its shock value as for its appeal to the "love generation" of the 1960s.
Fritz the Cat is adapted from the following R. Crumb stories:
*
Fritz Bugs Out--first serialized in the February to October 1968 issues of
Cavalier*
Fritz the Cat--first published in
R. Crumb's Head Comix, 1968.
*
Fritz the No-Good--first published in the September/October issue of
Cavalier. The film begins with a typically Bakshian piece of dialogue: three
construction workers on their
lunch break talk about how they spend so much money to send their children to college, only to instead find out that the kids instead spend all of their time drinking
booze, smoking
marijuana, and having
sex with each other. One construction worker gets up to
urinate off of the scaffold, the
urine landing on the head of a
hippie with a
guitar.
The scene switches to a
New York City park, where various hippies are gathered with guitars to sing protest songs. Fritz and his buddies show up in an attempt to hook up with them for sex. Three girls show up, and walk right past them, instead taking up a conversation with a
crow, trying to impress him with their knowledge of
black history, but he blows them off.
Fritz catches their attention by lamenting:
:"My soul is tormented! I've been up and down the four corners of this big old world! I've seen it all! I've done it all! I've fought many a good man, and laid many a good woman! I've had riches and fame and adventure...I've tasted life to the fullest, and still my heart cries out, yes, cries out in this hungry, tortured, wrecked quest: 'More!'" |
Fritz and the girls "seek the truth." |
Fritz invites the girls to his "pad" so they can "seek the truth," instead pulling them into
group sex in his buddy's bath tub. As more students pile into the tub, it turns into an
orgy. Two incredibly dimwitted
pig cops (one of which is voiced by director
Ralph Bakshi) show up to raid the place, chasing Fritz all the way down the street into a
synagogue. Fritz manages to get out when the various
Jews get up to celebrate the United States' decision to send more weapons into
Israel.
Fritz makes it back to his
dorm, where his
roommates ignore him. He winds up setting all of his notes and books on
fire. When he tries to put the fire out with a blanket, the blanket catches on fire. The fire spreads throughout the dorm, finally setting the entire building ablaze.
|
Duke the Crow dukes it out with a bartender. |
On the run from the law, Fritz runs into a bar dominated by blacks. He meets Duke the crow, who invites him to "bug out." The duo steal a car, and Fritz winds up driving it off a bridge. Before the car crashes into the waters and rocks below, Duke winds up saving Fritz's life.
The two arrive at an apartment owned by Bertha, a former prostitute-turned drug dealer. When Fritz arrives, she shoves several joints into his mouth. His use of marijuana increases his sex drive, and so he rushes off into an alley to have sex with Bertha the crow. While having sex with her, he comes to a supreme realization that he somehow has to help the civil rights movement.
He starts a riot, during which Duke is shot and killed, and winds up being chased by several cops. He hides in an alley where his girlfriend, Winston, shows up to find him. She drags him out on a road trip to
San Francisco, stopping at a
Howard Johnson's restaurant along the way, and disenchanting Fritz with her refusal to go to unusual places. The car runs out of gas in the middle of the desert, and Fritz decides to abandon her.
Fritz meets up with a
heroin-addicted
Neo-Nazi biker who tells Fritz that "the revolution could use a man like you." Along with the biker's horse girlfriend, Harriet, they take a ride to an underground hide-out where several other revolutionaries tell Fritz of their plan to blow up a power plant. When Harriet objects, the other revolutionaries tie her down and beat her, in the film's most brutal scene. Fritz tries to stop them, but can't. The others wind up
raping her.
The
terrorist group's leader drives Fritz to the power plant, where he plants the dynamite. The leader sets the fuse on fire and drives off before Fritz has a change of heart. He tries to get the dynamite out of its tight spot but fails. The explosion sends Fritz to the hospital, where his girlfriends show up to comfort him. He speaks what appear to be his final words before being revived and dragging the girls into a high-speed
gang bang.
Several black and white photographs taken by Bakshi appear over the end credits, many of which were used to trace the details onto the film's backgrounds.
The film's score was performed by
Ed Bogas and
Ray Shanklin. The soundtrack album was released on
Fantasy Records in 1972. The album was released on
compact disc in 1996 as part of a compilation that featured both the soundtracks to
Fritz the Cat and another Bakshi feature,
Heavy Traffic, on the same disc.
The tracklisting on the original album was:
#Black Talk (
Charles Earland)#Duke's Theme (Ray Shanklin)#Fritz the Cat (
Crumb-Bogas)#Mamblues (
Cal Tjader)#Bo Diddley (
Eugene McDaniels)#
Performed by Bo Diddley#Bertha's Theme (Shanklin)#Winston (Ed Bogas)#House Rock (Bogas-Day)#The Synagogue (Traditional, arr. Bogas)#Yesterdays (Harbach-Kern)#
Performed by Billie Holiday#Love Light of Mine (Betty Watson)#
Perfomed by The Watson Sisters#The Riot (Bogas-Saunders)#You're The Only Girl (I Ever Really Loved) (Krantz-Bogas-Shanklin)
|
The French poster for the film. |
The film was re-released in the mid-70s by
American International Pictures, who also distributed the sequel. On home video, both films were released by
Orion Home Entertainment, who had acquired the rights to the AIP film catalog. In the United States, the film is available on
DVD by
MGM Home Entertainment. In 2005,
UK distributor
Arrow Films filmed an interview segment featuring director Ralph Bakshi which was included on their three-disc
box set titled
The Fritz the Cat Collection, also featuring the sequel. The set was released in the UK only on March 27, 2006.
*
Funny animal*
List of counterculture films*
Midnight movies*
Fritz the Cat at Ralph Bakshi.com*
FUNNYWORLD REVISITED - The Filming of Fritz the Cat
