Fritz the Cat (film)

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For the comic book character created by Robert Crumb, see Fritz the Cat.

Fritz the Cat
Original theatrical release poster
Directed by	Ralph Bakshi
Produced by	Steve Krantz
Written by	Ralph Bakshi
Starring	Skip Hinnant
Music by	Ed Bogas Ray Shanklin
Cinematography	Ted C. Bemiller Gene Borghi
Editing by	Renn Reynolds
Distributed by	Cinemation Industries
Release date(s)	April 12, 1972
Running time	78 minutes
Country	USA
Language	English
Budget	US$850,000[1]
Followed by	The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat
All Movie Guide profile
IMDb profile

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.^[1][2] It focuses on Fritz (voiced by Skip Hinnant), a hypocritical anthropomorphic feline in the mid-1960s who seduces many female animals in New York City while staying one step ahead of the law. The film is a satire focusing on American college life of the era, race relations, the free love movement and left and right-wing politics.^[3] Fritz the Cat was Ralph Bakshi's feature film debut. Bakshi had previously worked as an animator and director on television productions, including Mighty Mouse, Heckle and Jeckle and Spider-Man.^[4] Bakshi would continue to direct feature films until the early 1980s, including Heavy Traffic, Coonskin, Wizards and The Lord of the Rings.

The film had a troubled production history and controversial release. Creator Robert Crumb is known to have had disagreements with the filmmakers, claiming in interviews that his first wife had signed over the film rights to the characters, and that he did not approve the production.^[5][6] Crumb was also critical to the film's approach to the material. The film also gained controversy for its rating and content which viewers at the time found to be offensive. Fritz the Cat was the first independent animated film to gross more than $100 million at the box office.^[7] The film's success led to a slew of other "X rated and animated" films, and a sequel, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat, made without Crumb or Bakshi's involvement. The Online Film Critics Society ranked the film as the 51st greatest animated film of all time,^[8] and the film also landed at number 56 on Channel 4's list of the 100 Greatest Cartoons.^[9]

Contents 1 Plot 2 Background 3 Distribution and funding 4 Production 4.1 Writing 4.2 Animation 4.3 Music 5 Rating 6 Response 6.1 Crumb's response 6.2 Controversy 7 References 8 External links

[edit] Plot

The film begins with three construction workers on their lunch break. They complain that 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. In a New York City park, various hippies are gathered with guitars to sing protest songs. Fritz and his buddies show up in an attempt to meet girls. When a trio of attractive females walk by, they exhaust themselves trying to get their attention, but find that they're more interested in the crow standing a few feet away. The girls attempt to flirt with the crow, making unintentionally condescending remarks about blacks, while Fritz looks on in annoyance. Suddenly, the crow rebukes the girls with a snide remark and walks away. Fritz silently laughs at the stunned girls. After a beat, Fritz catches the girls' 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 invites one the girls to his "pad" so they can "seek the truth." When the others complain, "what about my soul, you fink?" Fritz silently comments "Hmm, four in a bed. That's a kick I haven't tried yet." He brings all three of them up to a friend's apartment where a wild party is taking place. Fritz drags the girls into the bathroom and the four of them have group sex in the tub. Meanwhile, two incredibly dimwitted pig officers show up to raid the place. As the pigs walk up the stairs, one of the partygoers finds Fritz and the girls in the bath tub. Several others show up and jump in, pushing Fritz to the side where he takes solace in marijuana. The two officers break into the apartment, but find that it's empty, as everyone has moved into the bathroom. As one of the pigs busts into the bathroom and begins to beat up the various hippies, Fritz takes refuge in the toilet. As the pig becomes exhausted, a very stoned Fritz jumps out grabs the pig's gun, and shoots out the toilet, breaking the water main, flooding everybody out of the apartment. The pigs chase 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. On the run from the law, Fritz finds himself in a bar in Harlem. He meets Duke the crow at a billiard table. After narrowly avoiding getting into a fight with the bartender, Duke invites Fritz to "bug out." The other crows in the bar laugh at Fritz's apparent non-understanding of what the phrase means. When Duke begins to steal a car, Fritz is eager to join in on performing an illegal activity. 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 "must tell the people about the revolution!" He runs off into the city street and incites 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 Schwartz, 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 Blue, a heroin-addicted Neo-Nazi biker. 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 tries to get Blue to leave, he hits her several times, and ties her down with a chain. When Fritz objects to their treatment of her, he is hit in the face with a candle. The group throws Harriet on the bed, and rapes her. In the next scene, Harriet is sitting in a graveyard, naked and traumatized. Fritz puts a coat over her and gets into a car. He and the lizard drive out to the power plant. After planting the dynamite, Fritz suddenly has a change of heart. The lizard sets the fuse on fire and drives off as Fritz tries to get the dynamite out of its tight spot and fails. The dynamite explodes, blowing up both the power plant and Fritz. At a Los Angeles hospital, Harriet and the girls that Fritz picked up in the park earlier in the film show up to comfort him. Fritz speaks what appear to be his final words before suddenly regaining his strength. Fritz grabs each of the three girls and throws them onto the bed, once again having sex with each of them as Harriet watches in surprise.

[edit] Background

Producer Steve Krantz saw potential in Ralph Bakshi's vision for animated films specifically for adults. After purchasing the production and distribution for Bakshi's 1973 feature Heavy Traffic, Krantz told Bakshi to make a film adapted from another author's work before moving on to his original work.^[10] In 1969, Krantz discovered a large paperback book containing three stories featuring Robert Crumb's anthropomorphic 1960s comic book character Fritz the Cat, whom Crumb partially based on himself.^[3]

Bakshi was initially reluctant to direct the film, because he had spent years working on animated productions featuring animal characters and had wanted to make films focusing on human characters.^[10] At first, Krantz and Bakshi had planned to use the character in a short film or a possible series of shorts, but the material was eventually made into a feature film.^[1]

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. 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.^[3] However, Crumb claims that Krantz and Bakshi approached his first wife, Dana, about purchasing the film rights to the characters, and she signed away the film rights against Crumb's wishes.^[5][6]

[edit] Distribution and funding

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,"^[3] remembers Krantz. In the spring, Warner Bros. agreed to fund and distribute the film.^[1][11] Late in November, Bakshi and Krantz made a presentation reel containing a few minutes of finished animation, pencil tests, and shots of Bakshi's storyboards to show to the studio, who wanted film stars' voices for the characters and also wanted Bakshi to tone down the material, removing the explicit sex in a scene with Fritz and Bertha. Bakshi and Krantz left, taking their project with them.^[3] The distribution and financing problems were cleared up late in 1970, when Cinemation Industries attached themselves to the project and Fantasy Records agreed to help fund the film.^[1][3]

[edit] Production

The film's voice cast includes Skip Hinnant, Rosetta LeNoire, John McCurry and Phil Seuling. Hinnant was previously known as a featured performer on The Electric Company. Bakshi himself appeared in a cameo as one of the film's comically inept pig officers,^[12] using a voice he later recreated for the part of a storm trooper in his 1977 animated science fiction film Wizards.^[13] Almost all of the film's dialogue was recorded entirely on the streets of New York City, except for a few of the main characters.^[4]

[edit] Writing

The original screenplay consisted mostly of dialog, and featured only a few changes from Crumb's stories. However, it went largely unused in favor of more experimental storytelling techniques.^[12] Throughout the production, complete storyboards were never used. According to Bakshi, "I don't like to jump ahead on my films. The way you feel about a film on Day One, you may not feel the same way forty weeks down the road. Characters grow, so I wanted to have the option to change things, and strengthen my characters... It was sort of a stream of consciousness, and a learning process for myself."^[12] Some scenes used audio recordings made by Bakshi edited to fit the scene. For instance, the scene in the synagogue uses a recording of Bakshi's father and uncles.^[14] For another scene, Bakshi went to a Harlem bar with a tape recorder and spent hours talking to black patrons, getting drunk with them as he asked them questions.^[12]

The first part of the film's story was adapted from a self-titled story first published in a 1968 issue of R. Crumb's Head Comix,^[15][12] while the second part is derived from "Fritz Bugs Out," first serialized in the February to October 1968 issues of Cavalier,^[16][12] and the final part of the story contains elements of "Fritz the No-Good," first published in the September/October 1968 issue of Cavalier.^[17] The last half of the film makes a major departure from Crumb's work. Michael Barrier describes this section of the film as being "much grimmer than Crumb's stories past that point, and far more violent."^[12]

In the film, there are two characters named "Winston" – one of which appears at the beginning of the film, and again at the end of the film, the other being Winston Schwartz. Some viewers, including Michael Barrier, note that the Winston Schwartz character, who appears prominently in "Fritz Bugs Out" and "Fritz the No-Good," never has a proper introduction in Bakshi's film, and interpreted the naming of a separate character as being an attempt by Bakshi to reconcile this, although the two characters look and sound nothing alike.^[12] However, Bakshi has explained on his official website that when he started storyboarding the film, "I got a little bit confused and started storyboarding that Winston as a hippy chick in the village. Then I started storyboarding that Winston for the later part of the film. When I screened the rushes later, I caught it, but figured there are lots of Winstons in one's life."^[18]

[edit] Animation

Much of the backgrounds were created by tracing from photographs taken by animator Johnnie Vita. Despite the film's publicity, however, not every background was taken from live-action sources.^[12] Animator Ira Turek drew the backgrounds with a Rapidograph pen—the technical pen preferred by Robert Crumb. This was done in an attempt to capture much of Crumb's style in his background drawings.^[12]

After Turek had completed a background drawing in ink on an animation cel, the drawing would be Xeroxed onto watercolor paper for Vita, and onto animation paper for the animators to use in matching the characters to the backgrounds. When Vita had finished his painting, Turek's original drawing, on the cel, would be placed over the watercolor, obscuring the Xerox lines on the painting.^[12]

One of the animators on the film was Jim Davis, who would eventually create the comic strip Garfield.^[1] Davis told Ramparts magazine in 1972 that "the purpose of this film is to lampoon our phony values. And I think we have a lot of phony values."^[19]

[edit] Music

Main article: Fritz the Cat (soundtrack)

The film's score was performed by Ed Bogas and Ray Shanklin. The film also featured songs by Cal Tjader, Bo Diddley and Billie Holiday. According to Bakshi, he bought the rights to use Holiday's performance of the song "Yesterdays" for $35.^[20] A soundtrack album was released on Fantasy Records in 1972.^[21]

[edit] Rating

Ratings
Canada (Ontario):	R
United Kingdom:	X
United States:	X

The film received an X rating from the MPAA.^[2][3] The film's distributor capitalized on the rating in the film's advertising material, which touted the film as being "X rated and animated!" According to Ralph Bakshi, "We almost didn't deliver the picture, because of the exploitation of it."^[3] According to Steve Krantz, the film lost playdates due to the rating, and 30 American newspapers rejected display ads for the film or refused to give it editorial publicity due to the X rating.^[1]

Because of the film's rating, many were led to believe that Fritz the Cat was a pornographic film. When the film was introduced at a showing at the University of Southern California as an animated porno, Bakshi stated firmly, "Fritz the Cat is not pornographic."^[3] In May 1972, Variety reported that Krantz had appealed the X rating, saying "Animals having sex isn't pornography." The MPAA refused to hear the appeal.^[1]

Before the film's release, American distributors attempted to cash in on the publicity garnered from Fritz the Cat receiving an X rating from the MPAA by rushing out dubbed versions of two adult animations from Japan, applying an X rating to the advertising material: Senya ichiya monogatari and Kureopatora, retitled One Thousand and One Arabian Nights and Cleopatra: Queen of Sex. However, neither film had been actually submitted to the MPAA, and it is believed that neither feature would have received an X rating if they had been.^[3]

[edit] Response

Critical reaction to the film was positive. Vincent Canby of The New York Times wrote that the film is "constantly funny [...] [There's] something to offend just about everyone."^[22] Paul Sargent Clark in The Hollywood Reporter called the film "powerful and audacious,"^[23] while Newsweek called it "a harmless, mindless, pro-youth saga calculated to shake up only the box office,"^[24] and The Wall Street Journal and Cue both gave the film mixed reviews.^[1] Film website Rotten Tomatoes, which compiles reviews from a wide range of critics, gives the film a score of 67%.^[25] Fritz the Cat was a box office success, and the first independent animated film to gross more than $100 million at the box office.^[7] The film, however, did not go without its share of controversy.

[edit] Crumb's response

Robert Crumb first saw the film in February 1972, during a visit to Los Angeles in the company of other underground cartoonists, and disliked the film. Crumb is quoted as saying:

"I told all of those guys, say, you know, we can see that Fritz the Cat movie while we're down here—Spain and Wilson and Robert Williams and Griffin, they were all there, at Williams' house. So I called up Bakshi and said, hey, I'm down here and I'd like to see the movie, and all the other guys are here, too. He said, okay, I'll call you and let you know tomorrow when you can see it. He called me the next morning and said he just wanted me to see it, he really didn't want those guys there. He was sure they'd hate it and put him down real bad, and he just wanted me to see it with him so that he could talk to me about it alone, and he'd feel better if just I came down by myself—he was so insistent about it. I said, well, okay, and then I hung up and I told the guys what he said. They were real pissed off and disappointed, they wanted to see it. [...] I went out and said, listen, you've gotta let those guys come, because they're really countin' on seein' it, you know, you can't tell them they can't see it. [...] So they all get in their cars, and I get in Ralph Bakshi's sports car with him, and we take off, and Bakshi tries to ditch these guys, and he can't do it. [...] [The film is] weird: it's really a reflection of Ralph Bakshi's confusion, you know. There's something real repressed about it. In a way, it's more twisted than my stuff. It's really twisted in some kind of weird, unfunny way. [...] I didn't like that sex attitude in it very much. It's like real repressed horniness; he's kind of letting it out compulsively."^[12]

Crumb also took issue with the film's condemnation of the radical left.^[3] Reportedly, Crumb filed suit to have his name removed from the film's credits. San Francisco copyright attorney Albert L. Morse claims that no suit was filed, but an agreement was reached to remove Crumb's name from the credits.^[5] However, as Crumb's name has remained in the final film since its original theatrical release,^[1] these claims are highly unlikely. Crumb later drew a comic in which the character was killed off,^[26][5] and claimed that he "wrote them a letter telling them not to use any more of my characters in their films."^[3] Crumb later said of the film:

"I barely remember the movie. It's one of those experiences I sort of block out. The last time I saw it was when I was making an appearance at a German art school in the mid-1980s, and I was forced to watch it with the students. It was an excruciating ordeal, a humiliating embarrassment. I recall Victor Moscoso was the only one who warned me, 'if you don't stop this film from being made, you are going to regret it for the rest of your life'—and he was right."^[6]

Of Crumb, Bakshi said:

"R. Crumb is a funny guy. We've spoken over the years and he was always nice to me on the phone and I'm always nice to him. I love R. Crumb, but when he does an interview he can't help taking a dig at me. If you notice, he takes a dig at everybody: his mother, his father, his brother, his sister. In other words, I don't take it seriously. That's what R. Crumb's all about. He's always pointing a finger. He did a movie that I thought that was more embarrassing to him than my Fritz the Cat was to him. I think that taught him a lesson. He took a camera to his house and shot his poor brothers and his dysfunctional family."^[27]

[edit] Controversy

Meanwhile, the film sparked negative reactions from viewers who were turned off by the film's content. Bakshi remembers, "A lot of top animators in the business took a full page ad out in Variety telling me to take my garbage back east. It was 'We of the Disney tradition resent you coming here.' This really hurt and confused me – I couldn't understand other artists telling any artists what you should or should not do. I remember not wanting to leave my office because I felt the guys animating for me felt the same way. But Irv Spence – great MGM Tom & Jerry animator – walked in my office at the end of the day and told me what I was doing was absolutely on the money, and he was having the best time of his life. Irv was as great as anyone on that Variety ad. From that moment on it became us against them. Irv was about 30 years my senior."^[28]

"A lot of people got freaked out," says Bakshi. "The people in charge of the power structure, the people in charge of magazines and the people going to work in the morning who loved Disney and Norman Rockwell, thought I was a pornographer, and they made things very difficult for me. The younger people, the people who could take new ideas, were the people I was addressing. I wasn't addressing the whole world. To those people who loved it, it was a huge hit, and everyone else wanted to kill me."^[29]

Fritz the Cat is currently available on DVD in region 1 countries from MGM Home Entertainment,^[30] and from Arrow Films in the UK.^[31] In 2003, the film was ranked at number 51 on the Online Film Critics Society's list of the top 100 greatest animated films of all time,^[8] and was placed at number 56 on Channel 4's list of the 100 Greatest Cartoons.^[9]

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Fritz the Cat at the Internet Movie Database
• Fritz the Cat at the official Ralph Bakshi website.
• Fritz the Cat at the TCM Movie Database