djjimmyvespa Review of Fritz the Cat

Fritz the Cat (1972)

Has its moments, but it's easy to see why R.Crumb hated it.

[5/10 · 22 April 2006]

I have mixed feelings about Bakshi and Krantz's 1972 film adaptation of the Fritz the Cat books. Robert Crumb is one of my favourite underground cartoonists and satirists, and it's more than a little frustrating to see the liberties the director and producer take with his priceless characters. When the screenplay sticks closely to Crumb's original comic strips, it's fine, but every time it deviates from the source material, it falls as flat as a pancake. Bakshi, who constructed the screenplay from various Fritz stories written and drawn by Crumb between 1964 and 1968, proves himself to be rather incompetent, piecing and patching together the diverse elements with tiresome experimental sequences, dull musical interludes and downright crude sex and violence - Crumb certainly never steered clear of putting down his darkest fears and fantasies on paper, but Bakshi's scenes of a horse-woman being whipped with a motorcycle chain and Fritz chasing after a buxom female crow are embarrassingly wide of the mark. For all his excesses, Crumb knew when to exercise restraint, and Bakshi's refusal to do so is what ultimately sinks this film. There are, however, some very good scenes and the animation is occasionally brilliant, which is why the chapter select button on your DVD remote control will certainly come in useful should you decide to check this one out. The film is also remarkably truthful in its depiction of the New York City of the late sixties as it really was, with bad vibes, segregation, drugs, rape, murder and squalor as far as the eye could see. Sharp-eyed Crumb enthusiasts will also spot Av 'n' Gar (or is it the Simp and the Gimp?) and Angelfood McSpade in a couple of scenes.