Fritz the Cat (1972)

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Fritz the Cat Movie Review

Fritz the Cat is a 1972 adult animated comedy film directed by Ralph Bakshi. It is his debut feature and a great example of what one should expect from this odd director.

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“You don’t know nothing about the race problem!

You’ve got to be a crow to know about the race problem!“

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The film follows the titular cat who lives in 60s New York. He tries to have sex with as many women as he can, he has various interactions with black people and eventually organizes a rebellion. Let’s first touch on the themes. Obviously, the film is thematically rich as it explores race relations, racism, leftist and rightist politics, hedonism and political consciousness. It is a strong, grounded representative of that period’s crazy life in the US.

And there lies my major gripe with this film. It tries so hard to be socially and politically relevant but it entirely fails in that regard. And I am not talking about today’s time as certainly the film should be viewed in the context of the seventies as it was much more relevant back then. I am talking about Bakshi’s unwillingness and simple failure to properly explore any of these themes as he relied so heavily on sex, violence and humor that the themes are only subdued and not explored properly. And honestly, whenever the film got serious, those were the dullest parts.

So Fritz the Cat is very much a comedy, and a highly R-rated one. It does have a lot of violence and crudeness in it. But it has the most nudity and sex of any American animated film ever leading to it feeling like a pornographic film in a way. But because the sex acts are portrayed in such a humorous, crazy fashion, the film ended up being not pornographic, but more of a hard sex comedy. And honestly, as much as I dislike that in a movie, I have to hand it to him as he truly made the bravest, most mature animated film of all time. And those sex scenes are frequently hilarious and the biggest highlight of the film.

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Let’s talk about the characters now. They really aren’t worth talking about too much as most are underdeveloped and weak. Fritz himself is memorable, but thoroughly unlikable to me personally and never at all relatable. The pig cops are amusing comedy reliefs in a way and the girls are all feeble minded.

The film is sexist as much as it is racist. Bakshi definitely portrayed the struggle of black people in his films, but he also caricatured them by portraying them as crows here. Thus this film ended up being basically a blaxploitation movie. And why people complain about the crows in ‘Dumbo’ and not about Fritz the Cat’s racism is beyond me as this is so much worse.

The animation is admittedly one of the strongest aspects of this picture. That’s because the animators faithfully brought the comic-strip visuals to the screen leading to a good, though problematic, adaptation as the author himself was appalled by it. But in my opinion, the movie’s character design is mostly strong and the highlight is its realistic take on the city with all its details and non-cartoon aesthetic and action which was certainly groundbreaking for its time.

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The score is also pretty good, though subdued a bit. The dialogue is strong, but the movie again never really presents a solution, a message or anything meaningful leading to a misguided, shallow attempt to seriously portray social issues in America of its time. So it is realistic and daring, but overall too sensational for its own sake and not sophisticated enough.

Fritz the Cat was a directorial debut for Ralph Bakshi and it’s pretty representative of his filmmaking style. This is a film which features a strong visual style and some important social and political issues of its time, but it never delves into any of those issues properly leading to a rather shallow movie. And although I found the film amusing at times, especially in the sex scenes, it relies way too much on shocking the audience with sex and violence instead of making a point, fleshing out its characters or telling a strong story.

My Rating – 3

You can get this crazy cat on Amazon through this link.