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TOM DUPREE
Vicious
I went to see FRITZ THE
CAT over the break. I put on
my athletic undershirt and
tennis shoes and drank a
Schlitz, right from the can in
classic style, before hieing me
lienee to the feelthy movies.
To be honest, the dirtiest
thing about FRITZ THE CAT
(Cinemation, X) is the
unpardonable liberties which
filmmakers Ralph Bakshi and
Steve Krantz have taken with
Robert Crumb’s delightfully
earthy Hip Cat. Those who are
shocked at FRITZ THE CAT
needn’t be hating Crumb:
Bakshi and Krantz are the real
enemy.
AT ANY RATE, FRITZ
deserves its X-rating, and not
only berause of what the
cartoon characters say, but also
what they do. This is an hour
aod a half of calculated
grossness; the language may
not stop you (it’s no worse
than what you hear anywhere
else), and the bizarre sight of
little cartoon dogs and cats and
rabbits and snails and aardvarks
and cows and horses and
lizards doing strange things to
each other may not
particularly bother you
(though you’ll have a reaction,
eigher one or the other). Yet I
still wouldn’t feel too smug:
there are many more things to
hate about FRITZ THE CAT.
One of them, by the way, is
not the animation. The film’s
intriguing bird’s-eye views and
dutch angles are never boring,
and while they’re not so lovely
as those in YELLOW
SUBMARINE, the animation
techniques are thoughtful and
creative. Those characters
which Crumb has already
drawn on paper are faithfully
rendered as moving images, and
the new ones invented for the
movie are within Crumb’s
general style. I particularly
enjoy Crumb’s assignment of
human characteristics to the
appropriate animals: thus, a
black bar is populated with
jiving crows, a hopped-up
motorcycle freak is drawn as a
rabbit, policemen are pigs
(natch), a roomful of rabbis are
lions, a Charlie Manson-type
fellow is a snail, etc., etc.
What I think is more serious
is the awful pandering to a
hypothetical Youth Audience
- whom Krantz and Bakshi
evidently take for gibbering
fools. I must confess that the
audience which saw FRITZ
with me was disappointing,
because it absolutely busted
them up to hear a cartoon
character say something dirty
or do something obscene, no
matter how gauche and
humorless. The sheer novelty
may have been amusing at first,
but by the time this
Play boy-Party-Jokes-“humor’’
was repeated into the ground,
it was a little less hysterical to
me; I’m sorry.
CRUMB HIMSELF was so
shocked by what these men
had Fritz saying and doing
he claimed it was totally out of
character - that he sued to
have his name stricken from all
advertising, too late for the
initial posters and newspaper
ads. A friend brought a poster
from the Manhattan theatre
showing FRITZ with
Crumb’s name carefully erased
What the filmmakers do is to
take Fritz’s refreshing
devil-may-care attitude toward
life (portrayed in the first 15
Rumors
minutes of the film, lifted
almost to the letter from a
Crumb cartoon) and junk it:
The cat quits school at NYU
and goes out looking for the
Meaning of Life, only to incite
a riot at which his good friend
is brutally murdered, moving
to California and joining an
S/M blow-everything-up cult,
and in general doing all sorts of
things which are much too
heavy for Fritz the Cat to be
doing. The film even tries to
slide in a few messages along
the way.
In a real sense Fritz delivers
what is promised on the
posters: he is a New Breed Of
Cat, light-years removed from
the C rumb character which is
bringing everyone into the
theatre. FRITZ THE CAT is an
image ripoff, and it goes
downhill once Crumb’s original
storyline ends.
THE ONLY THING which
keeps the film alive, in fact, is
the animation if these lines
and situations had been done
by live actors, the producers of
FRITZ Mil CA1 would have a
nothing movie. As it is, the
drawing plods in spots,
particularly one scene in which
the background animation
starts from a pinhole in the
center of a black screen and
takes what must be thiee
minutes to slowly fill the
picture. But it’s bright enough
in general to hold your
attention. Oddly, the best (and
funniest) scenes have little or
no dialog at all: the great pool
hall scene in the Crow Bar. and
one hilarious bit in which the
junkie rabbit takes off on his
cycle over the California dunes
(to a fuzz-guitar
accompaniment a la THE
WILD ANGELS) and is
signaled back by his girlfriend
with the reflection from a
hypodermic needle the
rabbit continually has this
strung-out, know-nothing
glazed stare on his face.
As I look over this piece, I
have this sinking feeling that
I’ve wasted too much space on
FRITZ THE C AT, which is
basically a bummer. You get
this picture of middle-aged
cartoonists sweating to infer
what they consider
“relevancy,” to use an idiotic
teevee expression, upon an
animated feline who wouldn't
give a damn anyway. Crumb’s
cat is a freewheeling, hilarious
character hwose lack of
motivation and seriousness
makes him funnier, not duller.
Bakshi and Krantz seem to
have found out what’s going on
in the streets and then
fantasized from there,
imposing callousness, hardness,
furrowed brows and an
unfortunate attitude of
conformity/complacency on
Fritz. This (I) offends me
greatly, and (2) stands in the
way of what could have been a
really good time.
If FRITZ THE CAT is
nography at all, it is poor
nography. and it belongs in the
P* 11 • with SOUTHERN
COMFORTS and MIDNIGHT
PI <B()\ rather than .it the
Loew s with A CLOCKWORK
ORANGI and MIDNIGH1
COWBOY. Only if you’re a real
animation freak, or you want
to find out what Walt Disney
might have done if he were
Russ Meyer, take it in. If not,
don’t waste your time.
TheJRec^ndJJIack^Wednesda^Junt^^^T^^^^^^^^^a^^
The night spots in A thins are
offering a variety of live
entertainment.
Singer David Fox will be at
between the Hedges every night
thu week from H 30 p.m. to
midnight.
The Last Resort is providing
anger Bnan Burn nighUy beginning
at 9:30 p.m.
Wild Bill Cooksey will be
entertaining at Ireland’s through
July 1. Cooksey performs non-stop
from 8 p.m. to midnight.
Myma Rose will open tonight
st Gigi’s and perform through
Saturday. Show hours are from 8
p.m. to midnight.
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Classic City theatre-going
By ELIZABETH SHEAR
Drama editor
Summer in Athens just
might, with only a little effort,
drive you out of your ever
lovin'. But with the new
dancing ordinance just passed
and a handful of theatre tickets
there could prove to be a little
more in this town than just
another long, hot summer.
Town and Gown’s only
venture on the stage for the
next three months will be a
large and lavish production of
“Fiddler On The Roof.” If you
fancy yourself a Topol or a
Bernardi then by all means try
out for this musical, which
should be a lot of fun both in
production and participation.
Even if you’re not of the star
quality they will be looking for
skads of singers and dancers.
Do your part for better
East-West relations, nyet?
Make a date for “Fiddler” in
August.
Elsewhere in the Classic
City, the University Theatre
Summer Repertory will be
producing three plays in their
air-conditioned lab theatre in
the Fine Arts Building. July 5
through July 9 will see Neil
Simon’s hilarious “Plaza
Suite.” “House of Blue
Leaves” will be on July 11-15
and “Jimmy Shine” July
18-22. Graduate students
working on their Masters in
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Fine Arts will be directing
these plays. Showtime is 8:00
p.m. each night and tickets are
$2 at the door. SI ould promise
to be some entertaining
evenings.
ATLANTA offers a much
greater variety in theatre-going
for the summer. The Barn
Dinner Theatre provides the
eats along with the
entertainment. From June 14
through July 9 will be that
modem classic “One Flew Over
The Cuckoo's Nest,” which is
still playing in New York. The
comedy that rocked London.
“How the Other Half Loves,”
will play July 12 through the
13th of August. Their final
production, “Butterflies Are
Free,’’ will open August 16.
Dinner is at 7 p.m. and the
curtain is 8:30.
Theater of the Stars is
literally that, and offers big
names in big shows. Joel Grey,
seen currently in “Cabaret,”
will star in the musical comedy
“1776” July 11-16. Old-timer
Donald O’Conner, who danced
and sang his way into your
mother’s heart, will play in
Burt Bacharach's “Promises,
Promises," which was received
so enthusiastically in a road
show here in Athens earlier this
year. This musical will be on
July 18-23. The rest of the
TOTS season will see Jim
Nabors in a “musical
extravangaza” (July 25-30),
Barbara "I Dream of Jeanie”
Eden in “The Sound of Music”
(August 1-6), Tony Randall
and Jack Klugman recreating
their TV role’s in Neil Simon’s
“Odd Couple” (August 8-13),
and last but not least will be
the incomparable Dick Van
Dyke in a 200-year history of
musical comedy (August
15-20). TOTS guarantees to get
you out of the summer blahs.
Curtain is 8:30 p.m. with 3:00
weekend matinees.
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