Fritz the Cat (film)

Fritz the Cat is a 1972 American adult animated comedy film written and directed by Ralph Bakshi. It was Bakshi's feature film debut and is loosely based on the Fritz the Cat comic strips by Robert Crumb. It was the first animated feature film to receive an X rating in the United States.

The film stars Fritz (voiced by Skip Hinnant), an anthropomorphic cat in mid-1960s New York City who explores the ideals of hedonism and sociopolitical consciousness. The film is a satire focusing on American college life of the era, race relations, the free love movement and left-wing politics.

The film had a troubled production history and controversial release. Crumb had disagreements with the filmmakers over the film's political content. Fritz the Cat was controversial for its rating and content, which many viewers at the time found to be offensive. It was produced on a budget of $700,000 and grossed over $90 million worldwide. Its success led to a slew of other X-rated animated films and a sequel, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat (1974), made without Crumb's or Bakshi's involvement.

Plot
In the 1960s, at a New York City park, hippies have gathered with guitars to sing protest songs. Fritz, a cat, and his buddies show up in an attempt to meet girls. When a trio of attractive women walk by, Fritz and his friends exhaust themselves trying to get their attention, but find that the girls are more interested in the crow standing a few feet away. The girls attempt to flirt with the crow, making unintentionally condescending remarks about black people, while Fritz looks on in annoyance.

Suddenly, the crow rebukes the girls with a snide remark, indicates that he is gay and walks away. Fritz invites the girls to "seek the truth", bringing them up to his friend's apartment, where a wild party is taking place. Since the other rooms are crowded, Fritz drags the girls into the bathroom and the four of them have group sex in the bathtub.

Meanwhile, two bumbling police officers (portrayed as pigs) arrive to raid the party. As they walk up the stairs, one of the party-goers finds Fritz and the girls in the bath tub. Several others jump in, pushing Fritz to the side where he takes solace in marijuana. The two officers break into the apartment, but find that it is empty because everyone has moved into the bathroom. Fritz takes refuge in the toilet when one of the pigs enters the bathroom and begins to beat up the partygoers.

As the pig becomes exhausted, a very stoned Fritz jumps out, grabs the pig's gun, and shoots the toilet, causing the water main to break and flooding everybody out of the apartment. The pigs chase Fritz down the street into a synagogue. Fritz manages to escape when the congregation gets up to celebrate the United States' decision to send more weapons into Israel.

Fritz makes it back to his dormitory, where his roommates are too busy studying to pay attention to him. He decides to ditch his bore of a life and sets all of his notes and books on fire. The fire spreads throughout the dorm, finally setting the entire building ablaze. In a bar in Harlem, Fritz meets Duke the Crow at a billiard table. After narrowly avoiding getting into a fight with the bartender, Duke invites Fritz to "bug out", and they steal a car, which Fritz drives off a bridge, leading Duke to save his life by grabbing onto a railing.

The two arrive at the apartment of a drug dealer named Bertha, whose cannabis joints increase Fritz's libido. While having sex with Bertha, he comes to a 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.

Fritz hides in an alley where his older fox girlfriend, Winston Schwartz, finds him and drags him on a road trip to San Francisco. When their car runs out of gas in the middle of the desert, he decides to abandon her. He later meets up with Blue, a heroin-addicted Nazi rabbit biker. Along with Blue'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 station.

When Harriet tries to get Blue to leave with her to go to a Chinese restaurant, 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 by a member of the group. Blue and the other revolutionaries then gang-rape Harriet. After setting the dynamite at the power plant, Fritz suddenly has a change of heart, and unsuccessfully attempts to remove it before being caught in the explosion.

At a Los Angeles hospital, Harriet (disguised as a nun) and the girls from the New York park come to comfort him in what they believe to be his last moments. Fritz, after reciting the speech he used to pick up the girls from New York, suddenly becomes revitalized and has sex with the trio of girls while Harriet watches in astonishment.

Cast

 * Skip Hinnant as Fritz the Cat
 * Rosetta LeNoire as Big Bertha / Additional voices
 * John McCurry as Blue / John
 * Judy Engles as Winston Schwartz / Lizard Leader
 * Phil Seuling as Pig Cop #2 / Additional voices
 * Ralph Bakshi (uncredited) as Pig Cop #1 / Narrator
 * Mary Dean (uncredited) as Sorority Girls / Harriet
 * Charles Spidar (uncredited) as Bar Patron / Duke the Crow