Product Details

• Actors: Lillian Adams, Beverly Hope Atkinson, Michael Brandon, Candy Candido, Frank DeKova
• Format: Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, Digital Video Transfer, Original recording reissued, NTSC
• Language: English, Italian, Yiddish
• Rated: R (Restricted)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: MGM (Video & DVD)
• VHS Release Date: September 5, 2000
• Run Time: 76 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• ASIN: 0792846656
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #297,659 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

Heavy Traffic is writer-director Ralph Bakshi's follow-up to Fritz the Cat, so if you're looking for a little something to watch with the kids, you might want to search elsewhere. It's an odd little movie, one that seems to both condemn and celebrate depravity at the same time. The hero is Michael, an artist who still lives with his battling parents. Michael is far too sensitive for the cruel city, though he sure seems to draw an awful lot of pictures of it. Michael hooks up with cool bartender Carole and the two of them set off to... well, they plan to do something. More engaging than the story are Bakshi's visual techniques, which include blending animated and live-action sequences and layering old film clips into cartoon backgrounds. Though interesting as a piece of animation, Heavy Traffic is difficult to recommend. There is a running thread of misogyny that makes the film off-putting, to say the least. Yes, all of the characters are unpleasant and yes, most of the violence is over-the-top enough to make a case for it being comic. It is the constant, casual misogyny that's unsettling--at one point Michael backhands Carole across the face and everyone, including Carole, seems to be fine with that. Keep an ear out for Jamie Farr and watch it for the animation, not the plot. --Ali Davis

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars All the world's a TOON ...., October 15, 2000

By 

Solo Goodspeed (Granada Hills, CA United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Heavy Traffic (DVD)

I remember very well the effect this film had on me right after leaving the theater; everywhere I looked on the drive home, people looked like cartoons. In Heavy Traffic, animation artist Ralph Bakshi presents us with a look at life in the early 70s (late 60s?), city style .... and this city is gritty, not entirely pretty ....

Michael Corleone (not the only reference to other popular films of the times) scribbles away at his drawing board while his Catholic father and Jewish mother wage Armageddon outside his door. He finds comfort and release seeing the world as an absurd, psychotic cartoon. Pretty much a loner, his main connection to the outside world is a black bargirl named Carol who works right downstairs from him and slips him drinks for his entertaining sketches. An unfortunate incident with a drag queen associate costs Carol her job, and she and Michael end up out on the streets together, since he can't seem to make ANY sort of job situation come together. They form a sort of hustling alliance, with him as her pimp, and they nosedive into dark urban realms of the quick buck and the inevitable personal compromises involved.

All this is interposed with images of live city backdrops and numerous references to a pinball game. Ralph Bakshi's animated vision is a moving work of underground pop art which, despite limitations, was a groundbreaking achievement that pushed the frontiers of American animation thousands of miles. I can see the influence of this film (and Bakshi's work in general) on the likes of Matt Groening, Don Bluth, and yes, even parts of Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Heavy Traffic is dark, rude and dangerous. At times it has an almost experimental feel, moving at a stream of consciousness pace more than any conventional narrative. Its portayal of characters is raw and extreme, has an exaggerated sort of believability to it. It also has the feel of a semi-autobiography, with its portayal of a creative misfit struggling against the odds for survival, if not personal validation.

This very personal work goes places other animations of the time wouldn't even consider, was rated X at the time of its original release, and was re-released very shortly afterward in a lightly watered-down R-version. The recent DVD release appears to be a restoration of the original artwork, is a nice clean print, despite the full-frame format and mono soundtrack. It would be nice to see this touched up with a slightly refurbished soundtrack (it IS animation, after all); at the same time the compressed sound lends to the quaint sort of 70s feel to it, creating an air of nostalgia rivaling that of The Iron Giant. And these guys weren't even trying!

My appreciation for this special film has not diminished over the years; indeed, I understand it a bit more as an adult. It captures the dark, skewed out, surrealistic beauty of the urban underbelly, delivers some nasty bellylaughs, shows us the world as an oversized cartoon arcade game, and reminds us that all we can do sometimes is just keep playing that game. Even if we do end up getting our head blown off by a paraplegic midget on a skateboard. This stuff happens .......

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A little bit o' personal history..., November 6, 2006

By 

Chris W. Kientz - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Heavy Traffic (DVD)

Heavy Traffic will likely never receive the attention or respect it deserves as a piece of honest to goodness Americana. Like most of Ralph Bakshi's most personal work, it is rough hewn, obscene (though never pornogaphic) outrageous and damn honest. Along with Coonskin and Fritz the Cat, Heavy Traffic is about life in the 60's (in fact, taken together these three films form a kind of animated triptych). All three films are about revolution of one kind or another, personal or social, contain plenty of poetry, both visual and narrative and are more about life as we know it then the fantasy of life as we might wish it to be, which seems to be the standard for most animation today. Let's hope that eventually Ralph will get his due as a pioneer of animation.

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another Classic Bakshi, October 13, 2003

By 

TrezKu13 (Norfolk, VA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Heavy Traffic (DVD)

Like Fritz the Cat and Bakshi's other works, Heavy Traffic moves into city life to show the darker side of America. Bakshi once said in an interview: "If Disney was going to animate for the middle class, I was going to animate for the guy on the street." Heavy Traffic is Bakshi accomplishing that.

The film isn't just a social statement though, it also has a lot of creativity behind that. It opens with the live action version of our main character Michael playing pinball. Michael is a cartoonist, and as he asks questions to himself he slowly dives into his world...a world similar to the one he lives in now, but a caricature of themselves. Michael deals with his crazy mother, corrupt father, a relationship with a girl, and trying to get a job - a hard task as his ideas involve events such as God getting shot in the face with a shotgun.

If you were offended or put off by the brashness of "Fritz the Cat" then you should give Heavy Traffic a try. The nudity and sex is still there, but on a toned down scale. The social satire and goofy humor is still there, and that just makes it all the more a good film.

Bakshi considered this one of the top three best films he did (next to Fritz and Streetfight). It is deservedly so.