First of all, another correction: film theatres will be allowed to reopen in Portugal on the 1st of June as rectified previously, but most won't as regulations pertaining safety etc are still to be made public, not allowing for enough time for preparations, rental of new releases etc. So the big screen will take yet some more time to lit. Second, below as promised the second take on Ralph Bakshi's filmography. And as this series seems to lend itself awkwardly to The MacMahonian's usual 5 para review format, I will temporarily abandon it and write ad lib.
So on to Heavy Traffic, Ralph Bakshi's second feature film, which tells the story of young Manhattanite pinball player and wannabe cartoonist Michael Corleone (yes, you read right, I confess no knowledge of legal action in this regard) who more or less accidentally hooks up with black ex-bartender and soon-to-be prostitute Carole, while all the while cartoon sketches of a vulgar and/or splatter nature, interspersed with real-life Michael playing pinball – lame-ish device to disguise fact that film don't really have plot – unfold in what seems to purport to be a farcical portrait of seedy inner city life.
Again “adult”, again X-rated, Heavy Traffic expands and develops Bakshi's style and themes from Fritz the Cat, and although merely a year older, his animation has grown in confidence and colourfulness, this film marking his first experiment in mixing live action with animation, sporting imaginative use of negative colour footage as background to toons (pic above illustrates but doesn't do justice) and occasional hints at the emerging new cool, Harlem jive mixing with retro, e.g. a scene of Michael and Carole in a diner none other than Edward Hopper's Nighthawks at the Diner or Michael watching in cartoonland TV the Jean Harlow shower scene in Red Dust (Victor Fleming, 1932).
Else, what I wrote for Fritz goes for this film: repetitive and ultimately ineffective attempts to shock throughout smut and schlock, if marginally more cohesive, or at least less boring, than the previous film, and of relative interest as (1) documenting a further step in the development of the director's style and (2) as a (dated) period piece.