Verdict
Summary
Far cruder and crass than Ralph Bakshi’s savvy original, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat revels in its filthiness, but there’s very little to the film that is worth recommending. In many ways, I see an irredeemable movie here, and its gets grosser and scuzzier as it goes along. It’s foul, extreme, racist, and ugly, and it completely lacks the spark that made Bakshi’s original so charming.
Plot:
Fritz the cat imagines various lives through a stoned state as his wife screams at him.
Review:
Having settled down with a thoroughly unlikable wife, Fritz the cat gets stoned out of his mind while his wife screams at him and berates him for being a good for nothing miscreant. Smashed on the sofa, he imagines several former lives, each more outlandish and far out than the last. In one life, he gets drafted into Hitler’s Gestapo (as an orderly), and he’s constantly trying to avoid the führer, a one-testicle nuisance who’s always trying to rape Fritz. In another life, he spends a lot of time with the crows, and is always trying to fit in, despite failing at the culture in spectacular ways. In one life, he finds himself an aide to President Kissinger (?!), and other lives have him chasing tail in any way, shape, or form he can find. One common theme in each life seems to be that he’s desperate to cash a welfare check, which nobody is willing to do for him. At the end, he tosses away his welfare responsibilities and kisses his sad reality goodbye and finds himself single once more.
Far cruder and crass than Ralph Bakshi’s savvy original, The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat revels in its filthiness, but there’s very little to the film that is worth recommending. In many ways, I see an irredeemable movie here, and its gets grosser and scuzzier as it goes along. It’s foul, extreme, racist, and ugly, and it completely lacks the spark that made Bakshi’s original so charming. Robert Taylor, an associate of Bakishi’s on films like Wizards and Hey, Good Lookin’, took over the reigns for this film, but it’s just not even in the same ballpark.
Kino Lorber and Scorpion Releasing have just released The Nine Lives of Fritz the Cat on Blu-ray, and while it might be a necessary purchase for fans of adult animation or for fans of Bakshi-adjacent material, it doesn’t contain any special features. The transfer is good, and since the DVD from MGM has been out of print for years, this might be a good investment.
