Heavy Traffic (1973)
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88% of critics liked it
(16 reviews) -
74% of users liked it
(1,821 ratings)
Heavy Traffic represents a follow-up to animator Ralph Bakshi's first feature film, Fritz the Cat (1972). The central character is Michael, the ingenuous son of an Italian father and Jewish mother. An aspiring cartoonist, Michael leaves home in a huff and outrages his family by conducting an… More Heavy Traffic represents a follow-up to animator Ralph Bakshi's first feature film, Fritz the Cat (1972). The central character is Michael, the ingenuous son of an Italian father and Jewish mother. An aspiring cartoonist, Michael leaves home in a huff and outrages his family by conducting an affair with an African-American woman. Heavy Traffic was originally intended to be a cartoon adaptation of Hubert Selby's notorious novel Last Exit to Brooklyn, but negotiations fell through, and Bakshi was obliged to cook up a similar but not identical "mean streets" plotline. (Last Exit to Brooklyn was made as a live-action film in 1989.) ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
- Directed By
- Ralph Bakshi
- Written By
- Ralph Bakshi
- Genres
- Drama, Action & Adventure, Animation, Comedy
R,
- In Theaters
- Jan 1, 1973 Wide
Critic Reviews
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Jay Cocks, TIME Magazine
Heavy Traffic not only has an authentic tenement toughness but the rough feeling of unassimilated autobiography, of experiences and fantasies still keenly felt.
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Variety Staff, Variety
There's something to offend everyone in this melange of crudely conceived, amateurishly animated stuff.
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, Time Out
The quality of the animation is cornflake packet standard, the script -- one or two minor moments excepted -- a disaster.
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Roger Greenspun, New York Times
A cruel, funny, heartbreaking love note to a city kept alive by its freaks, and always, always dying.
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Don Druker, Chicago Reader
Bakshi manages to offend nearly everyone from transvestites to mafiosi; but the comic distancing achieved by his army of animators manages to bring off a most difficult kind of humor: the humor of pain and despair.
See more critic ratings and reviews on Rotten Tomatoes
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Rotten (59% or fewer critics rated the movie positively)
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Cast
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Lillian Adams
as Rosa
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Beverly Hope Atkinson
as Carole
- John Bleifer
- Candy Candido
- Frank de Kova
- Robert Easton
- Jamie Farr
- Charles Gordone
- Kim Hamilton
- Peter Hobbs
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Joseph Kaufmann
as Michael
- Lee Weaver
- Helene Winston
- Michael Brandon
- Jim Bates
- Morton Lewis
- Jay Lawrence
- Frank DeKova
- Mary Dean Lauria
- Terri Haven
