Hey Good Lookin'

My review was written in August 1982 after a Times Square screening.

Ralph Bakshi's "Hey, Good Lookin'" is an adult-themed animated feature that successfully demonstrates the ability of the cartoon format to handle subjects generally thought of as live-action material, in this case a slice-of-life humorous character study of young people in Brooklyn, circa 1953. Shelved by Warner Bros. In 1975 while nearly completed, the final product (finished in the interim) evidences its stop-and-start history with awkward transitions and variable sound quality, but is well worth a platformed release at this time to tap the young adult audience that supports uninhibited comedy-drama.

While echoing Bakshi's own successful "Heavy Traffic", "Good Lookin'" really takes as its point of departure another WB picture, Martin Scorsese's 1973 "Mean Streets". The filmmaker even uses two of "Mean Streets"'s leading players, Richard Romanus and David Proval, to voice his main animated characters, Vinnie and Crazy, whose adventures in womanizing and gang brawling form the core of this period piece.

Bookended by an awkward flashback structure (which makes for an anticlimactic coda to the film), "Good Lookin'" succeeds in counteracting the ongoing nostalgia craze by portraying the good old days of the 1950s in New York as a violent, generally ugly time. The familiar Bakshi style uses painted backgrounds which emphasize a trash-laden, tenement look to the metropolis. In the foreground are beautifully animated grotesque characters, lampooning assorted ethnic and youth stereotypes, to the beat of unobtrusive "doo-wop" music written in the style of the early 1950s.

What makes this different from other Bakshi films (and other animated pictures as well) is the absence of fantasy or anthropomorphic animals: a down-to-earth story told strictly via animation. Though he reportedly had some live-action featured early on in the project (a la "Heavy Traffic" and "Coonskin") final version of film is strictly animated. The only fantasy segments involve (typically), garbage cans coming to life and Crazy's strange nightmare of being devoured by giant, distorted women.

What Bakshi uses his animation for is to exaggerate, giving the odd personages and their antics (familiar from subsequent vulgar exercises such as the recent hit "Porky's"), an appropriate absurity not possible in live-action. Also, the sex and profanity, abundant enough to earn an R rating, avoid the documentary representation problems (i.e., exploitative nudity in teen pics) by virtue of being animated.

Funny most of the way, "Good Lookin'" is hurt by a segue into melodrama in the later reels. Crazy lives up to his name by going nuts and shooting several members of the Black Chaplains gang. Audiences hooked up until this point will have to swallow an abrupt change of tone, but given the film's abbreviated running time this is not a fatal flaw.

Four lead characters are wonderfully etched. Vinnie, the definitive greaser, his nutty Jewish pal Crazy, the buxom neighborhood sex symbol Roz and her endlessly knoshing girlfriend Eva. The actors' vocal performances are solid, as is a pleasant musical score highlighted by the title cut. Other than some variable sound recording of the voice tracks, tech credits are good.

You remember Mean Streets- Scorsese's rough and raw and unpredictable tip of the hat to Little Italy (and, consequently, episodic though with a little plot), which was about as personal as movies could get. With Hey Good Lookin', warts and all, Bakshi has his Mean Streets. It's about two guys, Vinny and Crazy (Shapiro), who go lookin' for girls, start up a possible rumble, and just act like cool and wacky 50s Brooklynites. But to say that this is simply what it's about is nonsense; it's about mood and time, if that doesn't sound too pretentious, and about an abstract sensibility (or, if you will, an impression) of what life was like in Brooklyn hopped up with lots of rock and roll and attitude. It is, indeed, none other than a Bakshi film.

But what does this mean for those who've only seen his work from Fritz the Cat and Lord of the Rings (or, on the lower end of the spectrum though more recent, Cool World)? What may seem like chaos in a Ralph Bakshi film isn't a fault but the actual style of the piece. Everything and anything can happen in a scene, and like an early Scorsese or Cassavetes it's extremely improvisational. This might seem weird since it's animation (and sometimes folks it really is). Baskhi, however, is a delightfully unbalanced force in animation. His characters are ugly and crude and physical and filled with such puffed up cliché or (yes) stereotype via ethnicity or race or (especially) sex, that it's easy to see why some would be turned off in a second.

Hey Good Lookin' doesn't want the most amount of viewers like a Disney flick. Bakshi has a crazy means to his vision, but for those tuned in it's a deranged kind of bliss. His film is alive and wild in not just the style of drawing but in little set-ups (where else will you get a raucous sex scene in a pile of hamburgers, or a car busting through a music hall and killing the band). Sometimes the comic set-ups merely bring up some chuckles, and others are total riots. While this time Bakshi might not have the best musical accompaniment- the songs range from being slightly catchy 50s throwbacks to crappy would-be-50s-really-80's tunes- and the chaos in the storyline or specific scenes might backfire once or twice into total "what the hell is this" territory, mostly it's all good.

This is a true wildman pulling off a personal vision of a time and place with an eye for character, a knack for casting true to the setting as opposed to higher-scale talent (David Proval, also of Mean Streets, incredibly plays Crazy Shapiro), and if it's not one of his very best, it's close.

The first time I saw this film was at 3am after returning home from a bar. I had only caught the end at the time but was greatly impressed. In fact the movie had left such an impression on me that I spent a month trying to locate a copy on video cassette. This video is now among one of my most prized tapes.

The story is based around two good friends, Crazy Shapiro and Vinnie. Vinnie is the leader of a gang known as the 'Stompers'. Vinnie isn't much of a leader, and Crazy is a loose canon. The story takes us on a journey of how Vinnie dealt with his cowardly ways and how Crazy took a leap to insanity.

One of the reasons this movie has made it into my all time favorites is due to how the movie ends.

This movie like most Psychedelic cartoons is not for everybody. You will either love it or hate it.

When "Coonskin/Streetfight" caused a load of controversy and the technical specs caused difficulty, this one sat on a shelf for WAY too long.

And it may be Bakshi's best.

This was like "Heavy Traffic" but two decades earlier. Take away the 70's lingo and bring in the greasers. Ralph seems to be exorcising a rough past with his father here. Not for the first time either.

The best part of this film is the wrecking of the 50's myth. It wasn't all great economy and capitalism. The poor existed. Gangs ran rampant. And the races were at odds. This film points that out. And points again...

The autobiographical angle shows too. Both this and "Traffic" have the struggling artist character getting heat from all around him.

This was like a JD flick but VERY serious. Getting lost in that shuffle was the worst thing that could happen to it.

Go see it.

O.K. I am a big fan of cartoon movies. with live footage. This one gets goofy in some spots but very watchable.. get it on video, and give it a good chance.