Hey Good Lookin' (film)

Hey Good Lookin'
VHS cover.
Directed by	Ralph Bakshi
Written by	Ralph Bakshi
Produced by	Ralph Bakshi
Starring	Richard Romanus David Proval Jesse Welles Tina Bowman
Edited by	Donald W. Ernst
Music by	John Madara Ric Sandler
Distributed by	Warner Bros.
Release date	October 1, 1982
Running time	77 min.
Country	Template:Film US
Language	English
Budget	$1.5 million

Hey Good Lookin' is a 1982 American animated film written, directed, and produced by Ralph Bakshi. The film takes place in Brooklyn, New York, during the 1950s and focuses on Vinnie, the leader of a gang named "the Stompers," his friend, Crazy Shapiro, and their girls, Roz and Eva. It features the voices of Richard Romanus, David Proval, Tina Bowman, and Jesse Welles.

The film was produced during the same period as Bakshi's other street life-related films Heavy Traffic and Coonskin. Hey Good Lookin' was first completed in 1975 as a live-action/animated combination, in which only the main characters were animated and the rest were portrayed by live actors. However, Warner Bros. found the concept to be unbelievable and forced the director to go back and animate the live-action sequences. Although the film's limited release went largely unnoticed by the American public, it performed respectably in foreign markets, and developed a cult following on cable television and home video.

Plot

In Brooklyn during the Eisenhower era, Vinnie (voice of Richard Romanus) serves as the leader of a gang named "the Stompers". His best friend, Crazy Shapiro (David Proval), more than lives up to his moniker. Crazy's detective father, Solly, hates his son and routinely tries to kill him. Vinnie meets and falls for Rozzie (Tina Romanus). The next day, Vinnie waits until evening for Roz to show up before leaving with Crazy for a night on the town; Roz has been chained to her bed by her father so she will not be tempted to "do anything." At the end of the night, Vinnie and Crazy go to sleep on the beach, and when they wake up the next morning, they find that themselves close to a group of showering women and their mobster husbands. While Crazy inches over to the ladies, Vinnie finds a dead body buried in the sand. The screams of Vinnie and the women alert the mobsters, who beat up Crazy.

Vinnie runs off, finding himself on the black area of the beach where he bumps into Boogaloo (Philip Michael Thomas) and his gang, the Chaplains; Vinnie sets up a rumble between their gang and the Stompers. Vinnie later meets up with Roz and the girl Crazy dates, Eva (Jesse Welles); Crazy has meanwhile killed all the mobsters. The four head out to a party, where Vinnie tells the Stompers that they are going to fight with the Chaplains, to which the gang responds negativity. Much of the gang and their girls head out to a rock and roll show. Sal (Candy Candido) and his girl have a run-in with Boogaloo while driving, and wind up in a car crash on the stage of the show. Vinnie finally persuades the Stompers to rumble with the Chaplains.

At a drive-in fast food restaurant, Vinnie and Crazy make out with their girls. When Roz spots a car that she thinks Boogaloo is in, Crazy is quick to drive off after it. Crazy ends up shooting two of the black gang members in an alley, much to Vinnie's shock. When Vinnie heads out of town, Crazy has sex with Roz on the pier. Solly investigates the death of the two black gang members. He questions Boogaloo, who tells him that he should be looking for the Stompers. Back at the pier, Solly fights with Crazy. As he is losing, Crazy tells his father that Vinnie killed the gang members. Vinnie returns in time for the rumble between the Chaplains and the Stompers. As the two gangs wait for Boogaloo to show up, Solly drives up, ready to arrest Vinnie. On the rooftop of a nearby building, Crazy begins shooting randomly towards the street, causing both gangs to begin shooting at each other, and fights against his own hallucinations—including garbage can monsters and giant naked women. Vinnie tries to run and is shot at by Solly. Crazy jumps off the rooftop, landing on Solly, killing himself and Solly at the same time. As Roz calls up a radio station to make a memorial request in honor of Vinnie's apparent demise, he stands up and walks away, leaving Brooklyn. In 1980s-era Long Island, an old man in a trench coat tells the whole story to an obese woman—the two are Vinnie and Rozzie. Vinnie tries to explain to Roz why he left, be she tells him he must prove himself.

Production

After production concluded on Harlem Nights, Bakshi wanted to distinguishing himself artistically by producing a film in which live action and animated characters would interact. Bakshi began writing the screenplay for Hey Good Lookin' while editing Coonskin, and storyboarding a proposed series for ABC. The characters of Vinnie and Crazy Shapiro were based upon Bakshi's high school friends, Norman Darrer and Allen Schechterman. Warner Bros. had previously agreed to distribute Fritz the Cat before pulling their funding from that film, but were eager to option the screenplay for Hey Good Lookin', and greenlit the film in 1973. Several African American animators, including graffiti artists, were hired by Bakshi's studio, at a time when black animators were not widely employed by major animation studios. Following controversy over the film Coonskin, some black animators left Bakshi's studio in embarrassment, resulting in production problems for Hey Good Lookin'.

Principal photography began in 1974. The budget was $1.5 million. Pre-production lasted one week, including casting. Grittier sequences were shot on the streets of New York City, while less serious locations were shot on Warner Bros.' sound stages in Los Angeles. According to Bakshi, "What I would do is dress guys up, live-action guys. Very strange dudes! The weirdest guys I could find. Having them talk to animated characters in front of candy stores, discussing girlfriends and such. It was very surrealistic." Yaphet Kotto and the glam punk band New York Dolls were cast in the live action sequences, with the New York Dolls playing homosexuals. Mean Streets actors Richard Romanus and David Proval were cast as the voices of Vinnie and Crazy Shapiro. Much of the shooting of live action sequences and recording of animated dialogue involved improvisation, with Bakshi setting up the premise of the scene and allowing his actors to create their own dialogue. During the "rumble" sequence, the actors playing the Chaplains were filmed popping and performing styles of dance which later evolved into breakdancing, dance styles which were unheard of in the 1970s studio system.

Music

Bakshi had selected a number of songs from his own record collection for the film's soundtrack, which were not used in the film due to the high costs of licensing the songs. The film was initially scored by singer Dan Hicks, who became involved with the production of the film in 1974. Because the release of the delay of the film's release, Hicks' label released the material from these sessions under the title It Happened One Bite. When the film was released in 1982, it had been rescored by John Madara. A soundtrack album was released in 2006.

Cinematography

Much of the cinematography was shot at night, because Bakshi felt that the daylight made the scenes less believable. Bakshi recounts that during the first day of shooting, the actors were unable to play their roles naturally, but began casually talking and acting the way he wanted their characters to act when the cameras were off, including flirting with an actress. However, the camera man was not around to capture these events, so Bakshi filmed them himself. When Bakshi excitedly told William A. Fraker about this, Fraker quit the production, and was replaced by a young cinematographer who had never worked in film before.

Post-production and release

During the post-production of the film, Bakshi found that the cost of the optical effect required to complete live-action scenes with animated characters was larger than the film's budget. In order to complete these scenes cost effectively, Bakshi and his camera man Ted C. Bemiller purchased a 35 mm camera to project the footage onto the glass under the animation camera, which was reflected onto where the animation was shot. The same technique was used for the rotoscoped scenes in The Lord of the Rings. According to Bakshi, "The illusion I attempted to create was that of a completely live-action film. Making it work almost drove us crazy."

A three-minute promo of the live-action version of Hey Good Lookin' was screened at the 1975 Cannes Film Festival; a print of this promo is owned by the UCLA Film and Television Archive. The film was initially scheduled for a Christmas 1975 release, but was moved to the summers of 1976 and later 1977, before ultimately being postponed indefinitely. Warner Bros. was concerned about any controversy the film would encounter controversy as a result of the backlash over the film Coonskin, despite the fact that Hey Good Lookin' did not contain any political content. The studio also felt that the film was "unreleasable" because of its combination of live-action and animation, but would not spend further money on the project. Bakshi financed the film's completion himself out of the director's fees for other projects he headed from 1976 until 1982, such as: Wizards, The Lord of the Rings, and American Pop.

Warner Bros. president Frank Wells told film trades that Hey Good Lookin' needed to be "fine-tuned", claiming that Bakshi needed to revamp the dialogue and reshoot some scenes because they had not tested well with market research audiences. During production meetings, Wells told Bakshi that he had not fufilled his contractual obligations and had used more live-action than he said he would; Bakshi's lawyer was able to convince the studio not to sue him.

The majority of the live action footage was deleted; because Bakshi wanted to keep the breakdancing sequences, he used rotoscoping to animate the footage, but did not animate all of the movements for budgetary reasons. Little dialogue from the 1974 cut of the film was retained in the animated version, which instead featured newly recorded dialogue by Proval, Romanus, and Philip Michael Thomas, who had starred in Coonskin.

Following the success of Heavy Metal and American Pop, Warner Bros. became excited about the second version of Hey Good Lookin', forming a specialty devision for the film's distribution. The film opened in New York City on October 1, 1982, and was released in Los Angeles in January 1983. Although it went largely unnoticed by the American public, it received respectable business in foreign markets.

Response

In a brief review, Vincent Canby wrote that it was "not exactly incoherent, but whatever it originally had on its mind seems to have slipped away". Animation historian Jerry Beck wrote that "the beginning of the film is quite promising, with a garbage can discussing life on the streets with some garbage. This is an example of what Bakshi did best—using the medium of animation to comment on society. Unfortunately, he doesn't do it enough in this film. There is a wildly imaginative fantasy sequence during the climax, when the character named Crazy starts hallucinating during a rooftop shooting spree. This scene almost justifies the whole film. But otherwise, this is a rehash of ideas better explored in Coonskin, Heavy Traffic, and Fritz the Cat."

Hey Good Lookin' developed a cult following through cable television airings and home video. Quentin Tarantino stated that he preferred Hey Good Lookin' to Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets. The 1974 version of the film remains unreleased, although Warner Bros. owns a complete print.

External links

• Hey Good Lookin' at IMDb
• Hey Good Lookin' at AllMovie
• Hey Good Lookin' at the official Ralph Bakshi website