Heavy Traffic - Production

Production

In 1969, Ralph's Spot was founded as a division of Bakshi Productions to produce commercials for Coca-Cola and Max, the 2000-Year-Old Mouse, a series of educational shorts paid for by Encyclopædia Britannica. However, Bakshi was uninterested in the kind of animation he was producing, and wanted to produce something personal. Bakshi soon developed Heavy Traffic, a tale of inner-city street life. Steve Krantz told Bakshi that studio executives would be unwilling to fund Heavy Traffic because of its content and Bakshi's lack of film experience. Bakshi later directed Fritz the Cat, an adaptation of Robert Crumb's comic strip of the same name. The financial success of Fritz the Cat allowed Bakshi to produce the film he had always intended to produce, and to focus on human characters rather than anthropomorphic animals. Bakshi pitched Heavy Traffic to Samuel Z. Arkoff, who took an interest in Bakshi's take on the "tortured underground cartoonist", and agreed to fund the film.

Production began in 1972. However, Steve Krantz had not yet paid Bakshi for his work on Fritz the Cat. Halfway through the production of Heavy Traffic, Bakshi asked Krantz outright when he would be paid, and Krantz responded that "The picture didn't make any money, Ralph. It's just a lot of noise." Bakshi found Krantz's claims to be dubious, as the producer had recently purchased a new BMW and a mansion in Beverly Hills. Because Bakshi did not have a lawyer, he sought advice from directors he had become friends with, including Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola and Steven Spielberg, asking them how much they made on their films. Bakshi soon accused Krantz of ripping him off, which the producer denied. Bakshi began pitching his next project, Harlem Nights, a film loosely based on the Uncle Remus story books. The idea interested producer Albert S. Ruddy during a screening of The Godfather.

While working on Heavy Traffic, Bakshi received a call from Krantz, who questioned him about Harlem Nights. Bakshi told Krantz: "I can't talk about that" and hung up. The next day, Krantz locked Bakshi out of the studio, reportedly tapping Bakshi's phone because he was wary of his loyalty as an employee. After Krantz fired Bakshi, he began to seek a replacement director for Heavy Traffic, calling several directors, including Chuck Jones. Arkoff threatened to pull the film's budget unless Krantz rehired Bakshi, who returned a week later. During the film's production, Krantz attempted to maintain some level of control by issuing memos to Bakshi and other artists requesting various changes. John Sparey remembers being issued a memo asking Sparey to stop posting caricatures of Krantz on the middle of his door.

Ed Bogas and Ray Shanklin returned to write and perform the film's score, as they had done for Bakshi's previous feature, Fritz the Cat. Other music featured in the film included the songs "Twist and Shout," performed by The Isley Brothers, "Take Five," as performed by the Dave Brubeck quartet, and Chuck Berry's "Maybellene." "Scarborough Fair" is used as a recurring musical motif, first heard in the film's opening credits and later reappearing during the end of the film as performed by Sérgio Mendes and Brazil '66. Bogas also created several other arrangements of the song that appear throughout the film. A soundtrack album was released in 1973.