Cool and the Crazy

Plot

High School sweethearts Michael and Rosy happily marry during the 1950s, both 18. Things go along smoothly until Roslyn gets pregnant, at age 19. The bills pile up and the two grow apart from each other. Roslyn spends most of the time taking care of their child and hanging out with her best friend, Joannie, who's married to a guy named Bobby. Joannie's been cheating on her husband with a man named Frankie. Roslyn is introduced to Frankie's friend, Joey, a bad boy who's also married. Immediately, Roslyn begins an affair with Joey. At first Michael doesn't suspect anything, but when the two girl friends go out at night and come back later and later, it dawns on him that they are both having affairs. Michael works at a design company with Lorraine, who's into the The Beat and jazz scenes. One night, he goes out to have an affair with her. The next morning, however, his uptight attitudes causes him to back out of the affair when he learns that he's not her only lover. Eventually Lorraine leaves to go to New York City. At the same time, Roslyn's trying to break off her affair with Joey, but he won't give up that easily. Varied events soon escalate in violence. Joey kidnaps Roslyn, and Michael goes after them, and takes his wife back from him. Michael and Roslyn go their separate ways, and Michael hits the road.

Cast

Production

Ralph Bakshi began developing Cool and the Crazy in the late 1960s under the title If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her. United Artists and Paramount Pictures each paid Bakshi to develop the film in the 1970s, but were unwilling to produce it, as were the studios Bakshi pitched the film to in the 1980s. According to Bakshi, "They thought that no one was going to admit that women can—and do—cheat on their husbands. They thought it was too hot, which made no sense."

In 1993, Lou Arkoff, the son of Samuel Z. Arkoff, approached Bakshi to write and direct a low-budget feature for Showtime's Rebel Highway series. For the third time, Bakshi revisited his screenplay for If I Catch Her, I'll Kill Her, and retitled the film Cool and the Crazy. Other directors whose films appeared on the series included William Friedkin, Joe Dante and Robert Rodriguez. The film took its title from a 1958 exploitation film released by American International Pictures, but its plot bore no relation to the earlier film.

Reception

Variety reviewer Todd Everett wrote "the hyperdrive visual sense for which Bakshi's animated features have been noted. Everything in "Cool" [...] seems to exist in pastels and Bakshi shoots from more odd angles than any director since Sidney J. Furie in his heyday. And the closing sequences ably demonstrate how it's possible to present strong violence without any blood being shed onscreen. Bakshi pulls strong perfs from a cadre of youngish and largely unknown actors".