Dirty Duck (film)
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- For other uses of the title "Dirty Duck", see Dirty Duck.
| Dirty Duck | |
|---|---|
 DVD cover. |
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| Directed by | Charles Swenson |
| Produced by | Jerry D. Good Roger Corman (uncredited) |
| Written by | Charles Swenson |
| Starring | Howard Kaylan Mark Volman Robert Ridgely |
| Music by | Flo & Eddie |
| Distributed by | New World Pictures |
| Release date(s) | July 1974[1] |
| Running time | 70 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | US$110,000[1] |
| All Movie Guide profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Dirty Duck (aka The Down and Dirty Duck) is an adults-only animated film directed by Charles Swenson, and starring Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (Flo & Eddie) as the voices of a strait-laced blue collar worker named Willard and an unnamed duck, among other characters. The duck decides to take Willard on an adventure to try to involve him in sexual intercourse. The film went unnoticed when it was originally released, but later developed an audience as a cult film on home video and DVD.
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[edit] Plot
Lonely, sexually frustrated insurance adjuster Willard Isenbaum decides to propose to the new secretary, Susie, who he's never even spoken to, and only known for a day. He spends the entire morning before showing up for work imagining having sex with her, but his attempts to approach her fail. His female boss sends him out to investigate a claim filed by Painless Martha's, a tattoo parlor. Martha believes a message from an Ouija board that says that she will be killed by on a Tuesday.
When Willard tells her that the insurance company won't pay off her claim until her death, she dies of a heart attack. Her will stipulates that her killer will become responsible for her duck. After spending a night in jail, the duck takes Willard to a brothel. After a wild night of partying, the duo wind up in the desert where the duck dresses Willard in women's clothing in an attempt to get a ride. They are finally picked up by a trucker. Back at his apartment, Willard creates a makeshift sex toy which the duck eats. When Willard discovers that the duck is a female, he has sex with her. The next morning, Willard quits his job.
Dirty Duck is notable for its use of in-jokes. In one animation sequence, caricatures of John Lennon and Yoko Ono pop out of a toilet. In another animation sequence, Frank Zappa's face rises above our film's main characters as if it were the sun. Flo and Eddie have performed with all three artists. Another Zappa reference appears later in the film: the Duck shouts out: "I saw 200 Motels! I know who I am!"
[edit] History
Dirty Duck followed the release and success of Fritz the Cat, a film based on a character created by Robert Crumb that was also the first animated movie to receive an X rating in the United States, several animated films geared towards adults rather than children began enjoying varied success. Charles Swenson developed the film as a project for former Mothers of Invention band members Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman under the title Cheap![1] The film's production budget was $110,000.[1] According to Swenson, he created almost all of the animation himself, although publicity attributed the animation work to the Murakami-Wolf Production Company.[1]
"Cheap," "Livin' in the Jungle," and "Kama Sutra Time" later became reoccurring songs in Flo & Eddie's concert act. Live versions of all three songs were released on their 1975 LP Illegal, Immoral and Fattening, although the studio versions found in the film have never appeared on any soundtrack release. Although the film was promoted as an X-rated animated film, New World Pictures had not actually submitted it to the MPAA.[1]
[edit] Response
When the film was released, the distributor did not promote it heavily, and most reviewers disliked it.[1] According to Swenson, "it didn't have a big following...but it is still in video stores."[1] The film played for about two weeks in New York.[1] Jerry Beck wrote a review of the film that called it raunchier than Ralph Bakshi's films.[1] He went on to say:
"The animation and humor of the film is good, but the design and drawing is downright awful. It seems to be sort of a cross between Jules Feiffer and Gahan Wilson, if that can be imagined. [...] It's very similar to R. Crumb's Mr. Natural and Flakey Foont. There is no reason that the duck should be a duck. Every character in the film is human and he just seems to be a duck just to give the film a catchy title. There are some highly imaginative animated ideas here, but the film's entertainment value is at a minimum."[2]
Playboy noted that the ad for the film said, "this film has no socially redeeming value," and went on to say "well, that's dead right, yet this movie has some value as a promising X-rated cartoon in the tradition of Ralph Bakshi's Fritz the Cat.[3] The New York Times called it a "zany, lively, uninhibited, sexual odyssey that manages to mix a bit of Walter Mitty and a touch of Woody Allen with some of the innocence of Walt Disney [and the] urban smarts of Ralph Bakshi",[4] while Charles Solomon of The Los Angeles Times called it "a sprawling undiciplined piece of sniggering vulgarity that resembles nothing so much as animated bathroom graffiti. [The film is] degrading to women, blacks, Chicanos, gays, cops, lesbians, and anyone with an IQ of more than 45"[5] and Variety said that the film "has little to recommend."[6]
[edit] Accusation of plagiarism
Coincidentally, Dirty Duck was also the title of a similarly raunchy comic strip created in 1971 by Bobby London that appeared in National Lampoon magazine (and presently appears in Playboy). While the film itself isn't related to London's character or comics, the underground cartoonist claimed that the film was plagiarized from his comic strip, and that "[Robert] Crumb's lawyers, by the way, refused to help me stop these guys."[7]
[edit] References
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j Cohen, Karl F (1997). Forbidden Animation: Censored Cartoons and Blacklisted Animators in America. North Carolina: McFarland & Company, Inc.. ISBN 0-7864-0395-0.
- ^ Beck, Jerry. Review of Dirty Duck. Mindrot, no. 8, 32.
- ^ (August 1977) Review of Dirty Duck. Playboy.
- ^ (September 22, 1977) Review of Dirty Duck.. The New York Times.
- ^ Solomon, Charles (January 28, 1981). Review of Dirty Duck. The Los Angeles Times.
- ^ (July 17, 1974) Review of Dirty Duck. Variety.
- ^ London, Bobby. A Word From The Original Creator. Retrieved on 2007-01-21.
