Music Monday: AMERICAN POP with Ralph Bakshi Live

Rated R; 96min; Director:Ralph Bakshi (1981)  

Location: Alamo Downtown

This show is a part of the Music Monday Signature Series, Click to See More

Special director-in-attendance 35mm screening in collaboration with Austin School of Film!

Sponsored by Austin's greatest music store, End of an Ear Records, as well as our guest sponsors 107.1 KGSR, Petz MD and ABC Services.

Bakshi's animated epic follows four generations of the same family through their relationship to the pop music of their respective eras. The director's musical masterpiece starts in Czarist Russia with a boy named Zalmie, who escapes to America and starts passing out chorus slips for a penny in rollicking prohibition nightclubs. Zalmie is succeeded by a son, Benny, who complacently marries into a powerful mob family and spends his nights playing piano in all-black nightclubs. Benny leaves his harmonica to his own young son Tony, a cynical hipster who runs away from home to become a successful counterculture songwriter before getting embroiled in drug addiction. Tony's son Pete has sought him out, only to be trained in the art of drug-dealing (and inadvertently, songwriting) before Tony abandons him. All these men have had their hard knocks, but Pete is the one who decides to take his love of the music to the next level, to get out of the gutters and make something of himself.

Don't miss the rare 35mm screenings of Ralph Bakshi's WIZARDS and STREET FIGHT at the Ritz on Sunday, January 18!

Kid Policy: 18 and up; Children 6 and up will be allowed only with a parent or guardian. No children under the age of 6 will be allowed.

Screenings (click on a show time to buy tickets): No Shows Found