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Its a long time since I saw the Bakshi LotR. I remember having to see it twice at the cinema as the first time the projectionist showed the reels out of sequence. Luckily I knew the story so I wasn't confused like some of the audience!
Interestingly the makers of the BBC radio adaptation which followed a couple of years later used two of the same actors - Peter Woodthorpe reprised his Gollum & Michael Graham Cox his Boromir - both to much greater effect, & certainly the movie seems to have been one of the things that lead to the series being made (other voice actors were, believe it or not, John Hurt as Aragorn & Anthony (C3PO) Daniels as Legolas). I seem to remember liking the movie, & it was nice to see my favourite book enter the consciousness of so many who didn't know it.
Peter Woodthorpe later recalled going to America to promote it & being given a rubber Gollum mask to wear! Bakshi is certainly more faithful in his adaptation than PJ was - though he took some things too literally - I seem to recall Gandalf's words about the Balrog's fall 'breaking the mountainside' being spoken over a flashback which showed the whole mountain collapsing! I have the urge to watch it again just to see how I'd feel now.
Bakshi & Saul Zaentz visited Tolkien's children in England to discuss the movie before making it & they were apparently happy with the character designs. Bakshi certainly wanted to be as faithful as possible to Tolkien's vision - he was appalled when he heard that John Boorman wanted to compress the story into a single movie & he originally wanted to make three movies (primary writer Chris Conkling wrote three seperate screenplays but amalgamated them), but was persuaded to make two at two & a half hours each. He also commented that the production office was receiving around 1500 letters a week from fans telling him he'd 'better get it right!'
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