1980 Directed by Robert Altman
Popeye is a super-strong, spinach-scarfing sailor man who's searching for his father. During a storm that wrecks his ship, Popeye washes ashore and winds up rooming at the Oyl household, where he meets Olive. Before he can win her heart, he must first contend with Olive's fiancé, Bluto.
Robin Williams Shelley Duvall Ray Walston Paul Dooley Paul L. Smith Richard Libertini Donald Moffat MacIntyre Dixon Roberta Maxwell Donovan Scott Allan F. Nicholls Wesley Ivan Hurt Bill Irwin Robert Fortier David McCharen Sharon Kinney Peter Bray Linda Hunt Geoff Hoyle Wayne Robson Larry Pisoni Susan Kingsley Michael Christensen Ray Cooper John E. Bristol Julie Janney Nathalie Blossom Dennis Franz Alan Autry Show All…
Sam Gemette Teresa Eckton Robert Gravenor John A. Larsen Michael Minkler Michael H. Ford Hal Sanders Bill Phillips Sam F. Shaw
Popeye - Der Seemann mit dem harten Schlag
One of the weirdest things I've ever seen. It's barely a movie. It's like Robert Altman made 3 Women and kept looking at Shelley Duvall and saying to himself "God, DAMN that woman looks like Olive Oyl" and then he couldn't get it out of his head and it gave him bad dreams and he was begging his brain, "PLEASE, stop, I don't want to make a Popeye movie!" but his brain just kept showing Shelley Duvall going "Ohhhhhh!" in a high pitched voice and finally Robert Altmans therapist told him to just make the damn thing and he did it to make the nightmares go away... It's fuckin' weird, man.
Directed by Altman, written by my boy Jules Fieffer, great nonsense songs by Harry Nilsson like "Everything is Food", lots of great physical comedy, gags, pratfalls, things of that nature, great character actors like Ray Walston, Bill Irwin, Paul Dooley, Linda Hunt, Dennis Franz and Donald Moffit, a real life cartoon village built on Malta, Shelly Duval looking more like a real cartoon character than any performance in history. An absolute joy. It's disgustapatin' how disrespected this movie was.
The closest Hollywood has ever come to Playtime. Confounding on the first 10 viewings, but fully becomes a masterpiece around viewing #50, by which time every single citizen of Sweethaven will feel like your friend. Shelley Duvall should have gone home with Mr. Oscar. The "Everything is Food" number is as good as cinema gets. The production ran out of money and so the last stretch admittedly suffers, but even when this movie isn't working it's still fun to spend time in.
The new Blu-Ray is stunning, showcasing Giuseppe Rotunno's cinematography like I've never seen before. Every shot is so full of detail that it actually hurts to watch a little.
“Popeye” is such a deranged piece of filmmaking that looking to its bizarre pedigree brings logic that the movie itself denies its audience entirely.
Of course this was a spite project from the guy who produced “Chinatown” and “The Godfather.” Of course it was.
Bob Evans - the prototypical Hollywood mogul who inspired Dustin Hoffman’s producer role in “Wag the Dog,” and (per Bob Odenkirk) the character of Saul on “Breaking Bad.” Bob Evans - the man who used questionably legal negotiating tactics through his whole career only to have it finally ended by a minor cocaine conviction.
Evan’s studio Paramount had lost a bidding war for rights to the musical “Annie,” so Evans decided on the next best cartoon…
What a strange artifact from a time before Hollywood discovered the formula to turn their intellectual property into perfectly safe box office successes. Also had no clue Robert Altman directed this. Feels less like a cartoon and more like an Altman movie than a Popeye movie probably should. The tone is weird, the characters are weird, it’s fun!
”Well, I ain’t no doctors, but I knows when I’m losing me patients.”
Have ya ever seen a spectacle so eye-poppingly bizarre you couldn’t take yer eyes off it?
I have....and I’ll see yer Cats and raise ya a Popeye.
”I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.”
What in fuck is this movie? Popeye is up there with the strangest studio movies ever made. A rambling, aimless nightmare that kind of beautifully captures the spirit and madcappery of a Fleischer animation while also relentlessly alienating the viewer. Characters repeat lines over and over. Most dialogue is muttered, meaningless, or talked over. Every action is deliberate, wobbly, and utterly bizarre. With his disgusting prosthetic arms, Robin Williams is a surprisingly excellent Popeye. Paul L. Smith is a walking horrorshow as Bluto. But Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl blows everyone out of the water. She not only looks exactly like the original character, but every movement she makes gives her the appearance of a flesh and blood cartoon. The music by Harry Nilsson, much like the rest of the film, is as jarring as it is oddly wonderful. As completely unwatchable as Popeye is, I think I love it?
1980 In Review - December
Looking for the father who deserted him as a baby, a sailor named Popeye (Robin Williams) journeys to the port town of Sweethaven. Popeye befriends an assortment of eccentrics and falls in love with Olive Oyl (Shelley Duvall), who already has a suitor, the bully Bluto. Popeye also discovers an abandoned baby, Swee'Pea, whom he raises as his own. But when the spurned Bluto kidnaps Olive and the child, Popeye takes action, with the help of his magic spinach.
Robert Altman’s Popeye is a difficult film to review, on one hand it’s a masterful adaption of a much loved classic cartoon. The production design is second to none, with the world created looking exactly like…
I can’t decide if the Altman / Disney collaboration to bring Popeye to the screen was entirely misconceived or maybe somewhat wonderful. When I first saw it when it came out, I was leaning towards the latter, but now on a re-watch, I’m perilously leaning towards the former.
I haven’t seen all the classic Altman’s, but of those I have I know that he’s a master of world and character building, and very few are as skillful with an ensemble cast. While I really wanted to love this film on a re-watch, I’m afraid that there are simply too many issues with it to continue to hold my cold cold heart.
The concept is brilliant .. I’m not a comic…
Takes a long-running and beloved cartoon property and renders it in exacting, sometimes freakishly realistic detail, with even obscure characters present and accounted for to appeal to even the most hardcore fans. Bawdy humor and some light bad language not present or possible in the original source material is added, but not so much that cool parents can't feel OK letting their kids watch the movie. Plot takes a backseat to set-pieces, jokes, gags, and an exciting mood.
Could this secretly be the most influential movie on the 21st century?
The original inflatable arms of Popeye apparently looked weird, so until new ones were made they filmed it so we couldn't see them; they also had to re-record Popeye's dialogue because he always had a pipe in his mouth, somehow forgetting that this would render his lines incomprehensible. Sometimes it feels like these things are a metaphor for the film itself, sometimes it feels like these things made it the glorious mess it is.
Never would I ever have imagined I'd be watching a movie-adaptation of Popeye that's also a musical, featuring Robin Williams in his first-ever film appearance (what a debut) and Shelley Duvall in her career decline (what a catalyst). And it certainly feels like a nightmarish fever-dream…
