[Press <Play> above to jump straight to our Popeye Movie Review.]
Well, we’ve mentioned it on the show before, of course, but the film that immediately springs to mind is Robert Altman’s 1980 film Popeye, which recounts the adventures of the famous sailor man and his friends in the seaside town of Sweethaven…
Yes, you might not have been aware, but this Popeye film was a musical, having several songs interspersed throughout the narrative. And yes, Robin Williams, playing the eponymous sailor, actually sings in character, as the one-eyed, spinach-chomping, pipe-sucking mariner. (Although in this version, he’s actually reluctant to eat spinach, until force-fed by the film’s comically-mean villain Bluto.)
Now, the character of Popeye became celebrated through the mainly black-and-white cartoon series produced by Fleischer Studio between 1933 and 1942. There were 108 cartoon episodes, in total. So yes, this was a pre-World War 2 character.
And if you’ve not seen this 1980 movie version, it may have escaped you what an oddity this movie actually is, in terms of Hollywood film-making. It was a co-production between Paramount and Disney, at a time when there was a lot of interest in comic-book and superhero adaptations in Hollywood, especially given the success of Richard Donner’s landmark film Superman, starring Christopher Reeve, which had been released just 2 years earlier, in 1978.
But the somewhat inexplicable decision was made to have Popeye directed by Robert Altman, an auteur filmmaker who even back then was firmly establishing a style that could best be described as ‘individualistic’. Several of his movies were so elliptical and inaccessible in terms of narrative and dialogue, that even Altman’s supporters were often left scratching their heads.
And, sure enough, that unique cinematic signature of Altman is in abundant evidence, here in Popeye. It’s rife with his customary visual eccentricity and dense, difficult-to-understand dialogue. Some of the lyrics sung by the performers seem to have quite literally been mumbled. It’s strange, genre-banjaxing stuff, indeed. Curiously enough, the movie is often dismissed as a turkey, nowadays (note from the editor: shouldn’t that be a wet kipper?), when in fact Popeye’s critical reception at the time, whilst somewhat mixed, was largely positive.
And interestingly, this was Robin Williams first full feature-film performance, which had come off the back of his huge success in the TV show “Mork & Mindy”. So this was still some considerable time before Robin Williams was well-established as an A-List movie star. But his odd gestures and characterisation of Popeye seem to fit with the rest of the movie’s rather insistent unconventionality.
Well. Ultimately, it may not quite be a heartbreaker of a musical. But nonetheless: if you’ve visited the preserved Popeye film-set in Malta’s northern region, but not yet seen the rather bizarre film that was actually shot there, then why not give Popeye a toot of the ol’ horn, eh?
Khug-kug-kug-kug-kug-kug-kug-kug-kug-kug-kug-kug-kug!
This Popeye Movie Review was part of an episode of our movie podcast. Show Notes for this episode:
In this episode of More Than A Movie, we start by interviewing our guest, actress Steffi Thake. We next review ‘Popeye‘, Robert Altman’s (in)famous musical fantasy film from 1980, that was shot here in Malta. [jump to 10:28 above].
We then review our three main Classic Musicals to Break your Heart, for this week’s episode:
West Side Story (1961) – [jump to 14:12 above]
Oliver! (1968) – [jump to 18:28 above]
Annie (1982) – [jump to 21:31 above]
More Than A Movie is written and presented by Andrew Bonello. It was originally recorded and aired on Campus FM Radio, at the University of Malta.
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