Popeye
Tags: cult, violence, comic

Plot synopsis:
Popeye, a sailor, arrives at the small coastal town of Sweethaven ("Sweethaven—An Anthem") while searching for his long-lost father. He is immediately feared by the townsfolk simply because he is a stranger ("Blow Me Down"), and is accosted by a greedy taxman. He rents a room at the Oyl family's boarding house where the Oyls' daughter, Olive, is preparing for her engagement party. Her hand is promised to Captain Bluto, a powerful, perpetually angry bully who runs the town in the name of the mysterious Commodore. In the morning, Popeye visits the local diner for breakfast ("Everything Is Food") and demonstrates his strength as he brawls with a gang of provocative ruffians who give him and the other customers a hard time.
On the night of the engagement party, Bluto and the townsfolk arrive at the Oyls' home. Olive, however, sneaks out of the house, after discovering that the only attribute she can report for her bullying fiancé is size ("He's Large"). She encounters Popeye, who failed to fit in with the townsfolk at the party. The two eventually come across an abandoned baby in a basket. Popeye adopts the child, naming him Swee'Pea, and the two return to the Oyls' home. Bluto, however, has grown increasingly furious with Olive's absence. He realizes that she means to break off the engagement. He eventually flies into a rage and destroys the house ("I'm Mean"). When he sees Popeye and Olive with Swee'Pea, Bluto beats Popeye into submission and declares heavy taxation for the Oyls.
The taxman repossesses the remains of the Oyls' home and all their possessions. The Oyls' son, Castor, decides to compete against the local heavyweight boxer, Oxblood Oxheart, in the hopes of winning a hefty prize for his family. However, Castor is no match for Oxheart and is savagely beaten and knocked out of the ring. Popeye takes the ring in Castor's place and defeats Oxheart, putting on a show for the townsfolk and finally earning their respect. Back at home, Popeye and Olive sing Swee'Pea to sleep ("Sailin'").
The next day, Olive tells Popeye that during his match with Oxheart, she discovered that Swee'Pea can predict the future by whistling when he hears the correct answer to a question. Wimpy, the local con artist and petty gambler, overhears and asks to take Swee'Pea out for a walk, though he actually takes him to the "horse races" (actually a mechanical carnival horse game) and wins two games. Popeye, however, is outraged, and vents his frustrations to the racing parlor's customers ("I Yam What I Yam"). Fearing further exploitation of his child, Popeye moves out of the Oyls' home and onto the docks; when the taxman harasses him, Popeye pushes him into the water, prompting a celebration by the townspeople. In the chaos, Wimpy, who has been intimidated by Bluto, kidnaps Swee'Pea for him. That night, Olive remarks to herself about her budding relationship with Popeye ("He Needs Me"), while Popeye writes a message in a bottle for Swee'Pea ("Swee'Pea's Lullaby").
Wimpy sees Bluto taking Swee'Pea into the Commodore's ship; he and Olive inform Popeye. Inside, Bluto presents the boy to the curmudgeonly Commodore, promising that he is worth a fortune; however, the Commodore refuses to listen, reminding Bluto that his buried treasure is all the fortune he needs. His patience with the Commodore exhausted, Bluto ties him up and takes Swee'Pea himself ("It's Not Easy Being Me"). Popeye storms the ship and meets the Commodore, realizing that he is his father, Poopdeck Pappy. However, Pappy initially denies that Popeye is his son; to prove it, Pappy tries to feed Popeye canned spinach, which he claims is his family's source of great strength. However, Popeye hates spinach and refuses to eat it. Bluto kidnaps Olive as well and sets sail to find Pappy's treasure. Popeye, Pappy, Wimpy and the Oyl family board Pappy's ship to give pursuit. Bluto sails to Scab Island, a desolate island in the middle of the ocean, while Pappy argues with his son and rants about children ("Kids").
Popeye catches Bluto and fights him, but despite his determination, Popeye is overpowered. During the duel, Pappy recovers his treasure and opens the chest to reveal a collection of personal sentimental items from Popeye's infancy, including a few cans of spinach. A gigantic octopus awakens and attacks Olive from underwater (after Pappy saves Swee'Pea from a similar fate). With Popeye in a choke hold, Pappy throws him a can of spinach; Bluto, recognizing Popeye's dislike for spinach, force-feeds him the can before throwing him into the water. The spinach revitalizes Popeye and boosts his strength; he knocks Bluto down in one punch, then swiftly deals with the giant octopus, sending it flying hundreds of feet into the air. Bluto turns yellow and he swims away as Popeye celebrates his victory and his new-found appreciation of spinach ("Popeye the Sailor Man").

Review: This was Robin Williams first serious movie role (2 full years before Garp) and he is a brilliant Popeye.
The real star of the show, however, is the atmosphere that Altman conjures up, bringing the 2d comic strip vividly to life and setting you down in this magical little island town of Sweet Haven.
Harry Nilssons score is pitch perfect and his songs help to sketch out the characters motives and emotions ("He Needs Me", sung by Duvall, is currently being revived thanks to it's being prominently featured in PT Anderson's "Punch Drunk Love").
One more thing about this movie- I can watch it with my three year old son and we sing the songs and both enjoy it immensely.
It deserves much better than that though!Fantastic set design, great acting, high production values, strangely off kilter tunes, and just general all around weirdness make Popeye one of my favorites.
And you have to appreciate that 'Popeye' the cartoon is one of the very few that featured humans and therefore was more abstract than most.Watch it now, and see that it was well ahead of its time and now stacks up as extremely introspective: along the lines of 'Alphaville.'It had Robin Williams and Ray Walston, both famous TeeVee aliens, or so they were known at the time.
There are two movies I have seen in which every line is good and that I can watch dozens of times without becoming the slightest bit bored.
- Bluto blowing smoke from his ears) that both pay homage to the original "Popeye" and separate it as a new direction for the story.This well-known story is brought to life by the actors in it, most notably Robin Williams as Popeye and Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl.
Duvall literally transforms herself into a living cartoon, one we care about more and more as the picture runs its course."Popeye" is a great conversion, from the comic strip to cartoon to film.
She was perfect for the role.I didn't think the supporting characters were much, such as Bluto or Wimpy, but Popeye's dad, "Poopdeck Pappy," (Ray Walston) who appears late in the film is a real hoot, and little baby "Swee Pea" is cute.
I was a fan of Popeye's cartoons when a kid, and as a grown up I have become an indeclinable admirer of the films of Robert Altman, who I consider one of the greatest directors of American cinema.
This is indeed a film version of a comic-strip character, but I believe "Popeye" is mainly Altman's (and writer-cartoonist Jules Feiffer's) vision of Utopia in a town by the sea called Sweethaven, where "Flags are waving wet people from the sea, safe from democracy, sweeter than a melon tree" (lyrics to "Sweethaven", an anthem by Harry Nilsson).
For the recreation of a world where "God must love us" (Op. cit.), Wolf Kroeger created marvelous sets in Malta, photographed by Giuseppe Rotunno (the magician of light who captured so many of Fellini's clowns and buffoons), peopled with a cast giving its best and to the rhythm of simple, sweet and affectionate songs by Nilsson, that seem more than appropriate for this universe --I do not agree with negative opinions about the songs: they are in complete atonement with the spirit of the film and cartoons.
(Do you remember Olive singing "I Want a Clean, Shaven Man"?) What I find disturbing about the film is its sudden change of mood, from observation of people's strength and foibles, into an action movie.
Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl and the kid who played Swee'Pea are likewise letter perfect for their roles.One of the things I always liked about this movie is the music.
Some of the audial clutter was simply Robin Williams duplicating with uncanny accuracy the verbal ramblings and running "dialog" that Popeye always had going on in the cartoon shorts (can't imagine anyone other than him in the role).And, bits" too numerous to mention, pulled right from the cartoons, add to the fun.
The recreation of Popeye characters in this film is phenomenal!!I've always felt one of the biggest challenges in movie making is to recreate characters that are either already well-known, or ones that have been fully developed in a best-selling book.
No plot can carry a viewer along if they are aren't seeing the character they expect to see, and already love.It's hard enough to do that for a book, but for a cartoon character who's actual visual image is ingrained in the entire viewing audience, it has to be a HUGE challenge.Well, Popeye and Olive couldn't have been done better.
I've watched the movie four times now -- certain scenes, in fact, more than a dozen times -- and continue to find it funny, charming in a quirky way, true to the spirit of the Popeye cartoons, and in fact quite magical.
(Lately I've been walking around with the songs playing in my iPod; they can cheer one up in the middle of a New York crowd.) For me the best musical number is the first, the haunting and memorable "Sweethaven," when -- after those strange, dark, disturbing opening-credit shots of the lone figure of Popeye rowing his way across the dark and stormy sea -- the sun suddenly comes out and we're introduced, as on a stage set, to the population of Sweethaven as one by one the characters come trooping out of their homes..
Robin Williams does an phenomenal job as Popeye as does Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl. Everyone was so animated and comical that you couldn't help but laugh, if not chuckle.
The music is absolutely wonderful and Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall are terrific as Popeye and Olive Oyl, respectively.
The Oyls discovered also what kind of a person Bluto was so Olive called off the engagement, because like she said about him, "HE'S JUST A MEAN OLD BRUTE!" The fight scenes in the movie are hilarious.
I never liked the popeye cartoons but this movie is a treasure!.
The Popeye cartoon strip was uninteresting to me, the movie cartoons a bit of a bore, but Robert Altman has managed to take Popeye and his weird friends and compose a wonderful film.
Robin Williams is pitch perfect as the one-eyed sailor who is looking for his father; Shelly Duvall is great and looks exactly like Olive Oyl; Paul Dooley strikes the resemblance of Wimpy the hamburger eating lover and Paul L.
The film is just like the comic strips, and so life like as well about Popeye trying to look for his father, and is welcomed by the Oyles who take him in.
Things like Popeyes constant punny comments, the confusingly random splice of ludicrous characters, and the overblown fighting gags.I remember a Popeye cartoon where Popeye has to walk Olives little dog.
Personally I like the music, its catchy in its noticeably unsophisticated originality that seems to fit with the vintage, salty world of Popeye.I saw this movie in the theater as a kid, and Im not sure if I would recommend it as a kids movie.
In any event, the half-dozen or so songs come at appropriate intervals, and in some cases are Broadway quality set-piece showstoppers, like the scene in the Rough House Diner, and Pappy's diskgruntlement about Kids!I will leave it to others to comment on the all-round fine ensemble acting, but I would like to finish by saying, that this is truly a film where the whole is greater than its parts.
Williams is perfect in the title role of director Altman's adaptation of the lesser known Popeye of the comic strip, and not the character made famous in the cartoons.
It makes for quite an entertaining film with Duvall dutifully filling the shoes of Olive Oyl and Walston decked out as Popeye's long lost Pappy.
You have the horrible dubbed in voices that make Robin Williams' Popeye character sound like he was reading his lines over the phone.
Part of me wanted to like this film as I am a huge fan of the cartoon and character.
Ray Walston IS Poopdeck Pappy; Shelley Duval IS Olive Oyl, and Robin Williams, even when he struggles to hold the squint, IS Popeye.
I happen to have loved it as a kid and I love it now.Robin Williams and Shelly Duvall make a terrific Popeye and Olive Oyl. The songs were simple and fun "I would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today...".
I am not ashamed to admit it but I love Popeye, the cartoon and the movie starring the amazing Robin Williams as Popeye.
Of course, Popeye and Olive Oyl have Brutus as an obstacle to their happiness and almost the loss of Sweet Pea. It's a kind a family film too.
Recommended to fans of Popeye, Altman, Harry Nilsson, Shelly Duvall and of course Robin Williams..
But every character was casted perfectly from Robin Williams as Popeye to Ray Walston as Poop Deck pappy.
That's right, Popeye's purpose was to sell newspapers long before he hit the theaters as an animated short subject star, and this movie brings to life those characters such as Rough House the cook and Bill Barnacle the town drunk that appeared in the Thimble Town Theater strip (and then later, Popeye comic strip).
I have always been a fan of Robin Williams, and I think he did a great job playing Popeye.
Her physical resemblance to the character is incredible, but it's what she does with her voice, her walk, her eyes, and just about every single part of her being that makes her the embodiment of Olive Oyl. Finally, no review of "Popeye" would be complete without talking about the incredible soundtrack from the legendary Harry Nilsson.
Sure, the songs are not exactly noteworthy, the singing isn't the greatest (It's Sweet Haven, I'm not exactly expecting Phantom of the Opera), and a couple of performances were a little off (I can never think of Shelly Duval as anything else but Olive Oyl now).
It makes me feel like a kid every time I watch the movie..
I'm sure it's Williams' usual ad lib that he's well-known for.One particularly humorous ad lib is when he's reading a letter, with Sweet Pea in a basket in front of him, and Sweet Pea clearly says "Baby." Williams points to the letter and says, "Yes, you're a baby, it says right here!" going along with the baby's actual word (the baby was the grandson of the producer, if I remember right.)I don't normally like musicals, but I love every single song in this film, and have seen it so often that I can sing along to it.
I especially love the Sweethaven national anthem, and Popeye's little song to Sweet Pea is very endearing.See this film, over and over again, as I have..
E.C. Segar's comic strip characters Popeye the Sailor Man, his sweetheart Olive Oyl, her dejected fiancé Bluto, the hamburger-eating Wimpy, and the townspeople of Sweethaven fail to emerge in this muddled live-action adaptation, directed by Robert Altman as if he were still doing "McCabe and Mrs. Miller".
Altman, who doesn't appear to have seen any of the wildly popular Fleischer Studios cartoons which extended the comic strip, doesn't have the buoyancy for a musical-comedy, and the songs by Harry Nilsson are a leaden lot.
As Popeye, Robin Williams squints and mutters disgustedly to himself, but he simply doesn't have the material to kick this thing into high gear; Shelley Duvall fares a bit better, yet both performances are ruined by the gloppy cinematography and the scrappy editing.
I have always been a Popeye fan and the cartoons from the thirties are always fun to watch.While the acting is definitely not the best, it is a cute movie and can be enjoyed whenever it is on TV.
A fun movie is fun no matter how many times you see it.While the film is nothing compared to the wonderful cartoons of the thirties through the fifties, Popeye creates a world like none other.
Shelly Duvall actually looks like Olive Oyl. Others were well-cast, including the always excellent Ray Walston.
And Shelly Duvall even looks like Olive Oyl in just about every movie I've seen her in.
And the new characters I don't remember from the cartoon, such as Ham Gravy (also Bill Irwin's film debut) and the Taxman, are played with such finesse and creativity as to make them as memorable as that of Popeye (Robin Williams' film debut) himself.I saw it as a kid in the theater when it first came out and liked it then, then didn't see it again until I was adult with kids of my own, and loved it even more.
The Popeye movie stayed true to the slightly grotesque characters of the original cartoons -- not the overly polished 1970's version -- and that probably cost it some viewers and critics.
Although the plot is a bit silly, this movie is carefully and perfectly cast - Shelly Duvall, Robin Williams, the amazing Bill Irwin, and an early appearance by Dennis Franz as a thug.
Williams and Duvall and Smith look exactly like their cartoon characters and their acting isn't bad.
Robin Williams and Shelley DuVal really brought Popeye and Olive to life.
Smith), she falls for Popeye's charms and adapts a baby boy named SweetPea. Now Bluto wants revenge by taking his vengeance on the town since Olive dumped him as Popeye has many adventures in stopping him and trying to find his father.Entertaining and underrated live-action musical adaptation of the beloved classic cartoons and comic strip is a wonderful little surprise from Robert Altman.
Duvall and Williams were pitch perfect playing Olive and Popeye as they were the roles they were born to play, the film is truly faithful to the classic cartoons of yore.
It features a handful of fun songs by Harry Nielsen like "I'm Mean" and has a great playful sense of fun thanks to the excellent performance of Williams as the title hero.This film has gained a cult following and is one of the better live-action adaptations of a cartoon there is..
I think "He Needs Me" as sung by Shelley Duvalle is one of the best musical numbers in any movie I've seen.
Robin Williams IS Popeye in his first feature film starring role.
POPEYE was Robin Williams' first starring role in a feature film, and he inhabits the character perfectly.
If you never saw a Popeye cartoon before and seen the characters for the first time in this movie, you would have a hard time figuring out the personalities and eccentricities of each character..
I always liked Popeye Cartoons when I was a child and think Robin Williams is very talented, but as with "The Flintstones" movie, this movie fails to do the cartoon justice.
From the occasional mumbling by Popeye to himself, to the interactions of whimpy, bluto (not brutus as he was called in the 70's) and Olive.Granted the fact that it plays mostly like a musical can get some what annoying at times, mostly due to the poor songs, But the acting by R.
Maybe one day, a comedic role can get consideration for a best actor award, even if it's a local film festival award, and it's a shame Robin Williams wasn't recognized for bringing Popeye to life on the screen.
Nothing in this film that would offend, so it's great for viewing with your whole family and the Popeye characters span the generations like few icons do..
He's Popeye the Sailor Man.He's Popeye the Sailor Man.This is the story of Popeye, the pipe smoking sailor who gets his strength from the spinach and talks funny.In this movie with real people in it our hero arrives in the seaside town Sweet Haven looking for his father.There he meets all these characters including the hamburger loving Wimpy, a mean pirate Bluto and the sweet Olive Oyl, who becomes the love of his life.The late great Robert Altman is behind Popeye from 1980.The movie captures the spirit of the comic very well.The comic was created by Elzie Crisler Segar in 1929.Robin Williams is a fantastic impersonator of Popeye.And then there's the legendary Ray Walston as Poopdeck Pappy.Shelley Duvall is wonderful as Olive Oyl.Paul L.
Smith's brilliant as Bluto and so is Paul Dooley as Wimpy.There are also people like Linda Hunt (Mrs.Oxheart), Dennis Franz (Spike) and Robert Altman's grandson Wesley Ivan Hurt is Swee'pea.Popeye is filled with great musical numbers.This movie is a joyful ride into the world of Popeye..
But for those of you who are fans of the old Popeye cartoons & comic strips from the 1930s, you have to admit,however, that this movie is pretty darn faithful.
Casting was inspired- Williams is an almost perfect Popeye, Duvall was born to play Olive.
The whole tone of the film was wrong and you wonder why anyone at the time the idea was pitched thought that it could be done successfully.How about a plot?The Popeye cartoons weren't funny to start with so why would live action make them any better?If you are going to do a musical then at least have decent songs or don't bother.
The songs are funny and silly (as a Popeye movie should be) and EVERY SINGLE CHARACTER is NAILED by the actors/actresses!!
This is a good thing to have when it comes to creating a live action cartoon movie.
If that's not well planned timing, then I don't know what is!For 1980, the cartoon live action version of Popeye is done with utmost preciseness in its characters and comical elements.
Robin Williams is pitch perfect as Popeye and Shelley Duvall was born for a more seductive Olive-Oyl. Paul L.Smith is great as Bluto, and Ray Walston and Paul Dooley are solid.
A lot of fun, with Shelly Duvall a flat out fabulous Olive Oyle, Robin Williams, excellent as Popeye, Paul Dooley a great Wimpy who steals almost every scene he's in and good old Ray Walston is terrific as Popeye's dad.