POPEYE: Blu-ray (Paramount, 1980) Paramount Home Video

He is what he is, and that’s all that he is, he’s…well…the squinty-eye and spinach-chomping, formidably forearmed sailor man, created by Elzie Crisler Segar for King Features in 1929. Long before the Incredible Hulk made muscles appealing to prepubescent boys, Popeye was flexing and fighting his way through some truly harrowing skirmishes. His loveable nature, pressed to the breaking point where a feisty fist bested a cool head, illustrated the viable separation between prudence and the punch. The Max Fleischer shorts that debuted in the mid-1930’s and carried on throughout the 1940’s solidified Popeye’s appeal with the kiddies for generations yet to follow – endlessly appealing with his politically incorrect excursions into male machismo run amok. If ever a cartoon character promoted eating healthy, it was Popeye. But not even the character’s Teflon-coated iconography could escape ridicule, collapse and misadventure on the set of Robert Altman’s Popeye (1980) a queerly unamusing, yet oddly persuasive derailment of virtually every cliché born from the age-old legend, and, starring Robin Williams and Shelley Duvall as the epitome of that eponymic scrapper and his string-bean sexpot, Olive Oyl. “Oh, Popeye!” I have only one recollection of this movie – and not a very pleasant one at that. In 1980, an aunt took me to a soon-to-be demolished old-time picture house in our downtown area for the afternoon matinee. Whether it was the heat or the contrast between the extreme darkness inside the theater and sunbaked late afternoon, I wound up with one hell of a migraine, worsened by the bumpy drive in her posh convertible back home where I promptly tossed my cookies in the driveway and was even more directly ushered off to bed by my concerned mother to sleep it off.  I was a whole of 10-years-old!

Needless to say, it was a bit of an uphill challenge for me to get my knickers in a ball for Popeye – not having cause or interest to revisit the movie since this aforementioned experience from long ago. So, it is saying something – though I am not entirely certain ‘what’ – that I found Popeye this second time around a rather mesmeric catastrophe, somehow so crass and determined to mint a (choke!) musical from the likes of this butch and burgered wonderland it nevertheless did a tap-dance inside my head, leaving me bothered to moderately intrigued. Even without my vague childhood recollection intact, Popeye remains an unmitigated, lengthy and tedious debacle. That said, I found myself compelled to see it through, spellbound by Robin Williams’ metamorphic transformation, and as intoxicated by director, Altman’s atrocious mediocrity, relating to no 3-act structure I could follow. Better still, I discovered moments – like nuggets of gold hidden in a can of spinach – where good humor prevailed over Wolf Kroeger’s tragically inflated production design, brightly photographed by cinematographer, Giuseppe Rotunno. Jules Feiffer’s screenplay is brutal – weak and straining to fine a chuckle or two that ought to have come tumbling forth between Harry Nilsson’s dense and uninspiring score (one of the worst efforts for any musical ever!). I cannot suggest what was in Altman’s head when he accepted the challenge to take this beloved figure from bygone pop culture and teleport him into the heavy-handed and ubiquitous fairy-land of the then dying realm of the Hollywood musical, well past its prime in 1980, and, all but gone to seed.

Critics of the day were actually fairly kind to Altman’s Popeye. Jointly produced by Paramount and the Walt Disney Company, Popeye was, if not a smash, then salvageable, doubling – and then some – its $20 million budget. The plot – such as it is – takes Popeye to the small coastal hamlet of Sweethaven in search of his delinquent father. Rooming at Oyl’s boarding house, Popeye becomes enamored with Olive, the daughter, engaged to Captain Bluto (Paul L. Smith), a perpetually resolute tyrant, managing Sweethaven for the mysterious Commodore. Alas, on the eve of his engagement party, Olive skulks off, meets Popeye, and discovers a babe abandoned in a basket. Popeye and Olive adopt the child they name Swee'Pea (Wesley Ivan Hurt). Regrettably, Bluto, having discovered Olive’s burgeoning affections for Popeye, elects to destroy her family, hitting the Oyls up for heavy taxation on their property. To stave off Bluto’s greedy tax man (Donald Moffatt), Popeye enters a boxing tournament and defeats the presumed champion, Oxblood Oxheart (Peter Bray). At this juncture, Popeye also realizes Swee'Pea can predict the future by whistling when he hears the correct answer to a question. Meanwhile, J. Wellington Wimpy (Paul Dooley), a perpetually hungry mooch and niggling bettor, decides to exploit Swee'Pea’s rare gift at the race track. Now, Olive and her whole family decide to get in on the action for a little quick cash.

Disgusted by their behavior, Popeye spirits Swee'Pea away. Tossing the tax man into the sea, Popeye is distracted long enough for Wimpy to kidnap Swee’Pea at Bluto’s behest. Storming the Commodore’s ship, Popeye learns Bluto is actually holding the old man hostage. Not only that, but the Commodore is really Poopdeck Pappy (Ray Walston), Popeye’s long-since estranged father. Regrettably, Bluto manages to steal away with Olive and Swee’Pea, in search of the buried treasure once promised to him by Pappy. Popeye, Wimpy and Pappy make chase, arriving at Scab Island. Popeye is momentarily defeated in his fight with Bluto. But Pappy recovers his treasure – a chest containing personal mementos from Popeye’s childhood, including a few cans of spinach.  Meanwhile, an enormous octopus is stirred to attack Olive after Pappy saves Swee'Pea from its dire clutches.  Down for the count, Pappy throws his son a can of spinach which Bluto force-feeds him before throwing Popeye into the water. The spinach provides Popeye with a burst of super-human strength and, in short order, he defeats both Bluto and the octopus. As the troop celebrate Popeye’s victory, he acknowledges a new-found appreciation for his leafy greens while Bluto, literally having ‘turned yellow’ swims for shore.

Popeye had a rough and uneven gestation, begun when Paramount lost out to Columbia Pictures for the film rights to produce a movie based on the runaway Broadway smash, Annie. Maverick producer, and Paramount CEO, Robert Evan then went head-hunting for a cartoon legend of his own that could be transformed into a big-budgeted Hollywood musical – his executive meeting yielding one viable option – Popeye.  For although King Features Syndicate held the rights to television distribution, Paramount still retained the theatrical rights to the character, thanks to all those Popeye cartoons produced by Fleischer and Famous Studios for Paramount from 1932 to 1957. So, Evans green-lit Popeye, commissioning Jules Feiffer to write the script, and dead set on casting Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin in the leads, with John Schlesinger to direct. Hoffman later dropped out, as did Tomlin and finally Schlesinger. Evans then set his sights on Gilda Radner, SNL’s most bankable and rising comedian, and, Bob Altman to direct. Radner’s agent, Bernie Brillstein protested, however, encouraging Radner to turn Evans down. She did.  At this juncture, the Walt Disney Co. exercised its prerogative to partake in a joint venture. Motivated by Disney’s drawing power in Europe, Evans agreed to this two-picture co-production agreement (the other movie in the hopper, 1981’s Dragonslayer).

Presumably for budgetary reasons, Popeye was shot on location in Malta. Alas, Wolf Kroeger’s elaborate production design, including the construction of a far more invested set for the town of Sweethaven than Altman would actually utilize for the movie, plus the added expense of constructing on site recording/editing facilities, and other amenities related to the production, caused the original budget to balloon. Almost by the hour, Feiffer was called in to rewrite scenes and dialogue, Altman firmly believing Feiffer had concentrated too much of the picture’s action of secondary characters and situations, also Nilsson’s songs, that Altman absolutely abhorred. On Popeye, Altman attempted to shoot the musical numbers live – a decision that proved cumbersome and unmanageable. When the original ‘inflatable’ prosthetics designed to bulk up Robin Williams’ arms failed to perform as planned, a new pair were commissioned out of foam rubber, made in Italy. So as not to delay production further, Altman was forced to shoot several scenes so Williams’ arms remained out of frame. Inclement weather, and almost daily clashes between Altman and Williams created costly delays, with Williams later describing the isolated shoot as ‘Stalag Altman’. The other set-back occurred when the mechanical octopus failed to perform on cue. By now, Evans had begun to break a sweat over cost overruns. Popeye had already cost the studio $20 million, was 3 weeks behind in its shooting schedule, and, was nowhere near finished. Regardless, Evans ordered Altman back to California, where Williams was recalled to dub in his dialogue, much of which proved inaudible during the live shoot.

Despite these holdups, Popeye made its Christmas premiere at the Chinese Theater and grossed a respectable $6 million on its opening weekend, raking in another $32,000,000 in just a little over a month, and eventually earning $49,823,037 in the U.S. alone. What had initially been dubbed ‘Evansgate’ – a nod to the epic implosion of Michael Cimino’s Heaven’s Gate (1980), while hardly a runaway hit, nevertheless, had done good business with the kiddie sect – enough to make back its money and then some. Nevertheless, both Paramount and Disney would regard Popeye as a disappointment, even if much of the critical response to it was unusually favorable. While many critics cited the picture for its disorganized and noisily lopsided, plot, they as much ladled their praise on the movie’s vigorous magnetism. It’s difficult, even today, to consider Popeye and outright flop. For surely, there was never an uncanny embodiment of that string-bean love interest, Olive Oyl than Shelley Duvall, nor, arguably, a better live-action incarnation of the boisterous sailor man who ignites her heart than Robin Williams. The pair do possess great chemistry. And Altman, aspiring to do more than simply regurgitate several of the animated series’ vignettes into a drawn-out live action version of something already better done in a cartoon, has added a curious wit and sophistication to the picture’s patina.

Yet, even at just under 2 hours (foreshortened to 97 min. for its U.K. general release), Popeye seems too ‘long’; the story – dragging, the songs – dragging down the plot for the count, and, long before its runtime has expired. Altman’s style, at intervals, plays as a denunciation of these beloved characters – against their simple pleasures – with Altman appearing too showy for his own good. Despite solid performances from Williams and Duvall, no character in this cast ever matures beyond the cardboard cutout stage, relegated instead to an impressively stylized, but relatively sluggish dumb show. While there are moments where Altman and his company rise above Feiffer’s sloppy mess of a screenplay to offer something more substantial – practically via osmosis – the net result remains a haphazard twaddle, seldom characterless, but almost always less than totally rewarding as pure entertainment.  The idiosyncratic behavior of Popeye himself pervades to the point of tainting everything around it. The bloom is off the whimsy here. Despite some lively moments scattered throughout the proscenium, Altman’s musical fable is a cursorily stitched together clutter of people, places, and things, all well-placed, yet somehow incapable of finding their own place in which to truly shine. And Altman, aspiring to will a living cartoon from these caricatures, has instead bled them dry of their emotional epochs. In the end, Popeye is a picture perversely off kilter and very much uneventful, almost from the first frame to its last.

Paramount's new to Blu of Popeye is adequate, though hardly outstanding. Clearly, this one is derived from an older image harvest. While imminently watchable, it’s not quite the stunner it ought to have been in hi-def. Colors are mostly robust, with dense saturation levels.  Fine detail is pleasing, though not nearly as refined, while film grain can appear clumpier than normal at times, or sani-scrubbed altogether. Blu-ray’s resolution has augmented the meticulously nuanced production design to the nth degree. Light speckling persists, as do minor age-related artifacts, cropping up now and then.  The movie is dominated by a beige/gray pallet, with occasional bursts of red that are nicely represented here. There is no black crush, and shadow delineation looks fairly solid. Paramount has also favored us with a 5.1 DTS audio that is fairly impressive, given the limitations of sound recording then, and also, Altman’s verve for recording much of the dialogue live. If anything, the Nilsson score, hardly a winner, nevertheless, sounds hearty and clean, while atmospheric SFX like the rolling surf or screeching seagulls adding ambiance to this mostly dialogue-driven soundtrack. We get 4 featurettes created for the DVD release; at just over 10 min., Return to Sweethaven, with Robin Williams and Bob Altman, being the most ‘comprehensive’. Cumulatively, the featurettes total just under a half-hour. There is also a chapter selection menu for the songs, and a short trailer to advertise the movie. Bottom line: Popeye will never be a classic. Despite the integrity of the cast and Altman’s participation, the picture remains a hiccup in everyone’s respective career. It ought to have been a better movie. Rather dishearteningly, it isn’t. The Blu is adequate, though not exceptional. Judge and buy accordingly.

FILM RATING (out of 5 – 5 being the best)

2.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

3.5

EXTRAS

2