Barnes & Noble

Maverick director Robert Altman’s career has been a succession of hits and misses, and this 1980 musical was, according to critics, a Bluto-sized miss. Entrusted with a big-budget family film based on a beloved cartoon character, Altman chose not to compromise his style, retaining the signature overlapping dialogue and all the rest. Twenty-plus years later, on DVD -- blow me down -- there is much to recommend. This was a pioneering attempt to adapt a comic strip and cartoon universe to live-action. The seaside town of Sweethaven is a marvel of production design, and in the Altman canon, it is as cockeyed a community as the 4077th in M*A*S*H or the Presbyterian Church in McCabe & Mrs. Miller, filled with memorably quirky characters. In his first film, Robin Williams keeps his gag reflex in check as Popeye, who is searching for "me poppa," who abandoned him. The sailor man's mumbled asides are perfectly attuned to Williams' s improvisational style. And who else but Shelley Duvall could play Olive Oyl, who is engaged to the bully Bluto? As Wimpy, who would gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today, Paul Dooley's performance is a deluxe with cheese, and Wesley Ivan Hurt's Swee'pea, an infant Popeye takes under his wing, is an adorable film tyke without peer. Jules Feiffer's script could use some spinach, but Harry Nilsson's songs charm in a typically Nilsson fashion. (It's worth noting that Paul Thomas Anderson put Duvall's "He Needs Me" to endearingly quirky use in Punch-Drunk Love.) This wide-screen DVD presentation is leaps and bounds ahead of the confused VHS pan-and-scan version and will invite many critics to reconsider this quirky gem. Donald Liebenson

All Movie Guide

Based on the long-running comic strip created by E.C. Segar (and less on the animated cartoons created by Max Fleischer, which were decidedly different in tone and approach), Popeye follows the sailor man with the mighty arms (played by Robin Williams in his first major film role) as he arrives in the seaside community of Sweethaven in search of his long-lost father. Popeye meets and quickly falls for the slender Olive Oyl (Shelley Duvall, in the role she was born to play), but Olive's hand has already been promised to the hulking Bluto (Paul Smith), of whom Olive can say little except, well, he's large. Eventually, Popeye and Olive are brought together by Swee' Pea (Wesley Ivan Hurt), an adorable foundling, and Popeye finally meets his dad, Poopdeck Pappy (Ray Walston). Director Robert Altman in no way tempered his trademark style for this big-budget family opus, crowding the screen with a variety of characters and allowing his cast to overlap as much dialogue as they want. Mark Deming

Product Details

• UPC: 097360117141
• Source: PARAMOUNT
• Region Code: 1
• Presentation: Wide Screen
• Sound: Dolby Surround, Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround
• Language: English
• Subtitles: English
• Time: 1:53:00
• Sales Rank: 3,516

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