Popeye (live-action film)

This article is about the film. For the character, see Popeye. For other meanings, see Popeye (disambiguation).

Popeye-movie-poster-1980-1020695929 — Theatrical poster (Spanish version)

Popeye is a 1980 live-action film directed by Robert Altman and adapted from the E. C. Segar Thimble Theatre aka Popeye comic strip.

Marketed with the tagline "The sailor man with the spinach can!", the film is a musical. It stars Robin Williams as Popeye and Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl.

Plot

The film begins with an animated cartoon slide of Popeye on his ship with the words "MAX FLEISCHER presents" at the top; the cartoon is Blow Me Down (1933). When the doors open, he is quick to say, "Hey! What is this, one of Bluto's tricks?! I'm in the wrong movie!"

One night in the middle of a storm, Popeye (Williams) rows his dinghy into the harbor of Sweethaven. When he arrives there, everyone seems to fear him. He rents a room at the Oyls' boarding house, where he falls for their daughter, Olive (Duvall). Olive's hand has been promised to Captain Bluto (Paul L. Smith), a bully and ruffian who is in charge of collecting taxes for the mysterious Commodore. Popeye and Bluto are quick to dislike each other and fight.

Popeye, who was orphaned at an early age, is searching for his missing father. Along the way he encounters Geezil (Richard Libertini), Wimpy (Paul Dooley), Oxblood Oxheart (Peter Bray) and a greedy, unnamed taxman (Donald Moffat). Popeye and Olive are brought together when they find Swee'Pea (Wesley Ivan Hurt), a foundling. Swee'Pea can predict the future, whistling when he hears the right answer to a question.

Popeye allows Wimpy to take Swee'Pea on a walk, but Wimpy takes him to the horse races. Wimpy uses Swee'Pea's power to find out which horse will win, incurring in Popeye and Olive's anger. Soon afterwards, Popeye throws the tax collector into the sea, making the entire town happy. With everybody in town busy celebrating Popeye, Wimpy steals Swee'Pea away under Bluto's threat and gives the infant to him who in turn gives him a hamburger. Popeye hurries to find Swee'Pea, but it is too late.

With Swee'Pea kidnapped, Popeye and Olive go looking for him. Olive and Wimpy learn that Swee'Pea had been taken to the Commodore's ship, and it transpires that the Commodore is Popeye's father, Poopdeck Pappy (Ray Walston). Bluto has betrayed and tied him up, and is going to use Swee'Pea to find Pappy's treasure. When Olive and Wimpy tell Popeye what they have discovered, Popeye deems it a joke and goes to the Commodore's ship to prove them wrong. He finds the Commodore and sees the family resemblance. He learns from his father the secret to gaining great strength from eating spinach, but states his dislike of it, infuriating Pappy.

Bluto then kidnaps Olive as well as Swee'Pea then sails to a small island on which the Commodore has said his treasure is located. He tries using Swee'Pea's predictive ability to locate the treasure while Popeye, Pappy, Wimpy and their friends chase Bluto to Pirate's Cove. Using a cannon, Pappy tries to sink Bluto's ship, but, in the end, he is forced to ram it. Olive is trapped in a tube that is then tossed in the water, as Pappy manages to get up on the cove with Swee'Pea and Popeye's friends.

Bluto and Popeye get into a sword fight. Bluto, being bigger and stronger, knocks Popeye into the water. Meanwhile, a giant octopus tries to eat Olive alive. Pappy calls to Popeye and tells him that if he ate spinach he would not be losing. Bluto attempts to add insult to injury by forcing Popeye to eat a can of spinach, then wrapping him in chains and dropping him into the water. Popeye, now with extraordinary strength, shoots up from the water and defeats Bluto with a mighty punch. He then rescues Olive using a "Twisker Sock", sending the octopus flying into the air. Now beaten, Bluto turns literally yellow and swims out to sea, never to be heard from again.

Pappy finds his treasure, containing items from Popeye's infancy, including a framed "Me Son" portrait. The characters sing "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man", while Popeye dances and falls back in the water, only to pop back up smiling. The credits then play through a scene of the cove showing Bluto still swimming out to sea.

Cast

Robin Williams as Popeye the Sailor
Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl
Ray Walston as Poopdeck Pappy
Paul Dooley as J. Wellington Wimpy
Paul L. Smith as Bluto
Richard Libertini as George W. Geezil
Donald Moffat as The Taxman
MacIntyre Dixon as Cole Oyl
Roberta Maxwell as Nana Oyl
Donovan Scott as Castor Oyl
Allan F. Nicholls as Rough House
Wesley Ivan Hurt as Swee'Pea
Bill Irwin as Ham Gravy
Robert Fortier as Bill Barnacle
David McCharen as Harry Hotcash
Sharon Kinney as Cherry
Peter Bray as Oxblood Oxheart
Linda Hunt as Mrs. Oxheart
Stan Wilson as Oscar
Geoff Hoyle as Scoop
Wayne Robson as Chizzelflint
Larry Pisoni as Chico
Carlo Pellegrini as Swifty
Klaus Voormann as Von Schnitzel the Conductor
Doug Dillard as Clem the Banjo Player
Van Dyke Parks as Hoagy the Piano Player
John E. Bristol as Bear the Hermit
Pietro Torrisi as Bolo (a bully)
Dennis Franz as Spike (a bully)
Alan Autry (credited as Carlos Brown) as Slug (a bully)
Roberto Messina as Gozo (a bully)
Hovey Burgess as Mort (a bully)
Ned Dowd as Butch (a bully)
Julie Janney as Mena Walfleur
Patty Katz as Mina Walfleur
Diane Shaffer as Mona Walfleur
Nathalie Blossom as Blossom Walfleur
Paul Zegler as Mayor Stonefeller
Pamela Burrell as Mrs. Stonefeller
Susan Kingsley as La Verne the Waitress
Michael Christensen as Splatz the Janitor
Ray Cooper as The Preacher
Noel Parenti as Slick the Milkman
Karen McCormick as Rosie the Milkmaid
Margery Bond as Daisy
Judy Burgess as Petunia
Saundra MacDonald as Violet
Eve Knoller as Min
Peggy Pisoni as Pickelina
Barbara Zegler as Daphne
David Arkin as The Mailman / Policeman
Roberto Dell'Acqua as The Chimneysweep
Valerie Velardi as Cindy the Drudge
Jack Mercer as Popeye the Sailor (animated prologue only)

Release

Popeye premiered on December 6, 1980 at the Mann's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles.

Reception

Catphoto — *Popeye* was subject to one of MAD Magazine's frequent film spoofs

The film grossed US$6,000,000 on its opening weekend in the U.S., and made US$32,000,000 after 32 days. The film earned $49,823,037 at the United States box office—more than double the film's budget—and a worldwide total of US$60,000,000.

Critical Reception

Popeye received overall mixed to negative reviews: some favorable, from critics such as Roger Ebert; but most unfavorable, from critics such as Leonard Maltin, who described the picture as "...Astonishingly boring. The beloved sailorman boards a sinking ship. A game cast does its best with an unfunny script and cluttered staging. Tune in a few hours' worth of Max Fleischer cartoons instead; you'll be much better off." Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 57% "Rotten" rating with the critical consensus stating [that] "Altman's take on the iconic cartoon is messy and wildly uneven, but its robust humor and manic charm are hard to resist."

Popeye was the subject of MAD Magazine's parody comic Flopeye.

Soundtrack

Popeye: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack is a soundtrack composed by Harry Nilsson for the movie Popeye. Harry Nilsson took a break in the middle of production of his album Flash Harry to create the music for this movie. He wrote all the original songs and co-produced the music with producer Bruce Robb at Cherokee Studios. Nilsson took his band of musicians to the island of Malta where they had a purpose-built studio constructed for them. In general, the soundtrack was unusual in that the actors sang some of the songs "live". For that reason, the studio-recorded soundtrack album did not quite match the tracks heard in the film. On the end credits, Van Dyke Parks is credited as music arranger. He also acted in the movie in the role of a piano player.

All songs written by Harry Nilsson except "I'm Popeye The Sailor Man," which was composed by Sammy Lerner for the original Max Fleischer Popeye animated cartoon.

"I Yam What I Yam" - (2:16)
"He Needs Me" - (3:33)
"Swee' Pea's Lullaby" - (2:06)
"Din' We" - (3:06)
"Sweethaven - An Anthem" - (2:56)
"Blow Me Down" - (4:07)
"Sailin'" - (2:48)
"It's Not Easy Being Me" - (2:20)
"He's Large" - (4:19)
"I'm Mean" - (2:33)
"Kids" - (4:23)
"I'm Popeye the Sailor Man" - (1:19)

Soundtrack notes

The song "Everything Is Food" was not included on the soundtrack album, while the song "Din' We", which was cut from the film, was.
The song "He Needs Me" was also featured in the film Punch-Drunk Love. Coincidentally, Punch-Drunk Love was originally released on DVD the same day as Popeye.
The song "Sweethaven - An Anthem" is the only song heard twice in the film.
The soundtrack is now available either as a digital download from music retailers such as iTunes and Amazon MP3 or as a CD-R through Amazon.com. Again, "Everything Is Food" has not been included on the soundtrack.