Popeye is the 1980 American musical comedy film directed by Robert Altman. It is a live-action film adaptation of E. C. Segar's Popeye comic strip and stars Robin Williams as Popeye the Sailor Man and Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl.
The film premiered on December 6, 1980 in Los Angeles, California, to mixed reviews and disappointing box office results. Harry Nilsson's soundtrack received mostly positive reviews.
Plot[]
A sailor named Popeye, searching for his estranged father, docks his rowboat in the small coastal town of Sweethaven ("Sweethaven—An Anthem"). He is immediately scorned by the townsfolk simply because he is a stranger ("Blow Me Down"), and is then accosted by the taxman who levels charge after charge against Popeye for the smallest things (New-in-town tax, Question tax, ad nauseum). Popeye rents a room at the Oyl family's boarding house where the Oyls' daughter, Olive, is preparing for her engagement party. Her hand has been promised to Captain Bluto, a very powerful and irascible tyrant who runs Sweethaven 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 trouble-making ruffians.
On the night of the engagement party, Bluto and the townsfolk arrive at the Oyls' home. But Olive, after discovering that the only attribute she can report for her bullying fiancé is his girth ("He's Large") sneaks out of the house and meets up with Popeye, who failed to fit in with the townsfolk at the party. The two eventually come across an abandoned basket; hearing a rattling noise from inside, Olive thinks it is a rattlesnake, but Popeye opens it up to find a infant boy playing with a rattle. He adopts the baby 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 on 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 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 hamburger-mooching 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" (a mechanical carnival game) and wins twice. The Oyls follow Wimpy to the races to scold him, but they too get the gambling bug. Popeye, however, is outraged, and vents his frustrations to the other customers ("I Yam What I Yam"). Not wanting Swee'Pea to be exploited, Popeye moves out of the Oyls' home and onto the docks. But when the taxman comes to again harass him and level more taxes, Popeye has had enough and pushes him down a long loading chute into the water, prompting a celebration by the townspeople. In the chaos, Wimpy, under duress, kidnaps Swee'Pea for Bluto. That night, after overhearing Popeye get down on himself about his failures and that Swee'Pea deserves to have a mother and a father, 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"). The next day, Wimpy and Olive try to explain to Popeye that Swee'Pea and Bluto are in the Commodore's ship. Olive tells Popeye that his father is a rat and a thief, but Popeye refuses to believe her and makes his way to the Commodore's ship.
Bluto presents the boy to the curmudgeonly (but as yet unseen) Commodore, who tries to feed the uninterested infant a spoonful of spinach, which the Commodore claims has been his family's source of great strength for thousands of years. Bluto tries to convince the Commodore that Swee'Pea is worth a fortune, but the Commodore only reminds him that his own buried treasure is all the fortune he needs. An impatient Bluto ties up the Commodore ("It's Not Easy Being Me"), kidnaps Swee'Pea, and sneaks out of the Commodore's ship just as Popeye comes in and realizes that Wimpy was right, that the Commodore is indeed Popeye's long lost father, Poopdeck Pappy, who initially denies that Popeye is his son; to prove it, Pappy tells Popeye to pick up the can of spinach and eat it, but Popeye dislikes spinach and refuses.
On the way to his ship, Bluto captures Olive, and with Swee'Pea, sets sail to find Pappy's treasure on Scab Island, a desolate rock formation in the middle of the ocean. With Wimpy and the Oyls joining them on board, Pappy and Popeye set sail in pursuit of Bluto, with Pappy complaining all the way about children ("Kids") and arguing with his son. Reaching Scab Island, Pappy, interested only in keeping Bluto from reaching his treasure, fires two shots at Bluto's ship and then rams it's midsection causing it to begin to sink. Popeye catches up with Bluto and fights him, but despite his determination, Popeye is overpowered. During the fighting, Pappy recovers his treasure and opens the chest to show Swee'Pea a collection of personal sentimental items from Popeye's childhood, including his baby shoes, a book by a Dr. Speck on "How to Raise an Orphink", and some cans of spinach.
A gigantic octopus awakens and seizes Olive from underwater just after Pappy saves Swee'Pea from a similar fate. Seeing Popeye in a choke hold by Bluto, Pappy tries to remind Popeye that spinach would keep him from losing his fight, but Popeye is in denial and still refuses to eat it, so Pappy throws him a can of spinach, but it only hits him in the head. After hearing Popeye say he hates spinach, Bluto ties him up in an anchor chain, cracks open the can and force feeds the spinach to Popeye before dropping the anchor in the water to let him drown. But to Bluto's surprise, the spinach revives Popeye and gives a major boost to his strength as he decks Bluto with one massive punch from under the surface; Popeye then rescues Olive by swiftly and similarly dispatching the giant octopus, culminating in a wind-up haymaker strike sending the octopus hurtling miles away through the air. Seeing this, Bluto, after literally turning yellow (cap, outfit and all), frantically swims out to sea as Olive and the others all celebrate Popeye's victory-- and his new-found appreciation of spinach ("Popeye the Sailor Man").
Cast[]
- Robin Williams as Popeye
- Jack Mercer as Popeye in the opening of the film
- Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl
- Paul L. Smith as Bluto
- John Wallace as Bluto's singing voice
- Paul Dooley as J. Wellington Wimpy
- Richard Libertini as George W. Geezil
- Ray Walston as Poopdeck Pappy
- 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 Harold Hamgravy
- Robert Fortier as Bill Barnacle
- David McCharen as Harry Hotcash
- Sharon Kinney as Cherry
- Peter Bray as Oxblood Oxheart
- Linda Hunt as Mrs. Oxheart
- Geoff Hoyle as Scoop
- Wayne Robson as Chizzelflint
- John Bristol as Bear
- Larry Pisoni as Chico
- Carlo Pellegrini as Swifty
- Klaus Voormann as Von Schnitzel
- Dennis Franz as Spike
- Alan Autry as Slug
Release[]
Popeye premiered at the Mann's Chinese Theater in Los Angeles on December 6, 1980, two days before what would have been E.C. Segar's 86th birthday.
Box office[]
The film grossed $6 million on its opening weekend in the U.S., and made $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 $60 million. Although the film's gross was decent, it was nowhere near the blockbuster that Paramount and Disney had expected, and was thus written off as a flop.
Critical reception[]
The film received overall mixed reviews: some favorable, from critics such as Roger Ebert; others unfavorable, from critics such as Leonard Maltin, who described the picture as a bomb: "E.C. Segar's beloved sailorman boards a sinking ship in this astonishingly boring movie. A game cast does its best with an unfunny script, cluttered staging and some alleged songs. Tune in an old Max Fleischer cartoon instead". Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a 59% "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".
Soundtrack[]
The soundtrack was composed by Harry Nilsson, who took a break from producing his album Flash Harry to write the score for the film. He wrote all the original songs and co-produced the music with producer Bruce Robb at Cherokee Studios. The soundtrack in the film was unusual in that the actors sang some of the songs "live". For that reason, the studio album did not quite match the tracks heard in the film. Van Dyke Parks is credited as music arranger.
In the U.S. trailer for the film, which contained the song "I Yam What I Yam", the version heard of the song was from the soundtrack album, not the film.
The song "Everything Is Food" was not included on the album, while the song "Din' We" (which was cut from the film) was included.
"I'm Popeye the Sailor Man" was composed by Sammy Lerner for the original Max Fleischer cartoon.
| No. | Title | Length | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. | "I Yam What I Yam" | 2:16 | |
| 2. | "He Needs Me" | 3:33 | |
| 3. | "Swee' Pea's Lullaby" | 2:06 | |
| 4. | "Din' We" | 3:06 | |
| 5. | "Sweethaven—An Anthem" | 2:56 | |
| 6. | "Blow Me Down" | 4:07 | |
| 7. | "Sailin'" | 2:48 | |
| 8. | "It's Not Easy Being Me" | 2:20 | |
| 9. | "He's Large" | 4:19 | |
| 10. | "I'm Mean" | 2:33 | |
| 11. | "Kids" | 4:23 | |
| 12. | "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man" | 1:19 |