POPEYE sails onto 4K UHD from Paramount

Available to purchase by clicking the image above

A Cockeyed Masterpiece Rediscovered

This has truly been the summer of rediscovering films for me. I have found myself returning to movies that I did not fully respond to the first time and discovering that, under the right circumstances, they can become something else entirely. The number one example of that for me this summer has been Robert Altman’s POPEYE.

Thanks once again must go to David Guglielmo, who keeps recommending great titles for me to revisit and review for this site. David and I have been friends for more than 20 years. I first met him during my freshman year at the School of Visual Arts, even though we never actually had a class together until second year. At the time, I had created a Facebook group called “I Have a Massive DVD Collection” because I wanted to find out who else at the school was seriously collecting physical media. David became active in the group and would tell me about the discs he owned. I quickly realized that he was the real deal and somebody I wanted to know. We have been friends ever since.

I am especially glad that I followed his recommendation on POPEYE, because this is a movie that revealed itself to me only when I watched it at the right time. Some films seem to belong to a particular season, even when they are not explicitly seasonal. I first watched POPEYE during the winter, and it simply did not connect with me. As strange as it might sound, I am now convinced that winter is the wrong time to visit Sweethaven.

Watching it again in early July, near the beginning of summer, completely changed my response. There is something about the sunlight, the sea, the docks and the weathered coastal setting that feels perfectly suited to that time of year. What had once seemed alienating suddenly felt magical.

At first, the weirdness of POPEYE almost repulsed me. Now, that weirdness is exactly what I love about it!

There is the extraordinary tactile quality of the sets, especially the sprawling village of Sweethaven constructed on location in Malta. There is Robin Williams’ bizarre, frequently under his breath mumbling. There is Shelley Duvall’s uncanny and almost impossibly accurate embodiment of Olive Oyl. There are Harry Nilsson’s songs, which are quirky, memorable and unexpectedly beautiful. Everything about the movie feels slightly crooked, but it all belongs together.

The film never behaves quite like any other big studio musical or comic strip adaptation. It feels handmade, inhabited and completely committed to its own peculiar rhythm.

Sweethaven is a living breathing fully realized community filled with overlapping voices, odd movements, visual jokes and people constantly wandering in and out of the frame. There always seems to be something happening in the background that has nothing to do with the immediate story, yet all of it contributes to the strange reality Altman creates.

I have always gone hot and cold with Robert Altman. At times, I find his looseness and tendency toward digression too unfocused. Here however, his instincts are perfectly aligned with the sensibilities of the material. The overlapping dialogue, crowded compositions and eccentric detours do not feel like distractions. They are the language of Sweethaven.

The result is what I can only describe as a cockeyed masterpiece. It is a movie made by enormously talented people following an extremely strange idea all the way to the end. It may not be perfectly shaped in a conventional sense, but attempting to make it more conventional would probably destroy the very qualities that make it special.

Robin Williams is fascinating to watch in one of his earliest major film roles, arriving after the phenomenal success of MORK AND MINDY. His Popeye is not merely a collection of vocal and physical mannerisms. Beneath the muttering, squinting and exaggerated forearms, Williams finds a genuine sweetness in the character. This Popeye is lonely, tenderhearted and searching for a place where he belongs. Even when some of his dialogue is difficult to decipher, his emotional intentions are always clear.

Shelley Duvall is equally remarkable. Calling her perfect casting almost feels inadequate. Her voice, movements, expressions and unique physical presence make it seem as if Olive Oyl has somehow stepped directly off the page. She never treats the character as a joke or a broad impersonation. She inhabits Olive completely, giving her a vulnerability and emotional sincerity that become essential to the movie’s charm. It is now difficult to imagine anyone else in the role.

Harry Nilsson’s music is another crucial part of the film’s personality. The songs resist the polished theatricality one might expect from an expensive studio musical. Characters often seem to half speak and half sing their feelings, allowing the music to emerge naturally from the peculiar world around them. The songs are funny and eccentric, but they can also be surprisingly delicate and moving. Nilsson’s music and Altman’s filmmaking operate on exactly the same unusual frequency.

My connection between Shelley Duvall and the summer goes back much further than this particular viewing. Growing up, my parents and family would bring home VHS tapes of Shelley Duvall’s Faerie Tale Theatre from our local library, often during the summer. Those productions became part of the texture of the season for me. To this day, I still enjoy revisiting PINOCCHIO, directed by Peter Medak, which remains my favorite installment.

If I remember correctly, I rediscovered POPEYE on Shelley Duvall’s birthday, which now seems strangely appropriate. Her work has always carried a sense of handmade wonder, particularly in the projects she developed for children, and that same quality is present throughout. The movie may be enormous in scale, but it never loses the intimacy of something created by people who were genuinely playing, experimenting and discovering the film as they made it.

Paramount’s new 4K presentation gives that handcrafted world an opportunity to shine. The cinematography by the great Giuseppe Rotunno looks beautiful in this transfer, particularly in the way it handles the film’s contrasting environments. The nighttime scenes have a wonderful depth, including the outdoor boxing match and the sequences along the docks. The brightly lit daytime scenes bring out the weathered colors and textures of Sweethaven, while the interiors of the restaurant and the boarding house retain their warm, crowded atmosphere.

What impressed me most was not simply the increased sharpness, but how much more fully the transfer communicates the physical presence of the production. The wood, water, costumes, painted surfaces and countless background details all contribute to the illusion that this impossible village genuinely exists. The 4K presentation does not attempt to tame the film’s strangeness. It simply gives us more room to appreciate everything that went into creating it.

The supplementary material is carried over from the previous Blu-ray release, but it remains well worth watching. The standout is Return to Sweethaven: A Look Back with Robin and the Altmans, which includes material from one of Robin Williams’ final filmed interviews. Williams describes the production as moviemaking by “alchemy,” and it is difficult to think of a more fitting description.

There were so many powerful and distinctive creative forces involved, including producer Robert Evans, director Robert Altman, cinematographer Giuseppe Rotunno, Harry Nilsson, Shelley Duvall and Robin Williams himself. Somehow, their different personalities and sensibilities combined to create something that could never be duplicated.

One of the best stories concerns the film’s ending. While the filmmakers were still trying to determine exactly how the movie should conclude, Williams jokingly suggested to Robert Evans that Popeye could walk on water. Williams was only half serious, but Evans embraced the idea, and it ended up in the finished film. It is the kind of production story that perfectly captures the spirit of the film. Even its wildest creative decisions seem to have emerged from a combination of instinct, humor, uncertainty and inspiration.

POPEYE has long been described as a cult classic, and it certainly is one, but that label now feels insufficient to me. I have come to see it as a genuine treasure of American cinema. It is a strange, charming and deeply personal studio film made on a scale that would be almost unimaginable today.

I look forward to recommending it to other people as time goes on, particularly anyone who may have been put off by it during an earlier viewing. It is also likely to become part of my regular summer rotation. Sweethaven simply feels more welcoming when the days are long, the sun is bright and summer is still filled with possibilities.

The film did not become any less strange between my first viewing and this one. I finally learned how to meet it on its own strange terms, and boy am I glad I did!