Welcome to a special ladies all over Patreon exclusive. I'm Drew McQueenie and I'm joined by my esteemed co-host Scott Weinberg for what I am so excited about and I hope will be an essential commentary For the Robert Altman film,

Popeye.

I think it's safe to say that Drew and I both come at this film with a good deal of nostalgic love and what we're going to try and figure out over the course of this commentary is if there is also still practical, modern, pragmatic love. And I think it really is an underrated movie. I want to make the case for why this is 100% a Robert Altman movie. And why that is the reason it works, not just coincidentally, it's also... I'm going to make the argument that it's also one of the most visually arresting, well cast, and unique comic book adaptations ever. And even those who don't appreciate or don't love the film would probably be hard-pressed to disagree with that. One of the things that's exciting about today is that there is no commenter, filmmakers commentary for Popeye. Albin didn't do a lot of them, and this is a film that he never got around to and at this point, we won't get that commentary from him. So what we did was I tracked down a book called The Popeye Story by Bridget Terry which

is a behind the scenes book that came out in the early 80s, right when the film came out, as well as Richard Anabiles movie novel, which contains extra material, and a couple of other sources, and we've compiled some things, Scott reached out to filmmakers. Can you talk about some of those people that you talked to? yeah i uh... i i i i set out a tweet last night i was trying to look for some feedback for some people to see if uh...

what what what reached out to filmmakers? Can you talk about some of those people that you talk to? Yeah, I set out a tweet last night. I was trying to look for some feedback for some people to see if filmmakers of our approximate generation feel about the film. And I wanted complete honesty. If somebody thinks it's just bad, bad, I wanted that opinion too. We don't want it to be all just sunshine and light. If somebody has a legitimate criticism about this movie, I wanted to hear it. But turns out most of the filmmakers I asked really dig this movie and I will pepper those little comments throughout the commentary. If you're listening to this audio commentary, it's because you are a member of our Patreon subscriber base and we are ridiculously grateful a that you listen to the show and b that you are an additional subscriber. Hopefully you love this commentary, you enjoy listening to it. We're going to try and make it so that you can either watch the film along with it or if you don't have access to the film, then hopefully it'll still be fun if you're just listening in your car or jogging or perhaps kayaking. Well, we also want to ask you guys, please continue to visit 80solver.com. We also have at 80sallover.com, we have V-80s, all-over.store. And it is where you can get the movies that we've talked about on the show so far. We're in the middle of trying to reorganize that so it's easier for you to find things by month, by year. But the point is, we want you to have a a one stop place you can go and be able to

find the stuff that we're talking about because in some cases we have to really dig to track these things down. Popeye is not easily available at the moment. It's not a movie, the Paramount or Disney thinks of it as a high priority and so as a result if you want to rent it you can but you can't find it on Netflix, you can't find it easily So it does require a little bit more leg work right now and some of these films that's going to be the case

real quick will tell you how to sync this up find it on Netflix, you can't find it easily. So it does require a little bit more legwork right now.

And some of these films, that's gonna be the case.

Real quick, we'll tell you how to sync this up. The movie opens with an animated cartoon. So we'll tell you where to pause that. If you wanna go ahead and get the movie, what you're gonna try and do is sync it up when the thing begins, there's a paramount logo first the cartoon and then it cuts to pop by the sailor it says that on the screen. Use the

cut. We're going to pause on the cut. We're going to start there when we do the countdown.

It's going to be a three two. and then it cuts to pop by the sailor. It says that on the screen. Use the cut.

We're gonna pause on the cut.

We're gonna start there.

When we do the countdown, it's gonna be a three, two, one. Start. I have it paused on the screen that says pop by the sailor. When juice says three, two, one cut, I'm hitting on pause and then we're good to go for everyone. All right. So 3, 2, 1, go.

So yeah, real quick, the way this film began was not as an adaptation of Popeye. Robert Evans, who's the producer of the film, is not really typically associated with family fare. And it blows my mind that he went to a production of Annie on Broadway, where he lost mind evidently. And, you know, if you know Robert Evans, that is a weird picture to try and put your head, but he had to come to Jesus moment and he came back to LA and he was convinced that this is what they need to do. They need to make something good and innocent and young. And so they went after the rights to Annie and the auction drove the price up to over $10 million at which point Paramount dropped out. Evans felt discouraged, told Paramount he was upset, and somebody at the studio mentioned to him, well you know, we own pop by the sailor. And that is where this began its development. Yeah. And to our astute viewers who just noticed something in the credits, I believe this is the first and not and second to last time you'll ever see Paramount plus Disney Producing a film together. This was a Paramount Disney co-production after this they would go on to also collaborate on Dragon Slayer And that would pretty much represent the beginning in the end of that paramount flash Disney collaboration.

And I always thought that was interesting as a kid. I thought, wow, this movie was so expensive. You needed two studios. And you know, that's not exactly why it happened. Oh, Harry Nielsen. Any pop-eye fan has to take a moment and hold a raise their glass to the late Harry Nielsen. What a great songwriter he was Drew, with more conventional songwriters, this movie might not be the cult or the adored item that it is now. Well, that's the thing. Every piece of this film, the way it came together, was unusual and I think necessary in order for it to be the Popeye that we love. You know, the first call that Evans made after he got the rights was dust in the Hoffman who said that yes He would play the part and he'd do it and then they went to Fyfer and Fyfer was the one that Jules Fyfer you see just had the screenplay credit go by Fyfer was the one that really pushed to base this on the C.G.R. Comics not on the cartoons which were by far the better known version of pop i bet that point but like they they went to they made the decision No Alice the goon no Jeep no seahag and they they want to know special effects just people and that's why they created sea haven Which is this moment sorry to interrupt you But this moment here when they kicked the when the the the shutters open in sweet haven kicks in I It's just a great moment for me. It's like a blues brother's moment. I absolutely

love this moment. Well, it's important. And one of the things that we'll talk about over the course of this is the cast, there are no extras in this movie. There's not a single person in this film who doesn't have a fully developed cartoon character that was created by Jules Feifer, Robert Altman and the actor together, along with the costumer and everything else. They're all supposed to have different silhouettes. They're all supposed to have totally different traits.

And there's nobody in the film who is background.

Sweet Havens an entire living town and this is that introduction where we see it kind of come to life And we see how it all works together this the gentleman I'm good at trying to run through it. There's you know most people think it's olive oil It's Shelley Duval and it's Robin Williams but there are a ton of character actors that you know in this movie and you might not recognize them or you might not know their names but there is probably a dozen or more actors in this movie that we all know and love we just saw one gentleman named Paul Dooley plays wimpy he was a Robert Altman regular and throughout the 80s I'm just running through his 80s list here. It was an, oh, well, he came off breaking away in 79,

which he's brilliant in. That's the only reason he got this. They wouldn't, they wouldn't give him the part because he wasn't a name until breaking away, suddenly made him everybody wanted to hire him for everything because of the Oscar nomination. That's awesome. He was also in the 80s, he was also of course in Strange Brew, Kiss me goodbye.

Going berserk, he was the dad in 16 candles.

He uh, uh, uh, big trouble he did.

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