NFR Project: 'Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor' (1936)

 

NFR Project: ‘Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor’

Dir: Dave Fleischer

Scr: Joe Stultz, Bill Turner, Jack Ward, Izzy Sparber

Animators: Willard Bowsky, Lillian Friedman, George Germanetti, Edward Nolan, Orestes Calpini

Premiere: Nov. 27, 1936

16:33

 

Mickey Mouse’s biggest competitor was a not-so-mild-mannered sailor.

Popeye was born on January 17, 1929, in E.C. Segar’s Thimble Theatre comic strip. Originally, he was one character among many, but he soon became the focus of the cartoon.

He was a rough, tough but tenderhearted, squinting salt with forearms as big as tree trunks and an odd growl of a voice. His adventures usually involve the wooing of his girlfriend, the rail-thin Olive Oyl, by the big bad bully, Bluto, which always culminated in fisticuffs. Popeye had a secret power – when up against the wall, he popped open and swallowed a can of spinach, which gave him super-strength. (He is often accompanied by hamburger-loving sidekick J. Wellington Wimpy.)

In 1933, animators and brothers Dave and Max Fleischer of Fleischer Studios concocted Popeye movie-house cartoons. (They were already noted for cartoons starring their characters Koko the Clown and Betty Boop.) These proved immensely popular.

Popeye the Sailor Meets Sindbad the Sailor is twice as long as the usual Popeye cartoon, and it’s in stunning, vibrant Technicolor, a real plus in the days before color filmmaking became the norm. It was the first of three Popeye “features,” double-length color specials.

The Fleischers were noted for their craftsmanship. Max had invented the rotoscope in 1915, and they used it extensively to map out live-action motion onto drawn characters. This made their movements believable. Added to this was their use of a multi-plane camera. In essence, this meant shooting layers of drawn and constructed landscapes together, to provide an illusion of depth, against and among which the characters would move.

All these tricks were employed and the result is a breathtaking comic adventure. The images are so intense that they still resonate for viewers decades later. The film itself has a rollicking sense of fun about the proceedings, and gives us frames full of action and nuance.

In the film, Popeye, Olive Oyl, and Wimpy are sailing along, minding their own business. The big bad bully Sindbad (a lightly made-over Bluto) decides he wants Olive Oyl, so he sends a giant bird to sink the boat and clutch her in its talons. It’s up to Popeye to save the day.

He cooks the giant bird in a volcano. He knocks out a two-headed monster. Sindbad has him in his grip and is about to defeat him when crack, gulp! He down his spinach and clobbers the bad guy.

Popeye proved popular for decades, although the Fleischers would stop making his cartoons in 1940. Subsequent animated incarnations of the singing sailor are markedly inferior. The Fleischer creations of the 1930s are the gold standard.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Rose Hobart.