Popeye follows the sailor man with the mighty arms (played by Robin Williams in his first major film role) as he arrives in the seaside community of Sweethaven in search of his long-lost father. Popeye meets and quickly falls for the beautiful Olive Oyl (Shelley Duvall, in the role she was born to play), but before he can win her heart, he must first contend with Olive’s fiancé, Bluto (Paul L. Smith).
In adapting the long-running Popeye comic strip created by E.C. Segar, director Robert Altman in no way tempered his trademark style, crowding the screen with a variety of characters and allowing his cast to overlap as much dialogue as they wanted.
35mm print courtesy of the Robert Altman Collection at the UCLA Film & Television Archive.
