I 4- --4 ARTS Saturday, January 10, 1981 The Michigan Daily Page 5 GIVE 'IM SPINA CH 'What happened to the cartoons? By ANNE SHARP Oh, how we laughed. We howled, -we roared when Robert Altman announ- ced, with a perfectly straight face, that he was making a musical comedy about the cartoon character Popeye. This, from the director of M*A*S*H, Nash-' ville, and three Women? Is he talking about our Popeye-that ugly, arcane -little dude who annoyed us every Satur- day morning, pouring spinach into his misshapen maw and beating up an en- dless, monotonous stream of bulls and freight trains? Altman has forged a formidable reputation as an examiner of American pop icons-doctors, gangsters, singing stars-but is this creepy, violent little nautical wretch a' worthy subject for a respectable live- action film? Well, yes, as it turns out. Altman chose to ignore the obnoxious color car- toons by which we youngsters came to know and hate Popeye, and turned in- stead to the source of the Popeye legend, a Krazy kat-era newspaper strip called "Thimble Theatre." As depicted by his creator, Elzie Segar, Popeye is a rather sweet-souled, gentle, witty creature who avoids gratuitous violence. It was not until animator Max Fleischer bought the rights to Segar's strip for a series of early sound era black-and-white cartoons that the hapless sailor entered into a career of gleeful mayhem. Let us ignore the bulls and freight trains, Altman told his screenwriter for the Popeye project, satirist Jules Feiffer. Let us instead concentrate on the gentle, lovely Popeye of the "Thimble Theatre," cavorting in the Segar-created seacoast village of Sweethaven, surrounded by his pals Olive Oly, Wimpy, Bluto, and Swee' pea. Let us make him noble and good, a sort of epic hero, embarked on an earnest quest to find his long-lost father. Fine. We'll do that. WAS ALTMAN'S scheme a success? Well, yes, in many ways Popeye is a charming 'entertainment, visually rexquisite,, and I'd definitely recom- mend that you see it. In other respects it-is a rashing, lumbering crawl-under- the-seat failure, and I think that this can be chalked up to two tragic flaws in Altman's judgement. First, in tran- slating the cartoon world of Sweethaven, into a live-action context, Altman couldn't decide whether to be cartoony or realistic, anid the result is a confusing, unsatisfying mixture of Shelley Duvall as Olive Oyl and Robin Williams as Popeye make bevoodeeful music together in Robert Altman's-musical film version of 'Popeye.' both. Second, in choosing the has-been bump-tied boots, while Duvall handles MOR composer Harry Nilsson to do the them with assured, gawky grace. Robin music for Feiffer's libretto, Altman Williams is a little prettified as Popeye: hobbled an otherwise pleasant little despite those alarming, bulgy forear- film with one of the most inept, jejune ms, he. looks damn good as a blonde. and tedious scores in living memory. Duvall may be a perfect Olive Oyl, but Popeye doesn't look like a cartoon. casting Williams as Popeye was sheer The setting is breathtakingly real: a genius. . ramshackle little village surrounded by Williams as a performer is just gentle picture-postcard mountains and and sentimental enough to pull off the crystal-clear water. It doesn't even look mushy things that Feiffer's script American. Altman chose to film in requires. When he dangles his adopted Malta, with a lot of Maltese extras and son, Swee'pea (played by Altman's it shows; when Popeye and Olive Oyl granAson, Wesley Ivan Hurt, a hear- open their mouths, one half-expects tbreakingly cute little kid) or tries to them to speak in Italian. . It's { convince his grumpy, long-lost dad that astonishing how much the actors look they are indeed related ("Look! We like Segar's drawings, and yet are so both got the same bulgy forearms!f"), plausibly real. It's true that Shelley he just radiates good-humored affec- Duvall was born tosplay Qlive,with her tion. Like Ma: Felischer's Popeye, lanky figure.and big doll eyo. Ot er a , William' r ater As prqne to mut- tresses would look befuddiled i the tering of -t -wa l otto voice commen- character's absurd frilled collars and ts which are usually funnier than anything else that's going on. Unfor- tunately, Altman undermiked most of about a quart!" Popeye (to Olive): "Are ya Greek?" AFTER ESTABLISHING this very real, if bizzare, context, Altman tries to make his people act like cartoon people, and it just doesn't come off. In the cartoons when Olive has an under- water tangle with an octopus, it is con- ventional and fitting. In Altman's film, the same schtick looks like something out of a cheap Japanese kiddie show. When Bluto socks Popeye and the latter rolls down a ramp like a hoop, he rolls slowly, deliberately, and we are aware of the shoddy special effect. The same thing happens slam-bang in the car- toon, and we accept the dopey event. When Altman tries for cartoon violen- ce, he violates the realistic physical world that he has set in motion, and the effect is embarrassingly out of place. Altman should have stuck to his original thesis, that of ignoring the animated Fleischer Popeye and creating the static character anew on his own terms. At the film's end when Williams sings, "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man/I'm strong to the finnitsch/Cos I eats me spinach," one is squirmingly aware of how much better and more apropos to the proceedings is Sammy Lerner's venerable little ditty than Nilsson's en- tire new-fangled score. What makes Nilsson's music for Popeye so ghastly is not so much the fact that it's unin- teresting tonally and clumsy lyrically, but that it is constantly at odds with what's going on. The characters are dressed in turn-of-the-century garb; they sing catchy Seventies commercial tunes. When we are trying to pay atten- tion to a tense chase scene, Ray Walston, as-Popeye's father, "talks" a sort of endless patter song about ungrateful children; Popeye pun- ctuates a scene in which he angrily asserts his morality in a den of vice by gently crooning, "I yam what I yam what I yam what I yam ."...Trust the composer of the theme song of The Courtship of Eddie's Father to reduce a vehement assertion of individuality to the level of a fast-food jingle. For all the vulgarity of the Max Fleischer cartoons, the animated Popeye is a character we can buy. Alt- man's mesh of live action-look and car- toony intentions fails, but it's more because he's in the wronig league than the,.impossibility of translating the spinach-eating sailor man's story into a visually realistic film. The naturalistic Altman products are his best, he has a keen eye for looking over people's shoulders and seeing their true make- up. Popeye and Olive in this movie may be flesh and blood, but they have car- toon souls. That's one less dimension than Altman usually deals with and it takes the punch and some of the quality out of his Popeye. DIVIPUA LMEA IF1 Ann Arbor neater CrAP ie a' ber 7 *1-9700 FLICKS will be back JAN. 16 ROBINfr WILLIAMS N * SHELLEY "$ DUVALL O {PG})4 FRI, MON-7:15, 9:20 SAT, SUN-12:50, 2:55, 5:10, 7:15, 9:20 SAT, SUN $1.75 til 1:00 (dr cop) I I mmommoommomb * <<_ "' r Dance',, Theorre- Y f Information 995-4242 1s -iweekdavs 711 N. University Ann Arbor " new classes beginning January 12, 1981 " separate classes for Chidren baoet creattve movemefl - adults baglet modern jazz * rare books found in local book store NUSSBAUM SA)ID the bo (Continued rrom Page ii recovered could be just "the tip of NUSSBAUM, However, said at least iceberg." He said that the susr "some of the books contained "may have been doing business signatures or rubber stamps of the years." Zoology division." "This person has been doing busir Det. Branson said that he knew the with the bookstore for some time books as only being marked with maybe a year . . . or two years," signatures or stamps of the owners, in- Branson. cluding those owned by individuals and . At least one of the books involve those bequeathed to the University. owned by Reeve Bailey, curator Mark Cassino, the principal library fishes for the Museum of Zoology. assistant at the Museum Library, said books are located in one of the mus he identified one book. Cassino said that libraries for student use: Bailey s the book he identified had "ambiguous "We're afraid there might be m markings," and that in his opinion it more items." might not be recognized as University Nussbaum said the books invol property. came from five different sources: BRANSON SAID that there may have University of Michigan Libr been one book that contained the mark System; the Divisions of Herpatol of a University department, but he was Insects, and Fishes of the Departn not sure. The detective also said there of Biological Science; and, Bail was no evidence of criminal action on private collection. All the books v the part of the bookstore. He said that stored in the museum. "some people at the University were Commenting on thefts from Uni unhappy with the way he (Sheets) con- sity libraries in general, Directo ducted himself." Libraries Richard Dougherty said, Prof. Nussbaum said the University the cost of books increases, the prob occasionally sells old second copies of has seemed to become magnified some books, but specific forms must Nationally, as books become m accompany the sale in order to valuable, thefts of rare books are on legitimize it. rise." them, so they're hard to catch, but rewarding nevertheless. The scene in which the bemused Popeye is in- troduced to the Oyl household, in which people have names like Olive and Castor, is filled with this kind of under- the-breath hilarity. Popeye (behind oks Mrs. Oyl's back1: "Looks like she's had an for ness said d is r of His eum aid, any ived the ary ogy, nent ey's were ver- r of "As lem nore nthe ro Tonlql the ann arbor - h, film cooperative TO ih PRESENTS Beatlemania-Magical Mystery Tour 7:00& 10:20M-B3 Rare early footage .(wm iterviews and more. 200 MOTELS a:40 only MLB 3 might U THE BLUES BROTHERS Dir. JOHN LANDIS. Starring JAKE and ELWOOD BLUES "We're on a mission from God." Jake is released from Joliet Prison only to discover that he and his brother must raise five grand to pay back taxes and save their alma-mater orphanage, the only home they ever had. They go on a quest to revive their old band and play a big-bucks gig. The mission isn't easy when all Elwood has to run on is white bread toast, and Jake's ex-girl- friend is trying to blow him away with sophisticated weaponry. JAMES BROWN, ARETHA FRANKLIN, RAY CHARLES, JOHN LEE HOOKER (glad to know he's still around), CAB CALLOWAY. In 35mm. 7:00 & 9:00 at LORCH Sunday: THE LOVES OF ISADORA Monday: CAT ON A HOT TIN ROOF with Elizabeth Taylor, Paul Newman CINEMA GUILD Diced, Sliced and'Crinkle Cut LORCH HALL (Below Crisp)