The Man on the Flying Trapeze

Man on the Flying Trapeze, The (1934)

*** (out of 4)

Unusual Popeye cartoon has him sailing in to ask Olive Oyl out but she's left him for the title character. Popeye then goes to the circus to see the man and gets into a battle. This is a rather unusual short because the majority of the dialogue comes from singing. The songs in the film are very good and most of the charm comes from them. There's your typical nice animation and some very good direction in the storytelling and that includes some very good fight scenes in the air. There's also a funny sequence with a woman whom I'm guessing is Olive's mother. we also get Wimpy as the announcer at the circus. This isn't the best Popeye short I've seen but the strange musical numbers make it work watching.