Popeye's 20th Anniversary

Bob Hope is hosting to a tribute to "the man who has eaten spinach for 20 years, Popeye The Sailor Man." At the testimonial, besides Bluto (surprisingly) are celebrities Jimmy Durante, Bing Crosby, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis.

Popeye isn't much for speeches, so he brought "some movies that show why I became famous." We see excerpts from two of his famous movies (as he modestly puts it): "Tops In The Big Top," and "Rodeo Romeo."

Hope (with a voice that is anything but Bob's) awards Popeye a silver loving cup but Bluto, now totally teed off after watching those movies in which he always loses, slams the cup over Popeye's head. However, the cup contains spinach, so we get the predictable results.

Despite the fact this is one of those cop-out cartoons in which most of it is not original, it was still enjoyable (probably because I hadn't seen those old cartoon clips). Still, this is still an easy way out to produce another story.

Here we have a typical example of a cheater cartoon: Popeye is at a teskimonial... a testimonial dinner with several Hollywood caricatures. He's asked to make a speech, but instead shows clips from his old cartoons.

The clips are from the earlier Famous Studios Popeyes, which means they are in color, but the quality of design and background art has not declined much from the Fleischer days. It's a cheap method of getting a new six-minute cartoon out of a couple of minutes of new work.

Some of the caricatures are Jimmy Durante, Bob Hope, and Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis. Whoever did the voice work didn't try too hard to do a good imitation.

Popeye's 20th Anniversary (1954)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Hollywood is celebrating Popeye's twenty years in the movie business so the likes of Jimmy Durante, Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis are out in support. They request that Popeye gives a speech but since he doesn't do that he instead shows clips from a couple of his movies.

Overall there's really nothing special about this short because the majority of the running time is just footage from previous films. That obviously gives the movie a rather cheap feel and at the same time you can't help but think that the producer's wasted a good opportunity. I mean, there are quick cameos by Martin and Lewis so why not build a film around them? Why not have Popeye mingle with certain famous people in Hollywood? Why just show clips from previous movies?

Popeye celebrated at the two decades of career. Not being the best speaker, two short films - from the universe of circus and rodeo are the proof of the essence of his work. A prize and the old rivalry against Bluto reappeare. The short fight solves each expectation in a sort of shame moment for the poor Bluto. A nice short animation, first for Hollywood references.

Really like to love a good deal of Popeye cartoons and like the character of Popeye. Will admit though to preferring the Popeye cartoons from the Dave Fleischer era, the cartoons tend to be funnier and there is more originality and more risk taking in some of them.

'Popeye's 20th Anniversary' is a late Popeye cartoon and made in Famous Studios' roughest and most variable period where budgets were much smaller in particularly the animation and deadlines and time constraints were shorter and tighter. All things considered, while there are infinitely better Popeye cartoons (especially during the Fleischer era) and there are signs of what made this period an inferior one for Famous Studios, 'Popeye's 20th Anniversary' is not a bad late Popeye cartoon at all, actually really very enjoyable and one of the better cartoons in Famous Studios' late output. It is interesting and well done if not the most necessary of all Popeye's cartoons.

As to be expected, the story is nothing special and merely an excuse to string along gags, feature celebrity caricatures and feature a couple of cartoons to honour Popeye with. The latter two are fun, very nostalgic and elevate 'Popeye's 20th Anniversary' to a better level, but with not an awful amount of originality and something that can be classed as a "cheat" one slightly questions the point of the cartoon.

Similarly the animation quality is uneven in the honorary/present scenes, never terrible but never fantastic. The colours are fine and there is smoothness and nice detail but there are many moments where the backgrounds are sparse and the drawing rough. It does fare quite a bit better in the cartoons featured.

What is fantastic about 'Popeye's 20th Anniversary' is the music score, the best thing for me. It's beautifully orchestrated, rhythmically it's full of energy and there is so much character and atmosphere, it's also brilliant at adding to the action and enhancing it. The gags are never hilarious but are at least amusing and well timed. With celebrity caricatures there is always the worry as to whether the caricatures are familiar to the viewer, something that is somewhat essential for the gag in question to work (otherwise it goes over the viewer's heads). This wasn't a problem here, being somebody who was familiar and appreciates all of those caricatured.

Popeye is very likeable and amusing and Bluto as always is great fun. The two always did work wonders together and it's the same here. The voice acting is fine, Jack Mercer being my personal favourite of Popeye's voice actors.

In summary, nicely done. 7/10 Bethany Cox