CONTINUING TO PRESENT we, the audience with the whole stockpile of those old black & white POPEYE shorts from the Brothers Fleischer, our good friends and benefactors at Turner Classic Movies screened this one this past Saturday. From what we've seen, they are doing their best to follow the chronological order of release in the best film historian's tradition.
WHAT HAS BEEN the most obvious revelation is that the currently presented output is from 1935; which surely looks to have been truly "the GoldenAge of Popeye" on screen. Each short seems to be as good and laugh-loaded as the next. The guys at the studio followed a certain formula in puting on the show. Hence, we would typically be treated to about 10 minutes of struggle between protagonist (the Sailor Man) and mean, nasty, old Musclebound himself, Bluto.
WITH ONLY ONE reel with which to work, the story line, such as they were, was always kept to the simplest of forms. The cartoons in this series always made use of familiar characters from the pages of the comics, mainly using Olive Oyl and Wimpy; but others appeared also, if only unbilled.
IN THIS EPISODE, we find Popeye and Bluto being set in a nautically related field of having competing commercial sea diving operations A brief truce leads to the two rivals for Miss Oyl returning to their once and future status as rivals. That's all we're going to say, rather than going any further and spoiling it for those who haven't seen it yet (both of you).
JUST ONE MORE thing, before we sign off; following the tried and true formula already established and successful, there are two regulars used as assistants to each of the boys. Popeye has Olive Oyl; with Bluto's getting Mr.J. Wellington Wimpy who works for hamburgers, not peanuts.
