Popeye (Robert Altman, 1980)--a belated tribute

Excerpt:

Robert Altman's Popeye opens with the tinny monophonic sound of The Sailor's Hornpipe, segueing into Sammy Lerner's theme song (I'm Popeye the Sailor Man). We see the cartoon image of a ship's rear cabin, doors sliding open, the classic opening of many a Max Fleischer cartoon short; Popeye pops up, chuckles, exclaims (in stereo, and in the voice of Jack Mercer, who played the sailor from 1935 to 1978):

"Hey what's this, one of Bluto's tricks?"

"I'm in the wrong movie!"

Crash and boom. Cut to thunderclouds piled high and visibly boiling. Camera pans down to a tiny orange sunset, all but overwhelmed by the oncoming storm; more lightning reveals Popeye's little rowboat, bobbing in a restless sea. Cut to a closer view of the boat--thanks to Altman's telephoto lenses the boat is surrounded, overwhelmed, engulfed by row after row of waves, in an endless march towards the camera (Popeye lost in an ocean of waves, the way Altman puts it onscreen, is about as lost as one can get). Cut to a bell tower--think of the church in Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1972)--shrouded in shadow; the bell chimes, the tower emerges in sunlight (filters, I suspect), and we hear horns blow the fanfare introduction to the song "Sweethaven." The entire opening is Altman's way of saying "this is not the Popeye you're familiar with--not the Fleischer cartoons, not Famous Studios, not Segar's strip. And not like any musical you've seen before, either."