Saturday, October 11, 2008

Time Out For A Popeye Cartoon

This is a 1945 Popeye cartoon called "Mess Production" directed by Seymour Kneitel. It's got an unbelievable (and unbelievably uncredited) music score by Winston Sharples, who by this time had totally supplanted Sammy Timberg as the musical director for the studio. The last minute has some great music cues including Popeye's romantic stupor and his final walk through the factory, a faster reprise of cues already heard in the cartoon.

It also benefits from the three regular performers of Popeye, Bluto and Olive - Jack Mercer, Jackson Beck and Mae Questel - at a time when various other performers were temporarily doing the Popeye voice like Harry Welch and even Mae Questel.

We haven't the foggiest idea what they're making in this factory, all full of dangerous gadgets which could kill any character at any time. The various scenes of Olive walking on suspended girders (and what are they doing in an already built factory?) call to mind one of the earliest Popeye cartoons, "A Dream Walking" (which was animated in part by Seymour Kneitel).

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