Taking Sides: Altman's Popeye vs. Huston's Annie

Nobody ever asked either of these autuer-ish directors to make a movie musical, but they both nailed it. Annie is better known, and probably easier swallowed, but Popeye is an incredible feat of world building.

Autuer = "to the killing"

You just made that up, though.

never seen Annie, not planning to. I rewatched Popeye last year and was a lil let down. When Shelley Duvall's not onscreen, too stonerish.

You should see Annie.

The "Let's Go To The Movies" number is so hilarious. Bob Fosse would have been proud. Things are very much not as they seem.

And OMG Carol Burnett. "Did I hear singing in here?" Top form.

Morbs, you just can't go around not having seen Annie. Watch it tomorrow. It's Sunday. You have the time.

You will not hate me for it. It's not just a silly movie, though it is incidentally a silly movie. There's an almost sinister wit behind the "wit".

Find the Nilsson demo of the Popeye soundtrack.

Ok!

i mosdef do NOT have the time, and i can't summon up movies justlikethat, i don't subscribe to such things.

Sorry I was presumptuous.

But please find time for the soundtrack to The Point

Annie is horrifying whenever Carol Burnett is offscreen.

Popeye is the much better film. Burnett gives the best performance.

Popeye is so great. Love the choreography of "Everything is Food".

Yes! It's frustrating that "Everything is Food" doesn't show up on either the soundtrack album or the Nilsson demo.

Annie is horrifying whenever Carol Burnett is offscreen.

Musical numbers are good, nearly to a one. But sans Burnett, sans Music it's just a big wet blanket.

my intro to Albert Finney.

And Ann Reinking.

http://cdn.idigitaltimes.com/sites/idigitaltimes.com/files/styles/large/public/2014/08/28/2012/10/05/1900-annie.jpg?itok=NJpwLOgt

two movies with insanely ugly composition

and children

The lesser known 1999 Annie is the strongest film version, and closest to the original Broadway show in music, story, and tone. I never found the lead in the '82 version to be very sympathetic (though you're never gonna beat 'Easy Street' with Carol Burnett and Tim Curry).

Only seen 20 minutes of Annie, and it was a kinda gross musical, and an absolutely terrible version of Gray's "Annie."

The Feiffer / Nilsson / Altman Popeye is not a good movie, nor a successful representation of Segar's Popeye-era Thimble Theatre, but it might be a good musical? The weird range of things that are separately good, but fail to cohere as an overall film, make it a fascinating study, at least. Great worldbuilding, as said, many great if clashing performances, a lot of good songs... otm about the Nilsson demos, yeah.

Forgot: saw idk 80 mins of the Popeye on VHS at a birthday party when I was 8?

Watched Annie again for the first time since I was about 7 or 8. A lot of it feels like a lead balloon (those song-and-dance numbers are just so aggressive) but the adult actors--Finney, Burnett, Reinking and Curry--save it. Two particularly strange things that made me glad that I bothered to revisit it: 1) the whole "Annie saves The New Deal" subplot is precisely the kind of ridiculousness that went over my head the first time I saw it (ditto the Bolshevik would-be assassin), and 2) the whole "Let's Go To The Movies" sequence, where the pretty much stops dead to give us 5 minutes of the characters watching Camille. Has there ever been anything like that in a major film, before or since?

*where the MOVIE pretty much...

Saw the end of the Sky Arts show on Directors a couple of weeks ago and saw Annie excerpted or postered or something. Not sure if I'd known it was by Huston before that, if i had I wasn't remembering it at that point. So I wasa little surprised. IT's on eof his last films isn't it.
Also not sure I've actually watched it through. Do love the song Tomorrow though.

Producer Ray Stark said of the film, "This is the film I want on my tombstone." In his negative review of the film, Time Magazine's Richard Corliss wrote "Funeral services are being held at a theater near you."

John Huston made three more films after Annie, the first being the grim liteary adap Under the Volcano with Albert Finney. I strongly suspect he took on Annie for the dough to make UtV.

I was startled when I saw Annie come up repeatedly two weeks ago as one of Finney's best. I forgot he was in it.

"One of Finney's best" is a stretch, but a lot of people who were old enough to see it on cable countless times in the 80s have a nostalgic soft spot for it.

Watched Popeye in full for the first time in my life today. Really fun. Don't think anyone mentioned the reason it was made is because Robert Evans lost out on the rights to Annie and was searching for another property to turn into a musical.

i remember popeye being fun but kind of lacking in much of an actual story, which is too bad cause segar's thimble theatre has plenty of fantastic narratives that would've been delightful to see adapted. still a great soundtrack, tho.

write-in for Roeg's The Witches (with a Huston even)

I only watched Popeye for the first time as a DVD at home maybe four years ago, based largely upon enthusiasm expressed in this thread. As a grizzled adult who watched many a Popeye cartoon as a tender child, I found it hard to make the leap from the cartoon to the human representations, however earnestly they tried to warp themselves into the properly cartoonish shapes. I agree that Shelly Duvall as Olive Oyl was the best adapted and truest-to-the-original character. She walked off with the prize easily, but had far less difficult ground to cover than Robin Williams, who was asked to do the imposk-ible and quite predictably fell short. His was a very creditable failure.

As for the musical numbers, I greatly enjoyed "He's Large". I was primed to like "Everything is Food", but it didn't click with me. I can't recall any of the other songs.