Altman Page #5

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and so on about the food additives.

The sort of thing that

where things advertised

aren't what they claim to be and so on.

Will that be a point

that you'll be trying to take

satiric thrusts at in the movie?

Think you could talk about that a bit?

Uh, well, we don't have a script yet.

All right, action.

I'm having a sugar fit

Ooo

By the time we completed health

there was a different management at Fox,

they believed it wouldn't make money.

We got in a little argument,

so the film was buried.

Altmanesque?

Expect the unexpected.

Robert Evans saw Annie on Broadway

and he wanted to do the movie version,

but he couldn't get the rights.

He found out that Paramount

owned "Popeye" the comic strip

and he decided to make a big budget musical

of "Popeye" instead.

After a lot of directors turned it down,

for some reason, Evans

sent the script to Bob.

I remember seeing the script on his desk

and saying to him Popeye?

It was Robin Williams' first movie

and Bob convinced the studio

to hire Shelley Duvall.

And Paul Dooley, who was in

six or seven of Bob's films.

He found the Pickle Family Circus,

who were all clowns and jugglers.

And Sweet Pea was played

by our grandson, Wesley.

Christine's son.

Wesley was born with

kind of a crooked smile.

One day, Dad noticed when Wesley smiled

he looked a lot like Popeye.

He said "See, this is

where the pipe goes in."

He was about 10 months old, he

hadn't even learned to walk yet,

and Bob had him cast as Sweetpea.

It was just one of those magical

moments in how he cast people.

Okay, everybody, stand by.

Action.

The production spent

millions building a village

into a barren hillside

and about 3 minutes into the

film things started to go wrong.

After losing 21 days of

shooting to bad weather,

going several million dollars over budget,

and the studio threatening

to pull the plug,

Bob wasn't even sure he

could finish the film.

Tonight in Hollywood, Paramount and Disney

unveil their highly anticipated

Christmas Blockbuster "Popeye",

and what a scene it was.

Good morning and welcome

to the critic's corner.

For years "Popeye"

has been one of my favorite

comic strip characters.

So, I and millions of others

have been looking forward

to the big Hollywood "Popeye"

movie with joyous anticipation.

The cast look perfect for the parts,

the writer was the estimable Jules Feifier

and the director was the imaginative,

though inconsistent, Robert Altman.

What could go wrong?

Well just about everything.

And the disappointing news this morning

is that "Popeye" is a debacle

with the characters left in ruins.

First of all, Feifier fails.

His script that shot is undistinguished

and it is without humour, but above all,

the culprit is Robert Altman

whose direction and editing are ponderous,

hesitant, and almost incoherent.

The members of this cast,

who almost seem born to play these rolls,

have been subverted by their director.

Paul Dooley who plays the

hamburger loving Wimpy

with such relish is giving nothing to do.

I mean nothing.

Zilch, zero, gornish, nada, zip.

Robin Williams has the

cartoon character down,

but much of his dialogue is unintelligible

and much of what is intelligible

is incomprehensible.

The songs by Harry Neilson are calamity.

His music is tuneless and

his lyrics are moronic.

Shelley Duvall is just wonderful,

thank goodness for Shelley Duvall.

Just think of this, for

years and years "Popeye"

has been chugalugging spinach

and when he finally gets

something to go with the spinach

it turns out to be a turkey.

The critics trashed it and

Bob took most of the blame.

It was nowhere near the blockbuster

the studios were hoping for.

The films that they want to make now,

the major companies, um, are not,

they're films that I don't want to make.

Also, I can't make.

I can't make "Superman", and

"Raiders of the Lost Arc"

and, uh, and I don't want to.

And the films I do want to

make and feel that I can make,

they don't want to make.

They want movies now that will...

there's a magic number that they

use, a hundred million dollars.

And, um, I just can't do that.

It's just the time to split, that's all

and by splitting I mean separate.

It was pretty rough, the

phone stopped ringing.

I said well where should I cut back,

or what should I do?

We can sell the house.

Move to New York.

He was pretty down.

He worried his luck had run out.

You ever bet $10,000 on a football game?

Oh yeah.

You have?

Mmhmm.

Do you win much?

I'm behind.

This has not been, the last

three years has not been good.

What does Altmanesque mean?

Uh...

I would say it means never giving up.

The fact that Bob couldn't

get any movie deals

didn't stop him.

Pretty quickly he found something

he really wanted to do, live theater.

You know I still don't like

being touched or held?

When you extend your hand,

when you really give,

you lay your heart on the table

and hand someone else the hammer.

Now there might be some people

who feel this is somewhat of

a fall from grace for you

after directing major

films for so many years,

to direct a couple of small plays.

Not saying they're not good plays,

but small plays in a small theater,

off Broadway so to speak.

Well I think it's a step up.

I did four or five theater pieces.

And when I'd do one I'd say

oh, let's do another one.

So, to me, that was a very important,

big time, "I" time in my life.

I was experimenting.

I went to the University of Michigan.

I had done an opera there

a couple years before

and I didn't have the

money to produce a film,

but I came up with a scheme

of making it a course.

And so all of the crew,

except for a couple of us, were students

and they got a credit for doing this.

Yeah, let's just take this, open

it up from where he gets up

and walks out of the frame on the set.

Start on the monitors.

Now, when he gets up to leave

make your pan to the door.

My little dog, Checkers, he... PFT.

What?!

No, mother.

I did not elect myself,

they elected me not once,

not twice, but all of my goddamn life,

and they would do it again

to, if they had the chance.

Oh, sure, they said they didn't trust me.

They said let Dick Nixon

do it and I did it.

They said they wouldn't

buy a used car from me,

but they gave me the biggest

vote in American history.

And they ushed me down the toilet

and they wanted me to stay down.

They wanted me to kill myself.

Well, I won't do it.

If they want me dead,

they'll have to do it.

F*** them! F*** them!

F*** them! F*** them!

F*** them!

I never met Richard Nixon in my life,

but I did have a couple

of exchanges with him

more than once.

He wrote a book called "Leaders",

which was a really big book.

And I was living in California at the time

and in the mail this

book, heavy book, comes.

And it was from the Ex-President

and it was inscribed in there,

it says to Robert Altman,

thank you for your years of loyal support.

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