Bride and Gloom

Bride and Gloom (1954)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

It's the night before Popeye and Olive Oyl's wedding and the two are on cloud nine. Popeye begins to fantasize about what life has in store for them and he's not too thrilled with his visions.

BRIDE AND GLOOM is pretty middle tier in regards to its entertainment value. While there are a few funny moments scattered throughout the running time there's no doubt that this isn't one of the best of the Popeye series. The highlight is a scene where Popeye plants a wet kiss on a cop who then blushes from the ordeal. The biggest problem is that there just aren't too many laughs once the fantasy segment takes over. Basically we see Popeye with a couple kids who turn out to be demons and cause all sorts of havoc. The animation is quite good but more laughs were certainly needed.

Olive Oyl and Popeye are to be wed on the morrow. So Olive dreams of what may come, including a set of tormenting twins.

It's similar in outline to 1940's WIMMIN IS A MYSKERY. Repeats like this always suffer in my opinion. Although the folks at Famous Studios knew how to put the gags in, they didn't insist on the sheer number that Dave Fleischer had. Also, by 1954, the budget on a cartoon didn't go as far as it had in 1940, so character design and background work was nowhere near as pleasing.

The fact that to come up with a plot different from the usual Popeye-versus-Bluto fight, they simply redid an old cartoon makes me think they weren't putting much thought into the series by this time.

Popeye and Olive Oly are going to get married tomorrow. They both walk around with hearts coming out of them, floating in the air they are so much in love.

Olive goes to sleep that night and has a dream. She pictures the wedding. Popeye is so uptight he needs a can of spinach to say "I do." The two drive off afterward with empty cans of spinach, of course, attached to the back of the automobile. Next is the maternity ward where Popeyye is wearing a hole in the rug with his pacing. Olive delivers twin boys.

The boys quickly grow up to be "rascals," driving Olive nuts. They get so bad, the dream turns into a real nightmare....with the predictable result after Olive wakes up.

Some funny scenes, but overall just "so-so."

The day before the wedding of Olive Oly and Popeye. And her terrible nightmare, reflecting fear about maternity, the emotions before become wife and many not soft games of boys, familiars for many parents. Nice adventures in clothes of dreams and not reasonable reaction of the enloved woman to the enthusiasm of here future husband. Short, nice.

Really like to love a good deal of Popeye cartoons and like the character of Popeye. Will admit though to preferring the Popeye cartoons from the Dave Fleischer era, the cartoons tend to be funnier and there is more originality and more risk taking in some of them.

'Bride and Gloom' is a late Popeye cartoon and made in Famous Studios' roughest and most variable period where budgets were much smaller in particularly the animation and deadlines and time constraints were shorter and tighter. There was certainly worse from Famous Studios during this period, with work that looked cheaper and more fatigued in story and writing quality (actually many of the late Popeye cartoons under them were among the studio's better late efforts), but 'Bride and Gloom' certainly is nowhere near among the best Popeye cartoons.

What is fantastic about 'Bride and Gloom' is the music score which is its best asset. It's beautifully orchestrated, rhythmically it's full of energy and there is so much character, it's also brilliant in not just adding to the action but enhancing it. The animation is not bad either, the finesse is not always there but there is a lot of vibrant colour and detail in the backgrounds.

There are amusing moments, the wet kiss agreed being the funniest and most memorable part. The pace is lively enough to start with and Popeye and Olive Oyl's chemistry is charming. Popeye is as amusing and likeable as ever and while Olive's material is not near as strong she has the equal amount of likeability factor. Jack Mercer and Mae Questel do great jobs providing the voice work, of the voice actors to voice Popeye and Olive they for me were the ones that make the most impression on me.

However, there are agreed not enough laughs, quality and quantity, and what there is is a case of there being good moments but otherwise it's fairly hit and miss. With more freshness and variety they would have made more impact. The story is very flimsy, being rather formulaic and predictable.

Disappointing too is the fantasy dream segment, which didn't have the imagination or fun it should have done. Here the humour is barely there and what should have been imaginative was more irritating than charming and was so familiar. There is a routine feel and the momentum sags to begin with before picking up when Popeye arrives. The kids weren't either appealing or menacing, annoying actually.

On the whole, worth a look but fairly uninspired. 6/10 Bethany Cox