Location Flashback Popeye (1980)

In this scene, Popeye (Robin Williams) sends the local Taxman (Donald Moffat) down the shoot of the fishing dock after he tries to get Popeye to pay a tax for moving in after he moved out of Olive Oyl’s (Shelley Long) boarding house, and a baby tax for having Swee’Pea with him.

Popeye is an American musical comedy that was directed by Robert Altman and is based on E. C. Segar’s Popeye comics character. The script was written by Jules Feiffer and follows Popeye’s adventures as he arrives in the town of Sweethaven. The film premiered on December 6, 1980, at Mann’s Chinese Theatre in Los Angeles, and opened in the rest of the United States the following week, distributed by Paramount Pictures, with Walt Disney Productions handling the international distribution through Buena Vista International. The film grossed $6.3 million in its opening weekend, and $49.8 million worldwide, against a budget of $20 million. It received negative reviews from critics when it was first released but has received improved reviews over time.

Filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson is a noted fan of the film, listing it as a favorite and even using Duvall’s song “He Needs Me” in his own film, Punch-Drunk Love.

Popeye Village, originally built as the set of the movie Popeye is now one of Malta’s top tourist attractions. The film set was constructed in 1979 in Anchor Bay. Before the construction could start, an access road was built in order to transport tree trunk logs from Holland and wood shingle rooftops from Canada. Additionally, a breakwater was built at the mouth of Anchor Bay to protect the set from the high seas during film-ing. A 165-person international construction crew built more than 20 wooden structures, using eight tons of nails and two thousand gallons of paint to create Sweethaven.