I'm in the Army Now (1936) User Reviews

Anything To Please Olive

[ccthemovieman-1 · 6/10 · 19 February 2007]

"I'm crazy about a man in uniform," coos Olive Oyl, who is walking down the street arm-in- arm with both Popeye and Bluto. Since both are nuts over the skinny woman, they both rush in to the Army Recruting Station down the street. "I only have room for one," says the recruiter. (Since when?)

Bluto and Popeye show pictures (which are translated into short movies for us) showing the recruiter how brave and tough they have been in the past. They show themselves as gunslingers, swordsmen, etc.

Who wins the contest and who gets Olive? Well, you can probably guess. Overall, this was okay but nothing noteworthy.

Fighting for recruitment

[TheLittleSongbird · 6/10 · 3 May 2019]

Many fine cartoons were seen with Dave Fleischer. Ones that were amusing and charming, though over-cuteness did come through in some efforts and the stories were always pretty thin, with appealing characters, outstanding music and visuals that were inventive and with innovative animation techniques.

He and the studio did much better than 'I'm in the Army Now', which is a disappointment for them and for the Popeye cartoons. Like the character very much and enjoy to love a vast majority of his cartoons. 'I'm in the Army Now' is sadly not one of them. As far as the Fleischer era Popeye cartoons go, it's a strong contender for the weakest, and for me it's one of the lesser Popeye cartoons overall. Not because it's unwatchable, it's a long way from that, but it is one of the few Popeye cartoons where the point of it being made is questioned (rare for this particular period). Which is not a good position to be in watching a Popeye cartoon. Due to recycling, and not particularly well, four previous Popeye cartoons, and then having a not very interesting story to feature them in.

Of course there are good things, even the lesser Popeye cartoons have at least three or four good things. is very good as always from this period. It's beautifully drawn and with immaculate visual detail, that doesn't ever feel cluttered or static, and lively and smooth movement. The music likewise, lots of merry energy and lush orchestration, adding a lot to the action and making the impact even better without being too cartoonish.

There are amusing moments, while Popeye and Bluto are typically fun characters. The chemistry between the two drives 'I'm in the Army Now', not unexpected as that was the case with all of their cartoons, and it is fun to watch and boasts some clever visuals. The voice acting is typically adept, with Jack Mercer's mumblings and asides coming over most memorably.

It is a shame however that 'I'm in the Army Now' doesn't have a particularly interesting story, with energy that comes and goes, and that it's very predictable. Olive Oyl has very little to do, and what she has is nothing special.

As said, 'I'm in the Army Now' is one of the few Popeye cartoons that came over as pointless. It has the feel of a "cheater", with clips of four previous cartoons ('Blow Me Down', 'Shoein Hosses', 'Choose Your Weppins' and 'King of the Mardi Gras') recycled. All four very enjoyable indeed, but there are better Popeye cartoons to me and funnier sequences than the ones selected. The treatment of them is also a problem, they don't fit in seamlessly and they are far too short, do completely agree that it is better seeing the cartoons in full.

Not a cartoon to dismiss completely by any stretch, but the main reason to see 'I'm in the Army Now' in the first place is if you want to see all Popeye's filmography. 6/10

clip show with bad premise

[SnoopyStyle · 5/10 · 18 December 2019]

Popeye and Bluto are walking hand in hand with Olive Oyl. She tells them that she loves a man in uniform. They immediately run into the recruitment office. The recruiter tells them that the army only has one more spot and the boys compete with clips from their photo book. This is essentially a clip show. The problem is that the premise doesn't make sense in two different ways. It's ridiculous that the army can't sign up both of them and the photo book turns into a video book for some reason. Neither makes it compelling. It's one of the poorer Popeye shorts.

Lesser Popeye Short

[Michael_Elliott · 1 April 2016]

I'm In The Army Now (1936)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

Popeye, Bluto and Olive Oyl are walking down the street when the lady sees an Army sign and says she wants a military man. Popeye and Bluto go to apply but are told there's only one position available so they show clips from previous movies to show their worth.

If you look at the number of Popeye shorts released in 1936 you might ask yourself why they needed another like this, which basically consists of footage from previous shorts. Throughout the series and especially once we got into the 1950s there were several films that were released that had a minute or so of new footage and then footage from previous films. This short is mildly entertaining but the clips from the earlier movies are so small that they really lose their impact so it's best that you watch them in their full form.

What a woman wants

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 26 March 2019]

"I'm in the Army Now" (for once not a play words in the traditional sense of Popeye cartoons, just an "I'm" instead of "You're") is an American cartoon from 1936, so this one is already almost 85 years old and it is another Fleischer Studios Popeye production that is in black-and-white like all the others (if you ignore the much later colorizing) and runs for slightly over 6 minutes also like all the others. Times were getting politically rougher and the smell of war was in the air already in 1936, so no surprise that Popeye also delivers on the subject. Olive tells Popeye and Bluto that she finds men in uniforms pretty attractive, so the duo heads off to see the closest recruitment officer who tells them he has only one slot left and can't take them both. So as a consequence, while we keep hearing military tunes like the song referenced in the title, Popeye and Bluto compete against each other in a duel of who is more suitable and more manly you could also say. The horse shoeing scene is the best example how Popeye keeps having the last laugh there while Bluto smacks the stuff out of Popeye in the commander's presence. But only for as long as Popeye does not get his hands on his beloved spinach. So Popeye gets the job and the girl eventually, but not really the greatest uniform. Once a sailor, always a sailor you could say. This short is one of the rare occasions on which Popeye and Bluto really start as peers and Bluto does not have a job or so that is closely linked to the plot. Well, I agree with the other reviewer that this is not the funniest Popeye short for sure. It's not a failure either, but nowhere near his best. Then again, I am not a huge fan of the character most of the time. But it is worth seeing mostly for the reason to see how film during that time has tried to make a political impact and tried to convince people of joining the army to get these great uniforms and most attractive girls. Oh well, lets just pretend for a moment this description fits the lanky Olive. But with how I have seen olive in other works, she isn't the most stable girl, so maybe if Popeye is out there fighting for his country, who knows if she starts something with Bluto. I wouldn't be surprised. Enough speculation now. This cartoon gets a thumbs-down from me despite all the big names on board (Fleischer, Questel, Wickie, Mercer). Sub-par compared to what Disney and WB did during that time. Not recommended.

It must have seemed like an unbearable burden . . .

[oscaralbert · 5/10 · 18 March 2019]

. . . to movie producers in the 1930s to fill as many as five or six minutes with original programming. This was especially true when it came to cartoons. Animated shorts already had been around since the 1920s. By 1936 all of the good ideas had been used up. (And, as anyone who's ever labored over a coloring book well knows, it's bad enough to have to fill page after page when you're working with a full box of crayons. Just imagine if the only crayon you had left was "Gray"!) Therefore, it's hardly surprising that the cartoon staff of Paramount Pictures did not wish to stress out by being forced to create more than a minute or two of original material for I'M IN THE ARMY NOW. Why NOT recycle four minutes of your old cartoons to round out this short? After all, kids' brains grow so fast that they would never be able to recall something they'd viewed a month earlier, let alone a whole year before. Nor would they see anything amiss in someone cramming together totally unrelated snippets from several unconnected stories. After all, children's fare is so lame that all the sentences in their tales can be scrambled like eggs. If they're too finicky to lap up leavings from the Cutting Room floor, they don't HAVE to eat Paramount's sausage, do they?