Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (1939) User Reviews

Fantastic Technicolor Highlights This 'Long' Popeye

[ccthemovieman-1 · 7/10 · 19 February 2007]

The artwork and dialog are the stars in this (longest-ever) 22-minutes Popeye animated short. This is one of three "longer" Popeye cartoons that were made in color back in the '30s and it's just beautiful to view. It reminded of the beautiful water color look of Bambi. I also loved all the puns and misused words that make Popeye always fun to hear. He and others use the wrong words in here frequently. I'll tell ya: you can;t beat the Technicolor of the '30s and '4- s.

Other, the main story is only so-so, about the battle for the magic lamp with the genie who grants powers. In here, it's the battle between our hero and some evil-looking dude with a Dracula-like cape. Olive Oyl, as always, has to be rescued.

The last five minutes was excellent Popeye having to use at least FOUR cans of spinach to defeat what the bad guy was using the genie to repel him. The genie was good, but you can't beat Popeye's spinach!

Popeye as Aladdin

[TheLittleSongbird · 9/10 · 27 November 2018]

Many of Dave Fleischer and Fleischer Studios' cartoons were good to classic. The best of them were fun and charming and even if there were cartoons of theirs that veered on the cute and some cartoons had more interesting characters than others they were always outstandingly scored, very easy to like and extremely well made, some of the techniques used even were innovative for back then.

'Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp' is the longest Popeye cartoon, more a short film somewhat, and for me and many others it's one of his best, classic Popeye if you will and contains everything so great about his best cartoons. Of the three Arabian Nights Popeye cartoons, 'Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp' is my personal favourite though all three are more than well worth watching. Did not mind the absence of Bluto at all and didn't actually miss him all that much, it is always good to have changes of paces in the Popeye cartoons and most of those in question do that well, of which 'Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp' is one of the best examples.

Olive Oyl is not quite as interesting as Popeye and the villain and Mae Questel's voice fits the character a little more than that of Margie Hines. But really there is very little to criticise.

Popeye is as amusing and likeable as ever, the genie is lots of fun and the villain is just as entertaining and also a good enough threat without being too over-the-top. Jack Mercer does a great job as always as Popeye and relishes Popeye's mumbling and asides.

As ever, the music is lush and characterful, synchronising beautifully with the action. The story is not too formulaic and filled with energy and charm, as well as the customary magic. The best assets though are the animation and dialogue. The animation is meticulously detailed, vibrant and sees a lot of smoothness in design and with some imaginative visual flourishes. The dialogue is fresh and one can tell that the writers were having a great time writing the dialogue here, mumblings have seldom been more hilarious than here.

In summary, really great. 9/10 Bethany Cox

"What Can I Do For You?"

[FuriousFreddy · 8/10 · 29 August 2003]

The last of the triple-length Technicolor Popeye featurettes, this one is a retelling of the story of Aladdin, written by Olive Oyl as a screenplay for Surprise Pictures. "Aladdin" has less accomplished animation than the other two featurettes, but it features a better-moving and more balanced storyline. Popeye's best ad-lib, while being pressured into romance by a love-struck Princess (played by Olive): "I never made love in Technicolor before!"

Popeye The Sailor Meets Aladdin And His Wonderful Lamp

[Ron Oliver · 10/10 · 1 July 2000]

A POPEYE Cartoon.

Surprise Pictures scriptwriter Olive Oyl dreams-up a film version of ALADDIN AND HIS WONDERFUL LAMP, starring her spinach-munching boyfriend & herself.

This was the third in a series of 3 excellent two-reel cartoons, created by Max Fleischer, in which Popeye & his friends are interpolated into the classic stories of The Arabian Nights. They feature great animation and taut, fast-moving plots. Meant to be shown in movie theaters, they are miles ahead of their Saturday Morning counterparts. Jack Mercer is the voice of Popeye; Mae Questel does the honors for Olive Oyl.

In My Opinion, the Single Best Popeye Cartoon

[CalvinValjean · 10/10 · 3 August 2005]

I agree with others here that this is the best of the three Arabian Night Shorts that were produced (the others being Popeye Meets Sinbad and Popeye Meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves). It's fast-paced and Popeye, as usual, mutters some great lines under his breath ("I've never made love in Technicolor before"). Popeye is never thought of as a funny cartoon character, but he really is extremely funny ("Can you show me the entrance to the exit?").

There are also quite a few similarities to Disney's Aladdin, which would be made over 50 years later: the villain looks a bit like Jafar, the Genie is blue and a fun character, and the way Aladdin looks once disguised as a prince looks exactly like the Prince Ali sequence.

Some Popeye fans will be upset to not see Bluto or Wimpy, but at least it's great to see Popeye have a new villain for once. And finally, at just over 20 minutes, this is the longest Popeye cartoon that I know of.

A classic!

Great Popeye Short

[Michael_Elliott · 7 February 2017]

Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp (1939)

*** 1/2 (out of 4)

Classic Popeye short has Olive working at a movie studio where she's typing screenplays. One day she writes a story dealing with Aladdin, the magic lamp and of course her and Popeye have major roles.

ALADDIN AND HIS WONDERFUL LAMP had Popeye going from his usual 7- minute B&W shorts to twenty-two minutes and in Technicolor. I must admit that I love the B&W Popeye shorts and I'm glad that the majority of them were shot that way but there's no denying that this story just screams for color and we're given something very special. The story is wonderfully charming and is perfectly suited for Popeye and Olive. There are some great visuals throughout the film but the highlight is the final battle where Popeye is climbing some stairs with one obstacle after another. This one here is certainly a very entertaining one.

"Salam, Salam, baloney!"

[Foreverisacastironmess123 · 7/10 · 18 August 2020]

So in this fun, longer than usual Popeye cartoon it's strangely Olive herself who dreams the whole thing up while trying to write a movie script for the studio she works at, which is probably why it has Popeye as Aladdin and herself as the princess, and she even calls him Popeye at one point and then corrects herself, in an early example of breaking the fourth wall that is pretty neat. The look of the version I watched was very faded and bleached of a lot of the colour, but I still couldn't miss the richness of the details in some of the scenes, especially the moonlit palace with the full moon behind it, very dramatic and beautifully done. As always in just about any animation he ever lent his quirky voice talents to, big props to Jack Mercy and his wonderfully odd pun-filled mutterings that keep things moving along and provide some of the biggest laughs. I just love the gross evil vizier who Popeye has to eat multiple cans of spinach before he can beat, his manic leering expressions and villainous theatrics are so funny and of the certain style that could only ever have come out of the Fleicher studios! I didn't like the overly camp genie though, he was an obnoxious bad stereotype, but it was still cool how Popeye was having a blue genie doing goofy hijinks over fifty years before we had Robin Williams delivering his classic performance! There is quite a few unmistakeable precursors to the Disney movie in this.. For me this isn't quite a gem like the Sinbad Popeye special was but it's fun and entertaining enough nonetheless, well worth checking out! X

Good oldie!

[Movie Nuttball · 10/10 · 15 July 2005]

When this show was on I watched it every time I could! I thought that the characters were really funny and all had great personalities. The animation in My opinion was crisp, clean, and really clear. Not to mention beautiful! Most of the characters in this show are hilarious like the Looney Tunes characters that we all love. in My opinion these characters are the funnies and talented ever seen. In fact, The things that goes on in this series' cartoons are in My opinion nuts which that is what makes them hilarious! There are so many to like and laugh at and the silly things they do! If you like the original Looney Tunes then I strongly recommend that you watch this show!

Probably the weakest in "Popeye in Arabian Nights" trilogy ,but still got enough Popeye charm to keep the audience at seats.

[njdimic · 6/10 · 26 June 2006]

Of the three "Popeye in the Arabian Nights" cartoons, this is my least favorite. One of the reasons are probably that I watched this more than the other two ,and the other is next... In the first two cartoons (Popeye meets Sindbad ,Popeye meets 40 thieves) ,Popeye just encounters the villains from those story lines (who are performed bu Bluto), but this is just classic hundred times seen before Aladdin story. Only in this version ,Aladdin impersonates Popeye (it supposed to be the the other way around ,I know ,but that's the truth) ,and the princess impersonates Olive. The villain is ,as known by anyone who heard the Aladdin story for just once ,the evil wizard who wants to take the magic lamp away from Aladdin and marry the princess. Unfortunately he wasn't very interesting ,he wasn't performed by Bluto ,and he didn't came up with some memorable gags or jokes. However ,Popeye and Olive still didn't lose their charm and they still managed to come up with some classic Popeye and Olive jokes. It's worth to watch this classic just for that. You like Aladdin? You love Popeye? Watch this cartoon!

The last of Popeye's three Arabian nights

[jamesrupert2014 · 8/10 · 23 January 2019]

This, the last of the three Fleisher Studios 'Popeye' colour 'features', opens with Olive Oyl writing a script for an Aladdin film starring herself as the princess and Popeye as Aladdin. This meta-reference morphs into a stereotypical 'Arabian Nights' town with Aladdin working in his "Junke Shoppe" when the lovely princess, with whom the humble shoppe-keeper is in love, passes by in a sumptuous litter. Also watching is her villainous vizier who plans to steal the kingdom (never trust a vizier!). The evil one tricks Aladdin into retrieving a magic lamp but his scheme backfires and Aladdin ends up with the thaumaturgic treasure. The genie-of-the-lamp makes Aladdin into a prince so he can court the princess, who instantly falls in love with him. As they are about to wed, the cunning vizier tricks one of the ladies-in-waiting into giving him the lamp, kidnaps the princess (castle and all), and becomes so powerful that Aladdin need to ingest three (3) cans of spinach (!) to save the day. The film is full of meta-humour and the fourth wall is broken a couple of times. Unlike the other two previous Arabesque Popeye features (Sindbad (1936) and Forty Thieves (1938)), Popeye and Olive don't play themselves (other than in the prologue), the villain is not a costumed-Bluto, J. Wellington Wimpy is absent, and the film doesn't use the Fleischer Studios Tabletop 3D background technique; otherwise, the story is typical Popeye shtick, and is pretty funny at times, especially the genie (some of the gags are similar to those in Bugs Bunny's hilarious "A Lad in his Lamp" (1948)). The Arab stereotypes may offend some modern-day sensitivities, but other than that the film is an entertaining outing for the iconic spinach-eating hero and a good example of the high-quality 'classic' animation that was done in the 1930's.

memorable old Popeye

[SnoopyStyle · 7/10 · 29 August 2021]

In Surprise Pictures, Olive Oyl starts writing a script based on Aladdin and the genie in the lamp. She casts herself as the princess and Popeye as Aladdin. Evil Wazzir tricks Aladdin into retrieving the magic lamp from the treasure cave for him. Wazzir accidentally drops the lamp into cave and a giant rock closes off the entrance with Aladdin trapped inside.

This is a 22 minutes colored Popeye short. It's at the height of its early popularity and this is one of the most memorable Popeye shorts. This is all very memorable. The only thing I didn't remember is the voice of the Genie. I don't know who did it but he's pulling off a slight stereotype of an Oriental voice. It's not over the top so I can ignore it for the most part. Of course, it's no Robin Williams. I also wonder if it's better to skip the Hollywood studio writer bookends. They're not that interesting unless you're an actual Hollywood scriptwriter.

Popeye the Sailor stars as Aladdin

[ja_kitty_71 · 10/10 · 1 December 2009]

Now here is my top favorite out of the Technicolor two-reel Popeye featurettes, besides Popeye meets Ali Baba's Forty Thieves from 1937.

In this short, Olive works in a movie studio's story department, working out a script based on the Aladdin story. Popeye as Aladdin, herself as the "beautiful" princess, and the baddie in this Popeye toon, who surprisingly is not Bluto, but a mean vazir/sorcerer.

And as she types, her story adaptation comes to life on the screen, showing Aladdin (Popeye), a lowly pauper working in a junk shop, who has his eye on the Princess Olive. The baddie deceives Aladdin into retrieving the magical lamp from a dangerous cave for the Princess. After Aladdin succeeds, the bad guy steals the lamp and traps Aladdin in the cave. In doing so, however, he also clumsily traps the lamp. Aladdin accidentally discovers the powers of the Genie within the lamp, and the fun begins. Aladdin wished to be a wealthy prince so he could give money to the poor and impress the princess, so she would agree to marry him. Naturally, she agrees to marry Aladdin; however, he had no idea the vazir notice he had survived, and when Aladdin left the palace to invite his friends to the wedding, he dropped the magic lamp on the balcony by accident. Seeing his chance at stealing the lamp, the vazir disguises himself as a peddler, trading new lamps for old. The princess, thinking the magic lamp is a piece of junk, sends a servant woman to trade it for a flashlight. So the vazir got the magic lamp, but his plans are not yet completed.

That is all I could tell you. You'll just have to wait and see. Anyway, I loved this beautifully colorful, animated short from beginning to end.

Fast and furious, but not too funny

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 10 February 2018]

"Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp" is a Popeye cartoon from 1939, so it has color of course, but what really stands out in this Fleischer production is the running time as cartoons of almost 25 minutes were the big exception back then as the average was around 7 minutes. This is one of the two long Popeye shorts, the longer actually and this takes us into the world of Aladdin, but the story is really very different compared to the famous Disney movie. Not only is there no Apu and the characters look different as this takes place in the Popeye universe, but the story also feels extremely different. The damsel in distress component here better fits in for a film from the Medieval Ages in my opinion and honestly I struggled to see anything in Olive for which I would say to Popeye: Yes save her for that. The animation, also attention to detail is as good as you want it to be for a cartoon from that era and the set decoration is also really nice. The magic genie, however, did almost nothing for me. And the fact thjat creativity is there also does not mean in this case that it is a funny film. Bold maybe, entertaining not really. The only kinda funny moment I had watching this one was the scene where the bad guy rubs the lamp and Popeye rubs the spinach tin in response. Perhaps the usual 6-7 minutes might have been the better choice as honestly I cannot agree with the imdb rating here as there are quite a few pointless and completely forgettable sequences. I'd recommend this short only to the very biggest Popeye fans and the fact that it is among his most known, doesn't exactly say anything really positive about the franchise, even if it is mostly because it is so different compared to the others in terms of several production values. Watch something else instead.

Superb!

[JohnHowardReid · 10/10 · 9 March 2018]

Popeye (Aladdin), Olive Oyl (herself/the princess), the genie, the wizard.

Voices: Jack Mercer (Popeye), Margie Hines (Olive Oyl), Carl "Mike" Meyer (the wizard), a Lew Lahr imitator (the genie).

Director: DAVE FLEISCHER. Screenplay: Jack Mercer, Dan Gordon, Cal Howard, Tedd Pierce, Isidore Sparber. Adapted from a tale in The Arabian Nights. Popeye and Olive Oyl based on characters created by Elzie Segar. Photographed in Color by Technicolor by Charles Schettler. Head animator: David Tendlar. Animators: Nicholas Tafuri, William Sturm, Reuben Grossman. Music: Sammy Timberg. Song, "What Can I Do For You?" (Mercer) by Sammy Timberg (music and lyrics). Producer: Max Fleischer.

Copyright 7 April 1939 by Paramount Pictures, Inc. U.S. release: 7 April 1939. 2 reels. 22 minutes.

SYNOPSIS: Olive Oyl, a scriptwriter at Surprise Studios, conceives the idea of starring herself and Popeye in a reprise of Aladdin and His Wonderful Lamp.

COMMENT: The third and final of the Fleischer/Popeye 2-reel Technicolor specials, this is my favorite, despite the fact that Wimpy and Bluto don't figure in this one at all. Their absence is more than compensated by a deliciously comic genie and a really sold-out wicked wizard. The pace is so fast, you really have to see the movie two or three times to enjoy all the quips, but even a first time viewing proves a dazzling visual experience as Popeye battles a climactic everything the wizard can throw at him. Production values, as might be expected, are little short of superlative with our hero besieged by crowds of alternately cheering and jeering throngs and the lighting changing colors to match the loot of Aladdin's cave.

No Bluto

[Hitchcoc · 8/10 · 30 September 2021]

Popeye is cast as Aladdin by screenwriter, Olive Oyl. The story is the same. A bad guy is after the lamp and Popeye doesn't realize quite what he has. Eventually, Popeye becomes the Prince and woos Olive. Even the lamp gets replaced by a greater source of power. It's a decent telling of the story but I miss the more conventional Popeye stuff.

This brief cartoon tries to explain why "Olive" got fired in Real Life . . .

[tadpole-596-918256 · 8/10 · 11 October 2019]

. . . meaning that it is mostly about the hubris of people who have nothing of which to be proud. As a docudrama about one of history's most famous "You-know-who's," ALADDIN AND HIS WONDERFUL LAMP opens with the no-talent dame in question having delusions of being able to create a screenplay (in contrast to the job for which she apparently was hired, which is to mindlessly type up accurate copies of movie scripts in the dark ages before copy machines and digital devices were invented). Instead of working diligently at a task which would obviously require ALL of her brain power (and then some), the mutinous skirt gives her time on the company dime over to day-dreaming about what it would be like to compose a fairy tale of her own--starring herself, of course! The ensuing mess is trotted out as ALADDIN AND HIS WONDERFUL LAMP, featuring the scrawny bean-pole Olive as the lead female character. The result is a total disaster, of course, showing exactly WHY wenches are seldom awarded the weapons of story telling. Summing up, ALADDIN AND HIS WONDERFUL LAMP ends with a jobless Olive forced onto the streets for ignoring the main functions of her job, providing an excellent cautionary tale to prompt females entering the workforce to keep their noses to the grindstone--and NEVER try to think for themselves!

the best Aladdin

[Kirpianuscus · 19 April 2021]

For me, it remains the best version of Aladdin adventures. And, after decades, it is just lovely to see , again, a touching, amusing and heroic animation, admiring the wise craft , the silly situations and one of most interesting evil guys. And, no doubts, popeye .