Bad Acting and worse Bad Screenplay

A different way of telling a story

Clever and entertaining enough to recommend even to members of the 1%

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Cops Is Always Right (1938) *** (out of 4)Minor but entertaining Popeye short has him on his way to see Olive when he runs into a police officer who gives him a ticket. Throughout the rest of the film he keeps running into the same cop and getting more tickets.COPS IS ALWAYS RIGHT is a minor Popeye film that has a couple good moments but there's no question that it's far from a classic. The highlight of the film actually happens with the first encounter with the cop as Popeye annoys him even more by the strange way he gets into his car. This joke is repeated throughout the film but never works as well as that first time. There really aren't enough laughs to make this one more memorable but as usual the animation is great.

If any cartoon shows what a nice, good guy Popeye is, it has to be this one. He has more bad luck in here and picked on by an almost-sadistic cop, but never complains.When things get their worst at the end, when he accidentally knocks over a flower pot on the policeman's head, our Sailor Man voluntarily places himself in jail! Popeye has the utmost respect for the law, even if he runs into a nasty cop.From parking in the wrong spot, to banging into people (the cop!) with his auto, to a bunch of other things - all the while trying to help demanding Olive Oyl clean her house - Popeye gets one "ticket" after another but takes all the abuse incredibly well. We can all learn from this guy.The artwork also is good in this cartoon, with some wonderful big-city drawings. It's not really that humorous cartoon, but it's interesting as we wonder what bad incident will happen next and how it will involve the cop. You really feel sorry for Popeye.

From the cityscape true to the Segar vision, overhead shots, Popeye off his game to Olive evidently at that time of month and the jug-band musical accompaniment, this is a favorite cartoon of mine. The running gag of Popeye opening his jalopy door is great. It's simply proof that the series under the Fleischers wasn't just a one-note approach. The Fleischers were the masters of the b&w short.

This is not really a good cartoon. Popeye cartoons are notoriously poorly animated, but this seems even unusually cheaply done. Margie Hines is just plain irritating as the voice of Olive Oyl, although thankfully Mercer's rantings are still pretty funny. Overall, it feels sloppy and thrown-together. The only redeeming aspect of this cartoon is the clever scene of Popeye wrapping up the entire contents of a room into a rug viewed from directly above.