Really like to love a good deal of Popeye cartoons and like the character of Popeye. Love Bluto more and his chemistry with Popeye has always driven their cartoons. 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.
'A Haul in One' 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. All things considered, while there are infinitely better Popeye cartoons (especially during the Fleischer era) and there are signs of what made this period an inferior one for Famous Studios, 'A Haul in One' is not a bad late Popeye cartoon at all and one of the better cartoons in Famous Studios' late output.
As to be expected, the story is standard and formulaic, all it is basically is Popeye and Bluto battling for Olive Oyl's affections with not as much variety as many other Popeye cartoons. Complete with an easy foreseeable ending. There could have been more gags too, the ones here are amusing and timed reasonably well, thankfully not being repetitive either, but they are never hilarious and it's not laugh-a-minute.
Similarly the animation quality is uneven, never terrible but never fantastic, most of the time though actually not bad. The colours are fine and there is smoothness and nice detail but there are some moments where the backgrounds are sparse and the drawing rough.
What is fantastic about 'A Haul in One' is the music score, the best thing for me. It's beautifully orchestrated, rhythmically it's full of energy and there is so much character and atmosphere, it's also brilliant at adding to the action and enhancing it. The gags are executed well, the interplay between the characters is lively and witty if in need of more variety and the pace is never dull.
The three main characters do a great job carrying the cartoon, Bluto being the funniest and most interesting. Olive Oyl is a good charming character where you can totally see what Popeye sees in her, but it's the entertaining interplay between Popeye and Bluto that really sparkles. Jack Mercer, Mae Questel and Jackson Beck give great vocal characterisations, Beck in particular and Mercer and Questel are the voice actors that spring to mind generally for me for Popeye and Olive's voices.
Concluding, decent if nothing mind-blowing. 7/10 Bethany Cox
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