Choose Your 'Weppins' (1935)
Policeman Wimpy loses his handcuffed prisoner when he's distracted by a hamburger shop. The escapee drops into the weapon-filled pawn shop Popeye and Olive are running, and quickly gets in a fight with Popeye.
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Choose Yer 'Weppins' (1935) *** (out of 4) Popeye is running a pawn shop when a man enters demanding to sell some knives, which aren't worth a dime yet he insists on more money. There aren't a lot of laughs here but the ones we do get are good enough to make this film worth seeing. The highlight of the film is when Popeye must prove to the man that the knives aren't worth very much money and he does this by trying to cut a piece of the man's hair, which of course doesn't work and leads to a funny joke. Wimpy also makes a short appearance as a cop who was originally taking the man to jail but gets sidetracked by a hamburger store.
After the first few minutes it looked like this was going to be a fairly weak Popeye cartoon but - wow - it got terrific and stayed that way until the end. The attraction: a lot of legitimately funny and clever sight gags.There is no Bluto in this one, which is a nice change-of-pace but we have a villain, a mustachioed-guy who looks like the old silent-era villain "Oil Can Harry" who would tie up women and leave them on the railroad tracks.Here, this villain is handcuffed early on by Wimpy, who is a cop, believe it or not. However, predictably, Wimpy is inept and quickly he loses the criminal he has handcuffed to him when he gets distracted by - you guessed it - hamburgers. The crook just happens to have a coat full of skeleton keys and other escape mechanisms so he splits and heads for the nearby Popeye's Pawn Shop That's where the real fun starts and I wouldn't want to spoil it. Suffice to say you see a lot of wild scenes between the criminal, Popeye and Olive and some duels you can't believe. The name of this cartoon refers to all the various weapons these guys use in their duels. To this day, this is a very original material which I haven't seen on any other cartoons.