Vintage Popeye in film recording that needs to be refined (5,3)
I believe the answer is:
crude oil
'in film recording that needs to be refined' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both substances as well as being singular nouns.
Maybe there's an association between them I don't understand?
'vintage popeye' is the wordplay.
I cannot quite see how this works, but
'vintage' could be 'cru' (e.g. grand cru) and 'cru' is found in the answer.
This may be the basis of the clue (or it may be nonsense).
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for crude oil that I've seen before include "Unrefined petroleum" , "liquid asset" , "From which petrol is made" , "output from rig" , "Source of fuel" .)