I like a weird movie once in a while but 1930’s Just Imagine is one of the weirdest flicks I’ve seen. What makes it extra weird is the fact that I don’t believe the people making the movie thought it was weird at all!
The film starts with a narrator commenting on how much has changed in the 50 years between 1880 and 1930. And if so much has changed in that time, just imagine what life will be like in another fifty years…in 1980. According to this film instead of cars people have their own single seat airplanes, people don’t have names but number designations, and we don’t choose our mates, the government does. Babies can come from vending machines and meals are consumed in pill form (an idea later made popular on the animated series The Jetsons). Another quick line tells us that the Volstead Act, officially prohibiting the sale and transportation of alcoholic beverages is still on the books. We meet a young man named J-21 who’s in love with the pretty LN-18. Unfortunately, he is being assigned a wife but has appealed the decision and awaits the date of his appeal. His roommate RT-42 and his girlfriend D-6 invite him to come along to see an experiment being performed. A man who died in 1930 is being brought back to life! They go and sure enough scientists bring the man back to life. To them the experiment was a success and now have no use for the man. J-21 and roomy RT-42 suggest he stay with them. They designate him Single 0 and show him around 1980 New York. After some silliness with Single 0, J-21 gets a call from a famous scientist, Z-4, who wants him to man a mission to Mars in a spaceship he has made. J-21 figures that if he comes back a national hero then upon his appeal, they will have to let him marry LN-18. So, he and his roommate, along with a stowaway Single 0 travel to Mars where they are greeted by a somewhat primitive tribe of people, seemingly made up of mostly women. Bad versions of the natives kidnap our heroes and hold them hostage. They are rescued just in time to leave in their ship and arrive at the appeal with seconds to spare, prove they went to Mars, and J-21 is granted the choice to marry LN-18.
While that description is a little weird, now plug these aspects into to it. Single 0 is played by vaudevillian actor El Brendel, who’s shtick was playing a character with a goofy Swedish accent. As he does in this movie. He even performs a bit of his stage act in a scene. In addition to the silly vaudevillian RT-42’s girlfriend D-6 is played by another former vaudeville performer. Brassy but cute as a button Marjorie White, who makes jokes and pulls faces throughout. These two are in a different movie than everyone else. It’s not quite straight science fiction and not quite a romantic comedy. Oh, did I mention it’s a musical? Not really a traditional musical where characters burst into song as dialogue, but the film is peppered with production numbers both big and small. Even on Mars!
As far as predictions of 1980 go, they didn’t get much right. Actually, nothing now that I think of it. They were off by a decade or two with video phones. Small flying vehicles have still not replaced automobiles, we have names, marry, and are conceived, mainly, the old-fashioned way. Prohibition was repealed in 1933, so that didn’t last very long. While diet pills and supplements are thing, we still eat 3 meals a day of honest to goodness food. The aircraft in the movie were designed by an actual aircraft engineer from the Douglas Aircraft Company, so they look like they actually could work. The costume designs for the men took into account that suits would be different and they’re kind of cool. The hairstyles and women’s clothing though were left, basically, unchanged from 1930. That seemed odd to me. To pay attention to altering some of the clothes people would wear but not the others. The cityscape was certainly inspired by the movie Metropolis, which itself was inspired by New York City. I was surprised at the budget given to this movie by the studio- Fox. While it starts off as a fairly low budget affair, when our heroes reach Mars there are some pretty elaborate sets. One that, also, brings to mind a set from Metropolis. A large set for a number with dozens of girls dancing that includes a giant idol that the girls climb onto and drop down a pit in front of. At one point its immense arms move while some of the girls climb and hang on. It serves no purpose as far as the story goes. Just an excuse for some music and dancing. In 1930 talking pictures were still a fairly new thing. Some of the performances feel like silent performances too. Especially one moment toward the end when LN-18 (played by future Jane, of Tarzan fame, Maureen O’Sullivan) thinks she’s lost her love. It’s very similar to human Maria in Metropolis.
For its time it’s fairly long at 113 minutes and I felt every minute of it. The print I was watching had to be at least a couple of video generations old, so details weren’t very clear, though it was still pretty easy to follow what was happening. Even when what was happening was so inconsistent at times. One fun piece of trivia, the spaceship they use to go to Mars was later used as Zarkov’s ship in the Flash Gordon serials. If you’ve seen any of those, you’ll recognize the ship right away. Personally, I can’t really recommend this movie. Unless you are a hardcore fan of pre-code musicals, I found little to hold onto, it kept changing what kind of movie it was from sequence to sequence. I also found that a little of El Brendel’s Swede character goes a long way.
I watched Just Imagine on the commercial supported streaming service Tubi. Again, the print is not that good but is watchable. The film is available on DVD, but I can’t vouch for the quality of the print. The stills shown on Amazon are much better than what I watched on Tubi. That release is priced at around $15. It is also available to stream on Amazon Prime. I took a peek at that one and it looks about the same as what I watched.
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