As mentioned previously, in “Impossible Voyages” I’m watching and writing about a run of new (to me) science fiction films to be watched over this year (and possibly beyond). You can read the rationale and ground rules here. In the meantime, we are advancing from 1929 to 1930 with this movie, #10 in this series.
Spoilers Ahead
Just Imagine (1930)
Directed by David Butler
The Story: In the far-off future of 1980, where numbers have replaced names and everything is super high-tech, J-21 is frustrated when the marriage tribunal denies his application to wed the beautiful LN-18, because of a prior application by the more accomplished (though conceited) MT-3. To cheer him up, J-21’s friend RT-42 takes him to a a science experiment where a man from 1930 is brought back to life. They take the man, who takes on the name “Single O”, under their wing and introduce him to the world.
In an effort to increase his credential, J-21 agrees to go on a new space mission to explore the planet Mars, along with RT-42 and Single O. On Mars they encounter a tribe of primitive but friendly people, who all have violent twins. Thanks largely to the bravery of Single O, they manage to escape being captured by the aggressive twins and return to earth, where J-21 is regarded as a hero and becomes eligible to marry LN-18.
Starring: John Garrick as J-21, El Brendan as Single O, Frank Albertson as RT-42, Maureen O’Sullivan as LN-18, and Marjorie White as D-6 (RT-42’s girlfriend). Kenneth Thomson is MT-3 and Hobart Bosworth as Z-4 (the scientist who invents the ship that goes to Mars). The Martian king and queen, and their evil doubles, are played by Ivan Lino and Joyzelle Joyner.
Comments: It has been said that “The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” I often find the sentiment appropriate when I’m watching any older movie. When that film is a 95 year old science fiction musical comedy, it becomes particularly apt.
Now, I’ve never been someone to say that just because a movie is older and looks dated that it can’t be appreciated. In fact, my daughter would say that’s one of our family’s cultural values when it comes to entertainment (amongst the favorite anythings for either my wife or me are old Doctor Who, old Star Trek and 1944’s National Velvet).
But to my modern eyes, Just Imagine just looks old and weird–absolutely the most unhinged thing I’ve watched in this series so far. And that’s saying something considering that it wasn’t that long ago that I watched KoKo’s Earth Control.
Just Imagine has got it all, seemingly: music, comedy, romance and legal drama. It’s got a far-out vision of the future. It’s got airships and spaceships and trip to Mars complete with Martians and dancing space-orangutans. It’s got crazy experiments that bring people back from the dead. It’s got a vaudeville performer playing a vaudeville performer, complete with a thick Swedish accent. What it doesn’t have, nearly, is anything that actually makes me laugh, or be interested in the characters or the story. But then like I say, maybe that’s because I’m looking at this thing a century too late.
Now, I’m probably being too harsh. It’s wrong to say the film has no value, and obviously there’s a lot of talent and skill involved.
Probably one of the most impressive things about the film is how extensive a view of the distant future (of 1980!) that it has. There are some impressive visuals as we’re introduced to this world, with a big futuristic looking city full of people fly airships around like cars. I was particularly struck by an early moment where J-21 and LN-18 put their planes next to each other into hover-mode, and then J-21 climbs onto the wing and into his girlfriend’s ship, so they can have a little talk.
We also learn that people have alphanumeric codes instead of names, food and drink have been replaced by pills, marriages are approved by a court based on the candidate’s merit, and babies emerge out of vending machines. Actually, the whole thing looks pretty dystopian if you think about it for a moment, but it’s treated unironically as–well not as a positive thing exactly–but as generally fine, albeit extremely goofy.
There’s even a detail about the wild experiment that brings a man back to life after 50 years–after they succeed, the scientists just abandon the poor guy to figure out how to survive in the future himself. His only value to them is as an experiment! This future is a creepy place!
Actually, I realise as I write this that my opening quote applies to this film in a different way–a lot of the movie is about a man fifty years dead being revived into this new world, and having to find his way around it. For him, the future is the foreign country. The fact that the guy gives off such strong immigrant-vibes, with his Swedish accent and slightly bewildered personality, just adds to this feeling.
El Brendel plays this man-out-of-time, using the same accent and personality that he had developed for his vaudeville act and used in other film roles. Apparently, the persona used to be German until world events forced him to change it. In reality, he was American, and El was short for Elmer.
The movie gives “Single O” a lot of silly moments that are pretty dated now, such as when he expresses disappointment with how much a woman’s futuristic dress covers her up, and then leers with excitement when he it turns out its a lot more revealing than he first thought. But he also gives the movie a chance to laugh at the absurdities of the future, and ends up getting some legitimately heroic moments at the climax. So I guess as far as a character depiction goes, it’s not as bad as it could have been.
Brendel also does an extended vaudeville-style song with a bunch of quick-changes between various characters using assorted props and wigs. It’s impressive, but not my cup of tea. In fact, none of the musical numbers are, which is part of my disinterest in the movie. There are various songs performed by John Garrick, Frank Albertson, and Marjorie White (only Maureen O’Sullivan is conspicuously uninvolved), and a few dance numbers.
The performances are fine, but none of them are that engaging to me. I don’t know enough about the earliest movie musicals to know if I should be expecting something more than this. Again, the past is a foreign place.
Just Imagine is the fourth film in this Impossible Voyages series of mine which has depicted life on the red planet. Unlike the moralistic judges of A Message from Mars, the utopian ideals of A Trip to Mars or the political treachery of Aelita, this movie just shows us a Mars that is as outrageously strange as everything else we’ve seen in 1980. Mars is ruled by Queen Looloo and King Loko, leaders who like to grunt and gesture wildly, who rule over a planet with lots of women in spacey outfits and a form of popular entertainment that involves dozens of apes dancing around to music.
But, they both also have twins (Booboo and Boko, according to what I read) who look exactly the same, including their clothes, but are just bad. In fact, our heroes theorise that everyone on Mars has a bad twin, whom they of course run afoul of. The two kings even face against each other in a brief moment, a bit that is achieved by some good use of double exposure and stunt doubles.
The conclusion of the film reveals that Single O actually kidnaps Boko and brings him back to earth as a sort of trophy, which helps our hero J-21 win the right to marry the lovely LN-18. Sounds like that guy is fitting right in with the nightmare dystopia that is Just Imagine’s 1980. Or am I just misjudging it from the perspective of my own cultural bias? What would Captain Picard say?
The movie’s climax also gives us a couple of moments that I thought were kind of interesting, in spite of my earlier negativity. One is when D-6 has to delay the court proceedings which will decide whether J-21 (the hero) or MT-3 (the conceited jerk) gets to marry her friend LN-18, and she slows things down by proclaiming that MT-3 is the father of her children!
That was pretty funny. And at the very end of the movie, in a clever bit, an old man shows up and announces that he is Single-O’s son, and the two have a cuddle like a father might with a little boy. That was cute.
So, to sum up–Just Imagine is a goofy and irreverent early sci-fi flick; a rare foray into mixing the genre with musical numbers. It’s a silly movie but it’s notable for its production design, special effects and the scope of imagination on display. It was apparently the first ever talking science fiction movies and the first musical. It features Maureen O’Sullivan before she started playing Jane in the Tarzan films or played Jane in Pride and Prejudice. It includes features a bunch of props that can be seen in other early sci-fi franchises–the lab equipment is also used in Frankenstein, and the spaceship shows up in Flash Gordon. I didn’t really like it, but it’s worth a gander from a historical perspective.
And strangely, it’s the second film I’ve watched in this series whose plot involves a guy looking to do a daring deed in order to win a woman. And the second movie to feature people dressed up as ape-creatures! The first, in both cases, is talked about here.
