[SKRIVA] Rec: Just Imagine! (1930)

(Skrev nedanstående på engelska, då det finns några utländska listor som kan vara intresserade. --AE)
There are few "Wow!" moments in science fiction films today. Most sf flicks are just show-offs of computer generated graphics and explosions and not too convincing aliens. The films were better some 20 years ago when you couldn't substitute an at least vaguely intelligible script with special effects. 
  So you have to turn to 1930 for your Wows!
I hadn't even heard of the Fox film "Just Imagine!" (1930) until a couple of years ago. Many of my film books don't even mention it, and some only do in passing. It is certainly one of the weirdest sf films ever made - an sf *musical*, a comedy, and that from a period when talkies were new. It was thought to be lost until the 1970's, and it is said to have never been released on VHS or DVD. But is must be out there somewhere on the P2P nets, because my friend and correspondent in Norway, PC Jorgensen, just sent me a DVD copy! We had discussed this film on a con earlier, and it seems he had been successful in finding it. (A thousand thanks, PC!) Some sources say the film is 1h42m, but I clocked my copy to 1h48m (there may be different versions out there). 

Seeing it was a definite Wow! moment.
I think we have to understand that when "Just Imagine!" came the esthetics of films were a bit different and early in sound filming there must have been technical problems (dialogue is slow, with pauses between lines - probably to ease sound editing - and there are still some silent-style texts between scenes), but one has to appreciate the film for the oddness of the project and the for its time very impressive special effects. Special effects that you have to work hard with, without computers, are always worthwhile. The movie site www.moviediva.com says that the future New York in the film took 205 workers five months to build, in a zeppelin hangar 20 miles from Hollywood, to a cost of 168 000 dollars. Those scenes open the film. We see a "1980" New York with towering skyscrapers, motorways and lots of aircrafts flying between the buildings. The remind us of the futuristic city of Fritz Lang's Metropolis but are in my view better made. The cityscape is more detailed and the air traffic is more convicing. We read opening texts taking us back to 1880, with horses all over the city, and then go to 1930 with streetcars and cars all over the place. "If so much have changed from 1880 to 1930, what will happen a further 50 years hence... Just imagine!" The script and songs (I count to ca ten music numbers, but some are rather short) is by the trio de Sylva, Brown and Henderson (said to be well known songwriters of that era), direction is by David Butler, and the lead roles are played by Maureen O'Sullivan (not yet of Tarzan fame), John Garrick, Marjorie White, Frank Albertson and El Brendel. The latter is probably the major star. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/El_Brendel says he was one of the most well known comedians in America at the time, with a "Swedish accent comedy routine". I must say that he to me sounds more German accent, but an explanation could be that Brendel as a vaudeville artist did work with German accent comedy and changed it to Swedish accent after World War I. The plot isn't too complicated. One guy, named J-21 (in this future everyone has a number, just like Ralph 124C41+), is in love with this girl, LN-18. But he has a rival, named MT-13. J-21 however, after meeting the scientist Z-4 who has invented a spaceplane that can fly to Mars, goes to Mars and proves he is a real hero and gets the girl in the end. The marriage system in this 1980 future is really complicated. Men apply for permission to marry a woman to a marriage tribunal, a sort of court. The woman can say yes or no, but if she says yes the court has the final saying. Miss LN-18 has already approved of the proposal from MT-13, and Mr J-21 must now prove himself more worthy to the court. (I don't know if this system is meant to "improve" human genes buy finding favourable partners, but if so the idea is flawed in more ways than one. In the film babies don't come from marriage and sex, but from vending machines in the street. You put in a coin and a few moments later, a baby pops out. There is a scene in the film showing this. The idea of "improving" human genes by government supervised matching is flawed if babies don't come from marriage and sex. However, "improving" the human stock through crude genetics ideas was very popular in those days. Not only in Germany.) But the plot has some complications. J-21 happens to attend a demonstration by a scientist, who intends to revive a man who's been dead sine 1930 (he was struck by lightning while playing golf). The experiment is successful and J-21 takes care of Single-O as this anachronistic visitor from the past is named. He is played by El Brendel and many comical scenes comes from his lack of adaption to the Brave New World. 
  When J-21 goes to Mars, Single-O is found in the cabin as a stowaway.
On Mars the expedition finds a society of mainly women (who do a number of interesting dances in light clothing) and I must confess that the plot here to me becomes a bit obscure. It seems to be just an excuse to show the imaginative costumes, sets and props (the Martian queen has a interesting costume, for instance). The Martian scenes and the future New York shows that a lot of money must have gone into "Just Imagine!".
Reading about the film I get the impression that the critics were at least mildly favourable towards "Just Imagine!", but in any event nobody tried to do anything like this film again. The reason may be that it simply was to expensive and complicated to make. But it's likely that other film makers must have been inspired by "Just Imagine!". The Mars ship looks extremely much like the spaceships we later find in Flash Gordon (whose first comic strips came in 1934 and the movie serials came later). The scene of Single-O being brought back to life resembles in many way the "Frankensten"-films. Some details in the Martian scenes may have inspired the Emerald City on "The Wizard of Oz". And indeed, Aldous Huxley's classic Brave New World came in 1932, after "Just Imagine!", with its idea of babies coming from vending machines. Let's for a moment look into some of the inventions and devices in the film. Everyone has a personal airplane, with VTOL capability (from horizontal propellors embedded in the wings). They have TV telephones and get their meals as pills. There are transatlantic airliners (J-21 is a pilot of those, and that's why he is a good candidate to pilot the Mars ship) but it seems they are more like airships. There's a beautiful scene when the collegues of J-21 has a going away party, and you can see a big zeppelin tied to a skyscraper mooring mast (an idea many believed in during the 1930's, which however proved unpractical; the Empire State Building mast was originally intended for zeppelins). There are traffic cops floating in mid air, in some sort of basket surrounded by balloons. In one scene you see a "dryblower" (or whatever it is called) for drying your hands after going to the WC. I'm not sure such things otherwise existed in 1930, so that could be an invention from "Just Imagine!" that turned real. There are some interesting takes in futuristic fashion too. One women demonstrates a dress that can be turned inside out. The men have ties and suits of a strange design. I wonder what the people of 1930 would have thought if they knew that the most popular everyday clothing in our days would be a simple T-shirt (with some silly message) and those 19th century cowboy jeans? It seems prohibition (ie the US alcohol ban, for you non-Americans) is still an issue in this 1930 future, but Single-O doesn't seem to have any problems finding some booze. The architecture and internal room decorations are Art Deco to the extreme, which I find very interesting.
Time to summarize. "Just Imagine!" is a very difficult film in many ways, because it tries to do so many things. It is a vision of the future AND a musical AND a comedy. The plot isn't very tight and there must have been some difficulties with mastering the new idea of talking pictures. But it is very funny at times, and the special effects are *very* well made for its time. The film was probably somewhat of a special effects laboratory, pushing film effects several years forward (maybe a bit like a "2001" of its time). El Brendel is often funny, within the limitations of early talkies, and you get lots of wild ideas about the "future of yesterday". Did they really thing 1980 would be like that? Gosh. The best word I can find to describe "Just Imagine!" is: incomparable. Nothing like it has ever been done. There are many flaws in the film, but it's easy to forget about them and be simply flabbergasted from the creative, wild imagination of this 78 years old forgotten classic. The end is a laugh. Single-O is approached by and old man with a white beard. It is his son... 

--Ahrvid

Ps. More about "Just Imagine!" incl some stills are to be found at:
http://www.moviediva.com/MD_root/reviewpages/MDJustImagine.htm
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021016/usercomments


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