Just Imagine!

The movie Just Imagine from 1930 is one of those movies that has to be seen to be believed. Let me try to offer a nutshell description. Just Imagine is a science fiction musical set in the year 1980 which follows the romantic woes of two young lovers separated by the arcane marriage laws of the time. The hero and his friend take up with a man frozen since 1930 who must adapt to the wild future world as well as outer space when the three guys head to Mars. On Mars they find a strange culture of bizarre good and evil twins, but as we suspected at the beginning by the end all is well. 

I don't know if I want to say if Just Imagine is a good movie or not. I know I have to be in a right mood to delve into its strange world of flying cars and amateur spaceships. The society is intentionally weird and intended to upset the expectations of a typical 1930's movie goer. It upset mine and I lived through 1980. (It's difficult to know that we almost as far away from that future time now as the 1930 audience was from their target time. Yikes!) Maureen O'Sullivan is lovely as ever as the love interest named LN-18 and John Garrick is perfectly okay as the main hero J-21. His mate RT-42 is played by Frank Albertson. My favorite name is MT-3, the villain of the piece played by Kenneth Thomson. 

El Brendel plays the hapless chap who wakes up in 1980 having been asleep since 1930. Brendel is the comedy in this movie, and uses his Swedish accent material from Vaudeville to liven up the proceedings. The truly wacky stuff happens on Mars where the we find the strangest aliens on film to that point. I find these Martians more terrifying in their own way than the classic critters from War of the Worlds. It's ultra strange! 

This is an oddball movie and I don't really recommend it unless you are totally into this kind of weird cinema or can find it for little or no money. To that end let me offer this link to Youtube. Enjoy at your own peril. 

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