I’m watching this really badly made and acted science fiction movie made in 1930 called Just Imagine. It goes forward 50 years to 1980 in New York, where everyone has a number instead of a name, and in proto-Jetson style, everyone drives airplanes instead of cars (and yes, the noise in the sky is unbearable!). At least the planes are cool–they use hover-fans to lift off and land, rather than wheels and a runway.
What’s really funny about this movie is that it’s just SO bad. It’s a 1930 movie with a little snazzier set and a really–REALLY–bad story. See, in this 1980, the government tells you who you marry. “It’s a great social experiment, like the Volstead Act!” quoth one minor character, one of those “modern women” that men still hate (I suppose they weren’t too far off on that prediction). One of the girls works for a doctor (in a ridiculously spare “uniform”) that brings back a guy who was hit by lightening in 1930, who works as the “give me the good old days” foil (he says that several times).
This is no social commentary, that’s certain. Everyone is still very white, and men fill the (male) doctor’s theater in watching them bring the man from 1930 back to life. “So women are still causing trouble. You’d think in 50 years they’d find a good substitute for them!” says the drunk 1930s guy–drunk on Prohibited booze, now in the form of a pill. Everyone still talks as if they were in 1930–well, as if they were in a 1930 movie, with the fake British refined accent. Even the fashions are 1930 with a slight twist–all the men still wear suits, just that one breast goes all the way across instead of buttoning in front; all the women in dresses, just slightly more scantily clad. Oh, and the music is still the warbling orchestral-accompanied singing of a 1930 movie.
What can you expect of a movie but for it to reflect it’s time, I suppose, but I expected more out of a post-Time Machine world. I mean, Wells wrote that a good 35 years before this movie.
I find it hilarious, however, that the father’s name is MP3. And the bright spot is the best friend (played by Frank Albertson), who is the only actor in the movie who acts a little more naturalistically, like a more modern actor (and with a good American accent). He actually looks uncannily like Andrew McCarthy.
And THEN, a mysterious figure shows up, telling the leading man he can solve his problem. Ack, I can’t watch this anymore. But the review on the main IMDB page says they apparently go to Mars, too, in a scene cheesier than silent movies years before. Ah, the mysterious man is an inventor, Z4, who has invented a PLANE who will let someone investigate the great mystery that is the planet Mars–thus solving the main character’s problem: the government ruled against him marrying his sweetheart because he wasn’t distinguished enough compared to his rival.
And apparently the guy from 1930, El Brendel, does a great “hat sequence,” which I suppose is coming up in a moment. I can’t believe I’m still watching this.
ETA: Oh, I guess the dad’s name is actually MT3. Kinda spoils the fun.