Just Imagine (1930)

Yikes, but this is a mess of a film! It starts with some archive of a very peaceful New York in 1880 before advancing us fifty years to a city of hustle and bustle; motor cars and electricity. This is where a poor soul is victim to that latter invention - whilst playing golf - and resuscitated with the name of "Single O" (El Brendel). A bit of a fish out of water, he befriends the disgruntled "J-21" (John Garrick). Now he has just lost out in the marriage court and so can't marry his sweetheart (Maureen O'Sullivan). Take heart, though - the decision will be reviewed in 1980! It's to that timeframe we now move - via some perfectly staged showtime performances - where "J-21" is selected to man a mission to Mars. Climbing into one of the rocket ships that "Flash Gordon" had finished with, off they go to the red planet and meet an Inca-esque tribe whom they befriend a little before realising that they need to get out of the place - complete with a "guest"! Once home, heroes, maybe he can get that marriage decision reversed? To be fair, that's the briefest of synopses. There is more going on, but the manner in which this hybrid is presented is all rather amateur. The speed of technological innovation in 1930 could readily encourage people to imagine a glittering 1980 that we might not, even now, attribute to 2080, but it's the attempt to mix the genres - sci-fi meets romance meets musical theatre that just doesn't work. The themes don't readily gel and though some of the singing shows the skills of people like Garrick, the acting - pretty much across the board - struggles to lift the mediocre writing and muddled direction from it's confused doldrums. It is a fantasy, and ought to be considered as an imaginative and speculative piece of cinema for the time, but even then it's still all just too much of a work in progress to enjoy. Sorry, but almost a century later, this has lost pretty much all of the potency it ever had.