Product Details

• Actors: El Brendel, Maureen O'Sullivan, John Garrick, Marjorie White, Frank Albertson
• Directors: David Butler
• Format: Full Screen, NTSC
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Number of discs: 1
• Studio: PR Studios
• DVD Release Date: January 6, 2009
• Run Time: 108 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B001P3XYUE
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #98,558 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The first science fiction musical, July 23, 2009

By 

Edward J. Tabler (Des Plaines, Il) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Just Imagine (DVD)

Coming out forty-five years before The Rocky Horror Picture Show, Just Imagine was the first SF musical. Released in 1930, it tried to predict what life would be like 50 years later. Flying cars, numbers for names, eating food in concentrated pills, interplanetary travel--about the only thing they got right was that women would be wearing slitskirts in 1980. There's plenty of low humor and a few good songs. Check it out, it will make you smile.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Recommended for fans of early talkies and all things weird, May 24, 2009

By 

calvinnme - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Just Imagine (DVD)

This is one of the strangest films of the early talkie era. This is a sci-fi musical adventure about life fifty years in the future - 1980 at the time. The story revolves around John Garrick and Maureen O'Sullivan, whose characters are assigned alphanumeric names as is everyone else.

Garrick and O'Sullivan were also teamed romantically in "A Song O' My Heart" during the same year, another early musical by Fox. However, Fox is not the producer of this DVD. Instead it appears to be a public domain effort. There is no restoration of the video, although the sound is clear enough with some of the popping and hissing typical of early talkies.

At any rate, Garrick and O'Sullivan play lovers of the future that want to wed, but the state now intervenes when a woman accepts "competing bids" or proposals of marriage based on the merits of the applicants. Garrick has a competitor for O'Sullivan's hand, and the only way he can win in court is to do something outstanding. A nearby scientist needs a pilot for his spacecraft to Mars, and Garrick figures this is a way of distinguishing himself and winning the hand of his lady love.

As comic relief there is El Brendel, who has a vaudeville brand of humor. He comes along for the ride to Mars too. There are several musical interludes in the film including one ode to old fashioned girls - the girls of 1930 - showing flappers as moms in a none too flattering light. They still show prohibition being enforced in 1980 too, though with a promise of light beers and wines being legalized shortly.

I'd give the film 5/5 stars for being good but strange fun for the right audience. However, I'd give the video and audio quality of this unrestored film only 3/5 stars.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars What was that?, July 14, 2009

By 

wiredweird "wiredweird" (Earth, or somewhere nearby) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Just Imagine (DVD)

I'll try to keep a straight face, here, but it might not be easy. This presents itself as a 1930s view of what 1980 would look like: people's names replaced by numbers, aircars in tidy skylanes over the gleaming city, and marriages arranged by application to the benevolent state. Oh: arranged when the man applies, since the woman's interest in the affair has no legal standing. Therein lies the romantic struggle, to present a more convincing case for worthiness to the licensing tribunal than the competing suitor does.

Well, the first manned trip to Mars ought to put enough weight in the resume. They aim their rocket, push the button, and they're off - along with the comedic relief, a tippling stowaway with a funny accent and a personality like Red Skelton's Clem Kadiddlehopper. The Martians? Of course there are Martians, why else go to Mars? They greet our adenturers with the warmest of welcomes, sometimes hinting at the steamy, but then ... well, see for yourself.

Since the vaudeville era hadn't yet loosed its grip on the image of what entertainment should be, there are songs, adventure, dance numbers, adventure, comedy, adventure, chaste romance, and a predictably happy ending. A collection of bold characters and silly predictions keep this moving. Modern viewers will see this 80 year old artifact as a campy anachronism - unless they look a bit past, and see which hopes, fears, and expectations movies of that era addressed.

-- wiredweird