Directed by David Butler
Written by Buddy G. DeSylva, Lew Brown, Ray Henderson
Starring El Brendel, Maureen O'Sullivan, John Garrick
Unrated • 1930 • 109 minutes

by Mayzshon

I can’t wait for 1980 to get here, it’s going to be so cool! We’ll all have flying car, New York City will be enormous. On the downside, dead comedians with fake Swedish accents will be returned to life, but hey flying cars!!! Yep, 1980 is going to be...

Huh? It’s already past 1980? Excuse me a minute while I go look out the window. Well, that was disappointing.

Just Imagine was the world’s first sci-fi musical comedy. It was also the world’s last sci-fi musical comedy. The songs tend to stop the movie dead in its tracks, and the comedy, well, the comedy just isn’t that funny.

The movie was written as a vehicle for El Brendle, a vaudeville comedian known as “The Synthetic Swede” (If you’re wondering why a pseudo-Swedish comic has a name like “El”, it’s short for Elmer, much like famed masked wrestler Elmer Santo). He is, however, not the hero of the film. That would be J-21 (John Garrick).

"I've seen the future, brother: it is murder."

It seems J-21 is in love with LN-18 (Maureen O’Sullivan rowr!). But in 1980, marriages are decided by the courts, and they’ve decided LN-18 is to be married to the wealthier MT-3. Unless J-21 can find a way to distinguish himself, true love is about to die.

Meanwhile scientists are conducting an experiment to bring a dead man back to life. I don’t mean he was in cryogenic suspension or anything, I mean dead. But don’t expect any metaphysical examinations here, heck they don’t even explain why a guy who’s been dead for fifty years hasn’t started to decompose.

The dead man is El Brendle, who promptly takes on the name Single-0. He’s taken in by J-21 and his best friend/roommate RT-42. They show him around New York, including a food pill dispenser, which leads to a running gag about the “good ol’ days”. Oh, and this gag:

Single-O: Boys, I vouldn't know de old town! Vere is all de automobiles?
RT-42: [pointing skyward] Oh, they're in the upper level.
J-21: Hardly anyone drives a car now. They all use planes.
Single-O: Is dat so?
RT-42: Yeah, I drive a Rosenblatt. J flies a Pinkus for his personal use, but all the airliners are Goldfarbs.
Single-O: Goldfarb!
Single-O (Laughs): It looks like someone got even with Henry Ford!

In case you don’t get it, Henry Ford was notoriously anti-Semitic.

Mars needs women: Showgirls specifically.

Anyhoo, mysterious scientist Z-4 approaches J-21, offering him the chance to be the first man to fly to Mars, which will make him the most distinguished man in the world. With RT-42 and Single-O in tow, he flies off to the red planet.

Mars turns out to be populated with scantily clad showgirls and one large gay man (pre-Hays code joke: “She’s not the queen, he is!”). The problem is that everyone on Mars has an evil twin.

So is it worth watching? I say yes. While I said it’s not very funny, it’s also not obnoxiously unfunny. El Brendle is an affable guy, and never got on my nerves in the way most odious comic relief does. In fact that’s the word I’d use to sum up the entire film: affable.

Plus, the sets are gorgeous. Ever seen the old Flash Gordon serials? Well this is where the sets for that originated, as well as Flash’s rocketship.

Affable film, cool sets, and Martian hotties dancing around an Idol? Works for me.