For nearly 20 years, from 1931 until 1951, major Hollywood studios didn't want anything to do with science fiction space travel feature films. Many a script came across an influential producer's desk with exciting space adventure plots. But because of one movie, these executives rubber stamped "rejection" across each cover page, with the lone exception of United Artists' 1936 "Things To Come." The reason: Fox Films' big-budgeted November 1930 "Just Imagine" served as a prima facie to stay away from the genre.
Fox spent a fortune on the movie's enormous, highly futuristic sets. Befitting the late-stage popularity of musicals, "Just Imagine" mixed the exciting space flight scenes with extravagant musical numbers employing scores of dancers performing sophisticated 'Busby Berkeley-type' movements.
"Just Imagine" was the first talkie sci-fi film as well as cinema's first outer space musical production. Set fifty years in the future in the year 1980, the picture opens with a wide view of futuristic New York CIty where airplanes wind their way throughout the 250-story buildings connected by high suspension bridges. The gargantuan set was constructed inside an Army dirigible hanger. A team of over 200 construction workers and technicians took five months to build the urban setting, costing an almost unheard of $170,000. For its effort, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science named it as a nominee for Best Art Direction, the first science fiction movie to be nominated for the Academy Awards.
Fox Films also spent gobs of money for a giant laboratory equipped with electronic gadgets delivering stunning special effects for its time. "Just Imagine" was one of the first movies to use the Dunning Process, which allowed live action to take place in front of photographed backgrounds, giving a realistic view of out-of-this-world sights.
Maureen O'Sullivan was assigned the female lead in "Just Imagine," only the third film in her young movie career. Ireland's born and raised O'Sullivan was discovered by director Frank Borzage while he was in the Emerald Isle filming 1930's 'Song o' My Heart' with Irish tenor John McCormack. She met her future husband, John Farrow, a Fox Film writer, on the studio lot while making "Just Imagine." The couple later had a daughter named Mia. The future Jane in Tarzan's first movies, O'Sullivan plays LN-18 (by 1980 people are given numbers instead of names), a love-lorn young woman who is betrothed to newspaper owner MT-3 (Kenneth Thomson). During 1980, the movie predicted persons could simply file the necessary forms to marry the woman (or man) of their dreams. LN-18, despite her objections, is obligated to wed MT-3 even though she's in love with J-21 (John Garrick). A main criteria on the form is to state one's outstanding personal achievements in life. For J-21, he has to quickly think of something to leapfrog over the publisher's accomplishments to get LN-18. And that's when he plans earthlings' first trip to Mars.
Today, "Just Imagine" has reached cult status for its campy plot and sets. But when the film was first released, the lack of interest in the picture at the box office had a crippling effect on the science fiction space genre. A less ambitious sci-fi feature film was produced in 1933, "It's Great To Be Alive," by Fox. That equally failed to register at the theaters. To recuperate some of its losses, Fox was able to sell the space travel footage in the movie as well as discarded scenes on the cutting room floor to other studios for their productions. Some of the movie's elaborate scientific lab equipment was also purchased by Universal for its 1931 movie "Frankenstein."
Hollywood did not produce any large-scale sci-fi space movies until 1951, when "The Day The Earth Stood Still" premiered to rousing acclaim. However, the science fiction space genre did thrive in serials after "Just Imagine," with the popularity of 1936 'Flash Gordon' and 1939 'Buck Rogers,' paving the way for later outer space futuristic movies.
Fox spent a fortune on the movie's enormous, highly futuristic sets. Befitting the late-stage popularity of musicals, "Just Imagine" mixed the exciting space flight scenes with extravagant musical numbers employing scores of dancers performing sophisticated 'Busby Berkeley-type' movements.
"Just Imagine" was the first talkie sci-fi film as well as cinema's first outer space musical production. Set fifty years in the future in the year 1980, the picture opens with a wide view of futuristic New York CIty where airplanes wind their way throughout the 250-story buildings connected by high suspension bridges. The gargantuan set was constructed inside an Army dirigible hanger. A team of over 200 construction workers and technicians took five months to build the urban setting, costing an almost unheard of $170,000. For its effort, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Science named it as a nominee for Best Art Direction, the first science fiction movie to be nominated for the Academy Awards.
Fox Films also spent gobs of money for a giant laboratory equipped with electronic gadgets delivering stunning special effects for its time. "Just Imagine" was one of the first movies to use the Dunning Process, which allowed live action to take place in front of photographed backgrounds, giving a realistic view of out-of-this-world sights.
Maureen O'Sullivan was assigned the female lead in "Just Imagine," only the third film in her young movie career. Ireland's born and raised O'Sullivan was discovered by director Frank Borzage while he was in the Emerald Isle filming 1930's 'Song o' My Heart' with Irish tenor John McCormack. She met her future husband, John Farrow, a Fox Film writer, on the studio lot while making "Just Imagine." The couple later had a daughter named Mia. The future Jane in Tarzan's first movies, O'Sullivan plays LN-18 (by 1980 people are given numbers instead of names), a love-lorn young woman who is betrothed to newspaper owner MT-3 (Kenneth Thomson). During 1980, the movie predicted persons could simply file the necessary forms to marry the woman (or man) of their dreams. LN-18, despite her objections, is obligated to wed MT-3 even though she's in love with J-21 (John Garrick). A main criteria on the form is to state one's outstanding personal achievements in life. For J-21, he has to quickly think of something to leapfrog over the publisher's accomplishments to get LN-18. And that's when he plans earthlings' first trip to Mars.
Today, "Just Imagine" has reached cult status for its campy plot and sets. But when the film was first released, the lack of interest in the picture at the box office had a crippling effect on the science fiction space genre. A less ambitious sci-fi feature film was produced in 1933, "It's Great To Be Alive," by Fox. That equally failed to register at the theaters. To recuperate some of its losses, Fox was able to sell the space travel footage in the movie as well as discarded scenes on the cutting room floor to other studios for their productions. Some of the movie's elaborate scientific lab equipment was also purchased by Universal for its 1931 movie "Frankenstein."
Hollywood did not produce any large-scale sci-fi space movies until 1951, when "The Day The Earth Stood Still" premiered to rousing acclaim. However, the science fiction space genre did thrive in serials after "Just Imagine," with the popularity of 1936 'Flash Gordon' and 1939 'Buck Rogers,' paving the way for later outer space futuristic movies.