This is a truly awful film..... it's also so crazy that it's absolutely addictive. If you want to see something so laughably bad that it's good, if you're interested in landmark movies or just take pleasure in other people's embarrassment, this picture is for you.
It's essentially a comedy but the comedy is cringingly infantile - I'd imagine you'd have difficulty finding any pre-school children that would be remotely amused at this. You feel a sense of guilt watching it - it's uncomfortable seeing grown up respectable actors involved in such puerile nonsense. The scenes on Mars are especially gobsmackingly and unbelievably awful. You have to rewind those in order for your brain to register that what you just saw actually happened.
It was made in 1930 but that's no excuse. There were plenty of pretty good films made in 1930 and even a small handful very good ones. A lot of very early talkies were stagey and boring - that however is one criticism which cannot be aimed at this; boring is most definitely is not! It was made by Fox Films which was at the time plummeting headlong into bankruptcy but that's no excuse either. They spent a massive $1.1M making this with stunning spectacular sets and special effects. If this is what Fox thought would put them back into the black you can understand why Fox Films went under.
Concerning the science fiction element, it's always interesting to see how people in the past imagined what we'd be like in the future. In the inter-war years there were some very insightful thought provoking pictures: Germany gave us METROPOLIS and England gave us THINGS TO COME whereas America gave us this! New York in 1980 has become an authoritarian state, there's the inevitable flying cars, food and drink are now in pill form (reminiscent of BARBARELLA) and people still wear hats. In this imagined future, one of our heroes looks lustfully at pictures of girls from the 1930s..... as if! .....o.k. Maybe that's not too far fetched - Maureen O'Sullivan does look absolutely gorgeous.
If this hadn't gone down the road of making it a comedy - a musical comedy for goodness sake but made it as a straight science fiction film maybe it might not have been so terrible? Then again, if this wasn't so terrible it might not be so strangely entertaining. I wonder if this was Mel Brooks' inspiration for THE PRODUCERS? A ridiculous plot, bad acting, atrocious songs all designed to make a mammoth flop. This seemed like a perfect picture to ruin the struggling Fox Films.
It's essentially a comedy but the comedy is cringingly infantile - I'd imagine you'd have difficulty finding any pre-school children that would be remotely amused at this. You feel a sense of guilt watching it - it's uncomfortable seeing grown up respectable actors involved in such puerile nonsense. The scenes on Mars are especially gobsmackingly and unbelievably awful. You have to rewind those in order for your brain to register that what you just saw actually happened.
It was made in 1930 but that's no excuse. There were plenty of pretty good films made in 1930 and even a small handful very good ones. A lot of very early talkies were stagey and boring - that however is one criticism which cannot be aimed at this; boring is most definitely is not! It was made by Fox Films which was at the time plummeting headlong into bankruptcy but that's no excuse either. They spent a massive $1.1M making this with stunning spectacular sets and special effects. If this is what Fox thought would put them back into the black you can understand why Fox Films went under.
Concerning the science fiction element, it's always interesting to see how people in the past imagined what we'd be like in the future. In the inter-war years there were some very insightful thought provoking pictures: Germany gave us METROPOLIS and England gave us THINGS TO COME whereas America gave us this! New York in 1980 has become an authoritarian state, there's the inevitable flying cars, food and drink are now in pill form (reminiscent of BARBARELLA) and people still wear hats. In this imagined future, one of our heroes looks lustfully at pictures of girls from the 1930s..... as if! .....o.k. Maybe that's not too far fetched - Maureen O'Sullivan does look absolutely gorgeous.
If this hadn't gone down the road of making it a comedy - a musical comedy for goodness sake but made it as a straight science fiction film maybe it might not have been so terrible? Then again, if this wasn't so terrible it might not be so strangely entertaining. I wonder if this was Mel Brooks' inspiration for THE PRODUCERS? A ridiculous plot, bad acting, atrocious songs all designed to make a mammoth flop. This seemed like a perfect picture to ruin the struggling Fox Films.