00:00:00
00:00:01
Just Imagine (1930)- Stream of Consciousness
50 Plays2 months ago
We move forward to sci fi from the 1930's with the little-remembered Just Imagine. Billed as the first sci fi musical. Is that true? We did not look it up to find out! We continue our examination of costumes based on only what we saw and very little outside research. And we saw a lot.
Info from:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Just_Imagine_(film)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0021016/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_0_tt_8_nm_0_in_0_q_just%2520imagine
Music: Cassette Deck by Basketcase
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:01
Speaker
I'm Melinda. I'm Ariel. This is Pot Set, the movie podcast about costume design.
00:00:24
Speaker
Welcome, everyone. Today's episode, we are discussing the movie Just Imagine from 1930. I don't even know where to start. I feel like we're off to a hot a hot start because this this the beginning of the century is is a wild ride. And I feel like um I'm a grumpy sixth grader. It's like, no. But it's an adventure that I'm i'm excited to go down, but I'm also just like, oh, no. It's going to be so long. I wasn't disappointed. This movie is over an hour long. It's an hour and 48, I think. Oh, yeah. Oh, and there's so much packed in there, Melinda. and There's so much in there. It's a lot of movie. It's a lot of movie for one hour and 45 minutes of everyone's time that has seen this movie.
00:01:18
Speaker
I don't even really know where to start. Okay, but um ok let's start with maybe the credits. Let's do that. Okay, so this movie was directed by David Butler. um I did not know him before this movie. I don't know about you. No, I didn't know anything about anyone associated with this movie before. me neither. um It looks like he had previously had a very successful non-sci-fi musical movie come out the year before this, and this was his follow-up movie, and it did not go very well in terms of public reception. They did, though. this I know. For David. um
00:02:03
Speaker
This movie was also written by Buddy G. De Silva, Lou Brown, and Ray Henderson, who I believe were a writing trio that had had some successful Broadway credits in the 20s, if I read that correctly. And I think they all kind of came together as a package of like director, writers, to make this movie. I'm wondering if their relationship is kind of mirrored by the Metropolis relationship with the director and the writer and the actor, having that little like love triangle that then showed up in the script, if the these three people who are kind of represented by the three main, shall we say, earth men that we follow.
00:03:02
Speaker
Oh, that's so, you know, that would make sense. I wonder then like a little bit of each. Yeah, just like everyone's little personality traits being sprinkled in. um Yeah, you know, it was really hard to look up information about this movie because it was not super successful. There was not a lot to be found. I don't know if you also experienced that. I have to admit that I came in pretty unprepared with actual real world knowledge about this movie. I'm fresh off the watch. but yeah I'm fresh. There were some moments that I had to pause and like take out my Bluetooth headphones and be like, all right, I need to play this for the household. Let's take a moment. Everybody needs to come together. You need to know what I'm looking at right now and what I'm hearing.
00:03:55
Speaker
yeah you know my my general movie watching philosophy is i try not to read too much before i watch a movie because i want to just experience it and like try to form my own thoughts and feelings about it but i do like to even just movies that i'm just watching casually i like to research them afterwards um but yeah i came in pretty pretty fresh um other than like you know the most brief description of what this movie was about. I didn't really know what to expect. and like We voted for this based on the description and it was like, yes, I'm in. It's a sci-fi futuristic. It's an idea of what the future will look like and it's got music musical numbers. and I was like, yes, I'm on board. I know. and
00:04:48
Speaker
you know Could we have picked a more well-known movie from the 30s? Yes, we could have. Should we? I don't know. This one was pretty fun. I think that this one was fun.
00:05:02
Speaker
I don't know. This one was, I think, a good choice because it had it it had so much to look at as the perspective of like people from the 30s. looking at the future which is also what we talked about in the last episode which is like what did people imagine the future being like and how did they create that through their craft and making the movie and um this one I think was much more successful in looking forward. um and actually having details that seemed different than what we know traditionally to be true of the 1930s, Western 1930s. But who boy?
00:05:47
Speaker
ah It's worth watching. It's one of those things where the pacing of older movies is just very painful for me. I think it's my attention span. I think that I'm very much a millennial baby and like there's a story structure that works for my attention and anything pre somewhere in the 70s is going to be risky. So when you go all the way back to the 20s and 30s, because it's meant to be this massive experience, um it's kind of hard to like stay fully focused the whole time. So I do recommend if anybody wants to watch this, please do. Maybe you might need to take it in bite sizes or you can even mute it and put on some other music and like have your own personal soundtrack um so that you can get the visuals if you don't really mind not listening to the songs in your life.
00:06:38
Speaker
your life, you'll be fine. You'll survive. I'm like the dialogue, but I don't know. I think you can put on captions and be just fine if you can do captions. But there is one song. I think it's the first song that is sung. just I just want to run run through a couple of notes from the top of the movie. so because i This was just a stream of consciousness. i know yeah Yeah. So the the beginning is narrated with some great footage of like old, like the 1800s, like late 1800s. And um it's just talking about technology differences. And I said, I can't wait to meet this narrator. Spoiler alert, never happens.
00:07:20
Speaker
You're not going to? That's fine. Then I wrote vehicular manslaughter ah as if carriages and wagons didn't pummel people to death. A hundred percent. oh I know. um And for some people, this will just be a mystery. i don't I'm not planning on describing this every single little thing, but this is a part of the but ye olden times. And then um All right, I'm gonna explain it. They show us footage of like, and here's our modern day, like um technology and vehicles and all that. And this guy looks like he's high as hell walking across the street, can't figure out how cars work. And he gets like,
00:07:59
Speaker
but most amazing stunt I've ever seen in my life where he gets like pulled up right before the car touches him, but it's supposed to look like the car hit him. And then I said, ooh, 1980 fucked up by not having Minority Report style aeroplane traffic because it was like, boom, now we're in it. We're in the future. So 1800s footage, 1930s footage, and then we're in 1980. Everybody Everybody, 1980 is the future. This is like demolition man style future where it's like so close. It's so close, but far somehow in expectation.
00:08:37
Speaker
It's I love seeing what people think that we're going to accomplish in 50 years. It's wild. It's amazing. And in this case, the future has a little bit of that stop motion stuff that we saw in Metropolis, like with like the mirror tricks and things to make it look like there's this massive city. And in the airspace of this city, everyone has their own individual aircraft instead of like a car that's on the ground. and we have two main characters pull over in their aircraft yes and switch from forward propeller to to Marvel's Avengers hovercraft technology. right and and I just immediately, I was like, thank you. We're in the costumes immediately and because they won the man crawls out of his aircraft like over onto her wings so that they can have an intimate conversation in the air and immediately I'm like,
00:09:35
Speaker
Hold up. I do have to wonder why no one is wearing goggles. with your protection. I would want that. The bugs. Seems like there would be so many bugs. There are no windscreens and you are very high up and there's a lot of aircraft up there. But I do like the practical like Amelia Earhart of it all. You can see that design. But they have, so it's like they're wearing these like overall kind of things. Flight suits? Yeah, flight suits. And then they have like a hood
00:10:05
Speaker
Snood situation that also has this like lap in the front and the back, but those aren't attached to the flight suit. So yeah, it was like a little dicky. It was a pullover. And it seems like there's a fatal flaw in that. if anything gets caught in those hover propellers that our our main man is like sliding over to get onto her wing. Game over, man. Yeah, you're going to get Isadora Duncan to death. 100%. First, I thought that he was wearing like a long scarf, and I was like, why isn't that tucked into anything? That seems like a problem. And then, nope, it's just this this hood thing that might be a slight ah danger. She's a teeny tiny bat of a danger.
00:10:51
Speaker
I did appreciate in the next scene when he gets home, you kind of see him pull it off. So you kind of got to see like the functionality of it, which was interesting. Yeah, you got to see a lot of functionality of a lot of the costumes, which was pretty great. There's one that gets walked through. There's just being able to see the construction of some of these things yeah and um being able to see how subtly people altered suit jackets or you know built suit jackets to to be futuristic, which takes us like further through the story. um we go from this like
00:11:29
Speaker
We go through like some little domestic scenes where we're introduced to some characters. Can we note that all of the characters names are a combination of letters and numbers. I'm gonna tell you right now, I don't know their names. I had to look them up to write it down. I have forgotten most of them. The one that I do remember the best is our main kind of ingenue because her, I only remember her letter combination because it was the letters L
00:12:06
Speaker
and n And when they said it, it sounded like the name Ellen. And I wonder if that was kind of intentional or just a weird coincidence. I mean, that that works. That works. i the The only name that I remember is the the antagonist ah boyfriend. fiance by the state. um So in this world, ah there's a marriage law. And basically our premise in this story of Just Imagine is that it's taking place in 1980, there's all this futuristic technology, but there is this marriage law, you cannot choose your own partner, you are
00:12:42
Speaker
set up with someone and that is who you marry. By the government. By the government. And our couple at the very beginning who are on their hovercrafts having a conversation, the very conversation they're having is, oh no, ah marriage laws come through and they're going to try to marry me, LN, off to some man that I don't want to marry, but I want to marry you. And like my father is responsible for this, whatever. And so our leading man, who I call light suit man, because he's wearing a light colored suit. I think his name was Jay, the letter J. Yeah, Jay, something, something. um His whole story through this film movie is that he wants to become a distinguished member of society so that he can then become um a consideration for for his love.
00:13:32
Speaker
Right. shes She seems, she sort of coded like high class, kind of debutante. And he's like middle class or less, like just a regular old Joe, regular old Jay. And he wants to be able to petition this marriage law that's affecting her and see if he can become a candidate. So he um is, pat propositioned by some strange man. like later on a crazy inventor another crazy But first before the inventor, it's a crazy weird guy in a cape who says, oh, you're about to kill yourself. Hold up. I have a suggestion for you. ah Come with me. And so the guy goes, okay. And follows him to meet a crazy inventor who says, I've spent, did he say five years or five months building a plane that will take you to Mars? Either way, it's not enough time. And um our main man, Jay, says, yes, this will be my ticket to becoming the man that will be able to marry the woman that I love. And so then he and two other folks, the story gets crazier. Yeah, he's got like his best friend character that's very much sidekick and he's got like a blonde girlfriend whose name I don't know.
00:14:48
Speaker
So it's it's a typical, it feels like a 30s, like almost Archie's comic kind of thing, where there's a brunette ingenue and a blonde one. And the blonde one, I call her Blondie Boop and then Brunetti Boop. And that was just, I'm so sorry to everyone. That's all I could do. And so the brunette is paired with our main guy, Jay, and then the blonde is paired with the sidekick friend. And so there are two sidekicks in love and then the two, and then there's an evil antagonist. This whole movie plot is just wild. But you've forgotten the scene. The maid. You go to the laboratory and a crazy doctor has found a man from 1930. So.
00:15:37
Speaker
but So our man Jay is talking about how sad he is. He sings a song about how much he he wants a girl who has like old world sensibilities for himself to love. He describes wanting a girl to be like his grandmother. Thank you so much because I quoted that. I said, oh no not the no, don't say you want the charm your grandma had. and That's supposed to be the catchy part of the song. I want a girl with the charm my grandma had. No, thank you. like He sings this song and his friend is watching him sing it and loving it. and um He's like, wait, I have a girl who's like that. and He calls up Blondie Boop and he's like, come on over, we got to cheer up my friend Jay. and She comes over to show us the most amazing costume, which we'll get to in a second. But just to hit the plot points real quick, she um comes over and is
00:16:32
Speaker
talking to the sidekick and the sidekick mentions that like, you know, there's gonna wake up a dead guy from the 30s. Do you want to come and see? Maybe that'll cheer you up. And they go to see this guy and he becomes the third musketeer with our man Jay, sidekick friend, and this wild man who constantly has to talk about, well, and back in my day, um but to rewind to the costume part. but When we're introduced to Jay and to the sidekick man, I kind of love the this sort of subtle way that they made futuristic suits for these men. They're very 1930s still, like there's the the long boxy cut and all of the changes are happening in the side seams and yeah the lapels and collars. yeah and so The men's shirts have very pointy collars. What did you think about that? My note about that was but it that almost got it because of how pointy men's collars got in the 1970s. It's obviously a little more extreme in this movie, but I was like, you know what? They kind of got there in the 70s, so i'll give them I'll give it to them. Well, they're kind of like joining Puritans.
00:17:49
Speaker
And the 70s because yeah there's a point where you see a sidekick man and his collar points are pointing so far out because they didn't quite shape the point extensions to allow for a tie so they're like kind of sitting on top of the tie and just like jutting out which is pretty amazing. So they have these very, very, very like Wonka appointed colors. Yes. And then some of the men's suit jackets have collars and some don't. And some, I don't, I don't think that really any of them have lapels. No, they, they had.
00:18:28
Speaker
lapels in the scene where they're wearing tail coats. Okay, so yeah, when they're the the pilots, the pilots are singing together and I've got a note about those costumes. So for most of society, unless it's a specific type of uniform, they don't seem to have lapels. They're kind of doing this like crossover front situation. Yeah, it's like a wrap wrap dress kind of works the side. And they have that with both men and women. And then they have these amazing side buttons on the on the side seams for the men's jackets, which I did enjoy. and I wanted to see if they had buttons on the inside of the other side. i must They must, because they stayed so close. Yes, they would have to. like Everything stayed together really well. They seemed like things that would function.
00:19:16
Speaker
um Some of the costumes don't really seem like they would function for long term. These just seemed like a ah natural progression of something. um They were not necessarily correct in their prediction, but they seemed like a real choice that designers would make and then people would be for. Yeah. like Obviously, we know that that has never been a thing for menswear, but it wasn't It was like an extension of an idea of like, what if you had a double-breasted suit and the crossover just kept going? It wasn't so crazy and it didn't look like it would have any problems with functionality. It just was a style choice that hasn't really happened.
00:20:08
Speaker
And i I liked it. And aside from that though, hair is still very solidly in the thirties. Absolutely. That shellacked for days. is All the women's hair was exactly late 1920s, early thirties. 100% tight curls, very short. very Everything is super shaped, like hearts that very controlled. Oh yeah. And so I noted that so far it's all locked into the sensibilities of its time, but there are little details that aren't usual for the thirties. So right it was just cool to see an attempt to go beyond, but, you know, still being constrained by being of their time and not, you know,
00:20:55
Speaker
Yeah, no one can predict the future. No one can predict the future. But it's also like they didn't have, you know, the fabrics that we have now so that we can just like make up whatever we want. They're just like kind of limited in in where they are in time, but trying to reach further, which is pretty great. And there's a character who comes in right after this song and right after Sideman says, and Hey, you want to see What is this crazy professor bring a dead guy back to life you want to watch your resurrection there's a census taker who comes into the apartment to talk to the two gentlemen and question really aggressively and i was like you know what this feels really pointed and it feels like somebody got chosen by the census that year and really wanted to take it out.
00:21:37
Speaker
And it reminded me that my husband and I, when we first moved to this house, we were those people who got chosen by the census for like three years in a row where it had to be us who answered the questions. And it was, it was a lot and like good for those people who are doing that job. Oh my God. Oh my God. But this census taker could have walked out of the Star Trek universe. Absolutely. And it was a lady, which I appreciated. I was like, oh, i'm a lady with a job. But yeah, she had like a full on space jumpsuit kind of thing happening. Yeah. And the wrap front for her felt very martial. Yeah. Also like this could be on a on a star star liner, star cruiser, whatever. ah Yeah. Aircraft, you want to call it. And like we kind of saw that with the guys
00:22:32
Speaker
spoilers for later in the movie, but we're going to see the guys in ah flight suits when they go to Mars. and her like they They kind of looked more in that family with her at that point, so it made me kind of wonder, like you know is this like a take on like some kind of work uniform? that yeah we're wearing, I don't really know, but- It was interesting. Yeah. and It was interesting, like, yeah, just pulling it together with this 1930s movie taking place in 1980, but it looks like a 1960s or 70s Star Trek choice. So it's like they kind of did tell the future of sci-fi design. They kind of did. One thing that I thought was really interesting about this movie that made it um an interesting choice for us to talk about is
00:23:19
Speaker
that even though it wasn't successful when it came out, it did have ripples through the future of sci-fi movies in the way that certain set pieces and props and clips of the movie are used later, which we could talk about more. So that that was interesting to be like, you know, it doesn't have to be a successful movie to be influential in the future. A hundred percent. You know, and it feels like it feels like somebody could have sat in the theater and if they didn't want to listen to the dialogue, if the story wasn't taking them where they wanted to go, they could plug their ears and just look at what was happening because
00:23:57
Speaker
And that's why I suggested if anybody wants to watch it, you can do it too. Because just watching some of the set pieces, we go into the crazy lab where they were there, yeah, either defrosting or whatever the hell this man who died struck by lightning while playing golf. I didn't know that put you in a state of like suspended animation. I'm not a scientist. I'm not a scientist. I'm not a doctor. I don't know everything. But this man was wearing and an incredible outfit when he died by lightning or was put into a comatose state for 50 years by lightning. Yeah. I had a lot of questions about who's golfing in a full set of formal tales. Yeah. I don't know, but it feels like it would be him for sure. True. I don't know where he's from. Maybe I missed it, but he has a sort of almost German esque
00:24:53
Speaker
Oh, I can tell you about that. I can tell you about that. Please do. The actor, I believe his name is L. Brendel. He is American. He is an American actor. He was a vaudeville star before this movie came out. No kidding, because the character only talks about that and then has a whole number about it. And he apparently his sort of original Vaudeville Stich was doing humor of but the German stereotypes, but he pivoted his act when
00:25:35
Speaker
tensions with Germany started to increase into Swedish stereotypes. Oh, goodness. Which is not something that I'm familiar with as a comedy act, but so apparently he was doing his Swede impression in this movie. Well, he's about as Swedish as Trixie Mattel and her wonderful Sweetish accent. that It's reaching justice for her. And it is pretty wild. And this man, i i this reanimation scene, there's so much to talk about. So first, set pieces, as you mentioned, influential. The the visuals of the lab itself are pretty rad. like That seems like it was an awesome set that has just like giant bubbling things all over the place.
00:26:30
Speaker
that set was sold and used in Frankenstein. That is the laboratory set from Frankenstein. I yeah kept thinking this feels like Frankenstein, so that makes perfect sense. there's a You can imagine what that must have looked like then. Just imagine. You're gentle listeners. it's It's pretty epic, like an epic set. and What makes it even better and very un-Frankenstein-like are all the lab assistants and their costumes. so though The doctor, the crazy doctor who's melting down this man or whatever it is that he's doing, is dressed the way that you would imagine Dr. Frankenstein would be, where he has this crazy,
00:27:13
Speaker
ah I guess earliest twenty early century doctor's jacket blanket um situation. Down? I don't know what to call it. Yeah, it's a crazy like down and it it just feels very old fashioned. And around him, all of his assistants are these ladies. And one of them is Blondie Boop. And their uniforms are stunning. They are basically swimsuits, like high cut at the hip. yeah Over top is like, were they sheer? Sheer dresses that are cut up the side seam? I think, I couldn't tell if they were sheer or if I was just watching like the quality of the film was like,
00:27:57
Speaker
who Degrading but yeah they're they're ah definitely fully open up the side seam of the skirt so that you're seeing all the way up to the waist of the ladies and they're wearing like like silver strappy high heels. Yes. And then they have, like I noticed though, this is another thing where they kind of did tell the future of some silhouette. The silhouette of these lab outfits felt really fifties. And so it was only like 20 years as opposed to 50, but they looked like these off the shoulder fifties summer dresses, which was pretty cool in a weird way.
00:28:39
Speaker
They were really cute for a work uniform. They were stupidly attractive for being in a lab set up, especially surrounded by all these creepy old men in like that like Victorian style lab set up where there's all these seats. There's just like, hum, hum, hum, hum, hum, hum, hum, hum, hum, mustache to be glassed men just watching what's happening down on the floor. Yeah, and at one point, I think our like sidekick friend is like leering at these nurses as they are walking around Oh, they're all being horrendous. There's there's no these men say they want the charm their grandma's had. Show me your charm because you're all you're all you all youall need to wash your hands and your faces and your eyes. It is so strange. And
00:29:26
Speaker
It was just such a weird scene to to be like, okay, here are all of these you know doctor scientists, whatever they are. and Then, oh, here's these two random guys. Yeah, come on in. You can hang out. Come and watch this man be reanimated. and I do want to jump back for one second. so Right before this scene, Blondie Boop is like, yeah, you can come and see this this thing that's about to happen. But our sidekick friend, in order to cheer up his friend who had just sung the song about, I want a girl to charm my grandma hat. I'm never going to let that die. um He FaceTimes his girlfriend. He goes over to the wall and just like video calls her and I was really upset about
00:30:07
Speaker
the FaceTime technology of not having somebody actually accept the call is wild. So she is like in her undergradments changing. and yeah So our sidekick friend is leering at her through the screen and she goes, oh my goodness, I can't believe I didn't turn that thing off again. and It was like, wait a second, if you have to turn a thing off in order for you not to be able to accept calls, that sucks. It's just a camera pointing at your bed. Yikes. Yeah, that was creepy. There's a lot of... wait there's There's just so much to say. I think it must be noted that this movie was made, it's it's what's called a pre-code movie, so... um There's a lot of risque stuff and a lot of like sneaky little wink, wink jokes. yeah There's a lot of...
00:31:01
Speaker
fluid sexuality things, I think, that were definitely pre-code and were a little bit more wink, wink, nudge, nudge than they would be later. yeah So Blondie Boop comes over to our two main men's apartment and it takes her two seconds and she goes, I'm so sorry, it took me so long, but you know that's the future that is the future. And she has arrived in an outfit that, I don't know about you, but I immediately clocked it as, ah, we're in the future because it has giant person yeah felt Like a little black it's like a two-piece like a skirt and a top
00:31:37
Speaker
and Yeah, these like silver zippers down the sleeves and the front. and At first glance, the cut looks very 30s-y. There's nothing like in the silhouette that's going to make you scream. This is like way out of time. a But her whole bit is that she's like, I want to show you this new thing. It's going to be all the rage. and it's like If you want to stay out longer for dinner and you're not coming home you know before you're going out again, you can just and then she undresses, by unzipping and she flips the inside out, can puts it all back on and then quick changes her hat into a purse and I loved it.
00:32:19
Speaker
the hat purse was maybe my favorite thing in the entire movie. And she was so proud of it too. Like watching her do the the quick change bit was like literally watching an actor on stage when it's the first time where they successfully do a quick change on their own in real time on stage. And they have that little extra I did it and it's like you did. I know. I love that. So like the the the evening wear side is, I mean, we don't know what color it is because the movie's in black and white, but it's a pale color, like silk, satin, charmeuse kind of looking, again, the quality of the film was a little fuzzy at times, but yeah she's got when she comes in in the
00:33:07
Speaker
day wear side. She's got this little black like skull cap and I would like to know how it was staying on her head once we know how soft it was because it was like really on there. I know it. If she had had longer hair and it was in a bun, then it's like I could imagine just like sliding that thing. Because when it becomes a bag, it looks like a soft, a soft, round clutch kind of thing that cinches shut at the top with string. And so you can kind of imagine opening that up and sliding it over a bun.
00:33:44
Speaker
And we like an excessive hair and because she has a short tight curls. Yeah, I don't. I have no idea. But it was magical. It's like truly. I loved it. You hid it from me. I wasn't expecting it to transform into a little. bad And um I said, yes, but no, please. I said in my notes, the giant honkin zippers in the front being indicative of the future witchcraft. because we're there now. We really are. I mean, is there a dress from 2014 that doesn't have a giant exposed zipper on it somewhere? I don't think there is. Nope. That's definitely a thing. 2014 to like 2017, just having those massive zippers and even now, but it was like such a thing where people were like, this doesn't have to be hidden. It can be a detail. my goodness Yes. Well, I was going to say while we're talking about
00:34:39
Speaker
but the stay out dress, as it was called, um that there are three designers credited for the costume design of this movie, but I couldn't figure out who did what. yeah So I'll say there they're listed on IMDb as Alice O'Neill, Dolly Tree, and Sophie Walkner. And Alice O'Neill and Dolly Tree are in the opening credits of the movie.
00:35:13
Speaker
And Sophie Walkner is not, but she is credited through IMDB. So I don't really know. how Yeah, it's that's kind of hard to like even draw like a ah conclusion based on no information. Because if it was three who were listed, then I would go, oh, maybe they divided it men's wear, women's wear, space wear. But it's that's kind of hard to to say. yeah that's pretty I mean, there were so many costumes. There were so many costumes. And there was a lot of building in this. like It's not just recycling 1930s stuff. They had to take apart things. and
00:35:50
Speaker
And there was a lot of construction. like the and Later on, we will see a bunch of air pilots. There are the lab assistants in that lab. Those are all very specific things where even if they're borrowing parts of the costume from from somewhere else, from another picture, they still have to alter things and definitely make them more tied into this world. So that's a lot. Yeah, it was really interesting. i I tried to look up what I could about all of them. And I discovered that that Alice O'Neill doesn't have too many design credits. And they're mostly in the 1920s. And this is one of her last credits on IMDB, but she did live until the night until I think 1960. So I don't know if she retired or
00:36:44
Speaker
you know, switch careers or did something else. But the other two ladies, Dolly Tree has almost 200 costume and wardrobe related credits on IMDb. Wow. And so many of them were in like the late 1920s to 30s. Like she had tons of credits for each year, like 20 credits per year. So that made me wonder if maybe she worked for a particular studio and it was just like, work on this, work on this, work on that. I mean, I feel like it would have to be because, oh my God, just that pacing, like you would have to be kind of localized somewhere. Otherwise half that time that you're using that would be work time would be the networking and like chasing, chasing the gig. Wow. That's incredible. I know. And, uh, Sophie Walkner had over a hundred
00:37:42
Speaker
design credits as well starting in the 1920s and going up until 1939 but she was kind of like Dolly where it was so much of it was concentrated before 1931 that made me wonder if she was also someone that was like employed by the studio and was just like cranking through work like at it I mean, that makes sense. And in that case, if that is the case, that makes the design of this even more kind of impressive, because like, again, with what was like available in the 30s, right, like the the fabrics and the but things that kind of have to limit your imagination, because you can't imagine what doesn't
00:38:21
Speaker
fully exist yeah like you can't really fully make it up if you I don't know you can in a way but you also kind of can't when you have to make it practical and something that somebody is putting on their bodies um that That makes everything so much more practical like the adjustments to the men suits is like this is something we can do this is something we can do by buying oversized suit jackets or you know whatever sourcing oversized suit jackets and then using the excess fabric to do xyz yeah and then we don't have to make it from scratch we can just alter it in the way that we need it.
00:38:55
Speaker
and like women's dresses still being very thirties but maybe being just a sheer over like a mini a mini dress that was another thing is that you would see like some mini dresses underneath sheer dresses in this and that's like looking forward to the sixties so they're they're kind of accidentally on purpose genuinely hitting future decades which is pretty Awesome. yeah It's very impressive. I do want to bring us back to the ah bringing um our chuckle man, vaudeville, buddy, friend, the Swede back to life. I genuinely love those women's costumes, the lab. I mean, the the context around them I don't love so much that you're women, you have to just be pretty to look at.
00:39:42
Speaker
I don't love that, but I do love that they feel so Barbarella, which is even like way beyond the 50s, but they feel like they could just fit in in Barbarella, no problem. And I did have a few questions about the ethics of um reanimating a human being with with no further support because it made me think of Steve Rogers, and at least they tried to ease that guy in. every there was yeah There was resources. They gave him somewhere to live. and this The doctor but pulls the pulls the lever, the guy wakes up and is just like in the middle of hitting a golf ball.
00:40:23
Speaker
basically yelling, four, and then looks around and goes, what? I'm not golfing. And is told that he was killed by lightning. And he checks himself for lightning strikes, can't find any. And then everybody rushes down from the amphitheater to congratulate the doctor because it worked. And they push this reanimated man out of their way. And he's like, I don't understand where I am. what's happening. And he's like laughing to himself because they're like, it's 1980, my friend. And he's counting on his fingers the years. And it's just so funny watching this like, absolutely crazy setup.
00:41:09
Speaker
just totally unethical in every imaginable way. every way And beyond the the lack of ethics, Blondie Boop, who is a lab assistant or a nurse, I don't know what her job title is, but she is dressed in in that same outfit as the other ladies. She's basically, I'm gonna say the assistant or nurse who's assigned to our man who's been reanimated. And she's supposed to keep giving him these like comically large shots. out of a needle that is like ah the size of a forearm that are supposed to help regulate him somehow. Yeah, I don't know what that, yeah. Yeah, somehow. I don't need to know. To the new environment and time. But I don't think that she's very professional. I can say that the the person who's running that lab is not setting a good example because it is all casual from the top to the bottom and the shot that she gives reanimated man in the ass is
00:42:06
Speaker
brutal like she comes in like she's trying to kill something like like she's got a shovel in her hand and she's trying to murder something because it's just like she just jabs this like massive needle into this man's body and he's like o
00:42:24
Speaker
It's the craziest thing. And then from there, our two male main characters kind of adopt this this clueless, hapless man. And thank God for them. Oh my God. They're the only ones. What would have happened? there I don't know. Oh my goodness, they just would have killed him again. The doctor offers to. I know he does. He says, if you can't if you can't adapt, I can kill you right now. It's just like, wow. In the future, we don't have any roles. no So the two friends, Jay and a sweet little sidekick friend, yeah i wrote it down but i forget they adopt our reanimated man and they're taking him through the city to like show him the future and they're just answering his questions.
00:43:10
Speaker
and So we see that people eat pills that are entire meals. Just very brave new world of them. Very brave new world. and He is the voice of the audience going, well, this is a bummer. he's like It used to be so great to eat things. It was an experience. You could feel things. and Then he's like, can we get a drink somewhere? like what's What's the situation on prohibition is what he says. Yes. and They say, oh, pretty soon we're going to see light wines and beer. and He says, Oh, they're still saying that, that's crazy. So somebody offers to give him, like, I don't remember what cocktail it is, but yeah um like a high ball, is that what it is? Yeah, something like that. Yeah, they they're like, oh, I can make you a mean one. And he goes, oh, thank God, yes, please.
00:43:56
Speaker
And it's another pill. He's real sad about it. Yeah, I want to know where those come from because there are a lot of them. there there And the best part is that those little, the alcohol pills are in tiny alcohol bottles. Yeah, like airplane alcohol bottles. but So weird. And I just remember in this scene with the two friends walking reanimated man through the city, the hats that they're wearing have been altered to look like future hats. But in this case, the designers, I think, did not hit the mark. they Well, they look futurist, but they look like they're about 15 years in the future max.
00:44:39
Speaker
because they were giving real hardcore Edelweiss finale. They were, yeah, very Tyrolean. Very, very. And it was just like, okay, I will take it. I will accept this, but I don't think it's as far away as you think it is. Which to be fair, we're in 2024 and men's hats are pretty much the same as they've been for a century. Not all of them, but like, you know, certain of the hats that would have been worn in the 40s are not far off from some hats now. It's more just a social thing of do you wear them or don't you? right But like the actual, yeah, generally the answer is no, because we're not really a hat wearing society anymore unless it's like a super casual hat. But like,
00:45:24
Speaker
if you wanted to go get a fedora, you could. It would look exactly the same, essentially, as a fedora from 1942 or 1930. The actual structure of them has not changed that much. Bras have changed more, which is pretty pretty wild. no and and like ah Up until maybe 15 years ago, men's suits really hadn't changed. too much from this, you know, I think the only thing that really has burned any change in menswear recently is just the availability of stretch fabrics, which allowed them to make all these skinny suits, which are now on their way back out. so So wild. Like it is it is amazing to see the difference between um menswear and women's wear and changing because a lot of the initial places that you see change are tightness of fit and like length.
00:46:20
Speaker
Right. And like where the waistline hits. Yeah, where the waistline hits is a big one. But it's like even just like men's trousers, you know, would fall like super low at a certain point, not the waist. The waist would be like right up under your chin where your natural waist is. The the hem would fall like in hell. And now. people, I guess that this is part of why like some of the tight, tight suits are going out is because people are like, oh, the hems are just too short. I actually heard complaining about menswear fashion and how it's just like, it's ridiculous. The pants are just so short now. It's insane. And it's like, this feels like I want you to go outside.
00:47:03
Speaker
I mean, okay, way to insult sock culture. like Which is apparently how you can identify people of our age group is 100% ankle socks versus like longer socks or whatever. It's wild, but it's like over the past century, men suits have had their moment of getting like oversized or like a little bit bigger. And then yeah, I have progressively gotten a little bit more tight, more tight, more tight as our expectations. um I mean, this is like a bigger conversation, but you look at like our stars who kind of like,
00:47:41
Speaker
in a way set the tone kind of like lead taste in a way of like aesthetics in like the 20s and 30s there's a certain look a certain physique that's like expected that changes every decade it changes every couple of years really like yeah you could say every year but not quite it's really it takes a little bit longer and um it goes from you know like svelte to being like super muscular whatever yeah and like just having all these male stars that have very different body types over the century. And so you close those bodies differently, you close those expectations differently, the way that fashion wants to sell itself and be warned, whatever. It's there's so much conversation that goes into how people expect people to look. Yeah, you want to highlight different
00:48:37
Speaker
you want to show off different body parts in different ways and based on- You want to emphasize different things. Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting little moment where I'm not sure where it's going to go. Yeah. I'm curious to see. I've seen, recently I've seen, especially with some of the red carpet events that have happened over the last six months, I've seen um hem lines for men's pants kind of all over the place. I've seen some where they're like cooling. um I've seen some where they're still super short. You know, I've seen a couple guys in like a verging on like a bell bottom suit pant and I've seen
00:49:18
Speaker
I kind of like where we are in this place where everything's happening all at the same time because then it it does allow for a little bit more variety, a little bit more. It allows for a variety period yeah and not having to dress to a certain expectation, which feels like something that even the characters in this movie have to do. They they dress towards expectations. Yeah. I do think we should get to the second half of the movie. Oh, 100%. I know we are going to, but I'm eager. I just have like a couple little things. So there are some futuristic things that we see that are pretty cool. So we already mentioned the FaceTime thing. The sliding doors. Very Star Trek. Which is like the upper class. They're very Star star Trek up there where they have sliding doors happening. And like, yes.
00:50:04
Speaker
elevators. Sure, we had, but that technology wasn't implemented in just like regular front doors. And so yeah they have that lost kind of like, elevator opens into the apartment kind of yeah fancy, fancy. And so there's this apartment where um brunette boop, who's our main Ellen, Ellen, Ellen, thank you so much. Ellen is her she's like in the might be living with or her apartment is accessible by the guy that the government has determined she's going to marry. And he is um running the newspaper. So he's a very, very wealthy man. And I noted that he looked like a lay in Decker illustration.
00:50:49
Speaker
um which might have been 2030s, right? And so he's like a famous, one of the famous illustrators of the early part of the 20th century. And um he just had this way of illustrating men in fancy dress that made them look like corn fed Iowa American, you know what I mean? Like, and so this man is dressed kind of to look like this dapper gentleman with like a striped vest. And I was just like, that's kind of crazy that he's supposed to kind of look like this very stereotype, idealized guy. And he's not the guy we want, which is totally fine, but he is not the guy we want. He stinks. Um, I have some, I have some random notes to that apartment with the sliding doors. Um,
00:51:36
Speaker
Our brunette pretends that she's sick and she's like ah with blondie boop and they're lying to this guy saying that, oh my gosh, she's so sick she can't go out with you tonight so that they can get our two main leads um to come up to the apartment and hang out with them and maybe go out on the town. And in order to do that, hey these two men have to climb from the the ground floor up to this loft apartment um using stairs that are absolutely wildly insane. And thank God it's an Art Deco building because they have these steeped architectural elements that they can climb up. Massive blocks. And they're so massive that it I was worried for the actors' pants, like for real, that they were going to pop seams because they had to stretch their legs up so high in order to get up there.
00:52:25
Speaker
um ah So there's that scene that happens and then we go on towards, oh no, our lovers are discovered by our newspaper man who is like, I suspect that she's lying to me. So he comes back and discovers these men in one hidden in like a Murphy bed and the other one not so hidden and says like, if you don't leave her alone, I'll do something to you. And so he has to go off and he's so sad because he can't be with art. Jay is not able to be with the woman that he loves. yeah So he goes out to a bridge and is like sad, but he's not like thinking of harming himself. And then this man who is
00:53:08
Speaker
a fixer, if ever I've seen one, just appears. Just kind of emerges from the shadows. And he's wearing a cape. the she is ah Boy he wearing in a cape that makes me think of like a carriage um driver. Absolutely. With like your arms poking through and he says, don't worry, you don't have to hurt yourself. We mentioned this earlier. I have a job for you. And it's like he already knows he's a pilot. And he's like, come with me. Takes him to an inventor who makes Doc Brown seem chill.
00:53:42
Speaker
Because the information that this man relates is wild. And truly, I can't remember if he's been building this rocket plane for five weeks or five months, but i or five years, but it's so inccrimina five it's way too too short a time. And he's not that confident that it's going to make it. Oh, the best part is that he's like, yes, you can go to Mars, you can make your name, but but He answers first. It takes three weeks to get there when asked. And then he says, but we don't know if you'll make it at all. So you might have to be ready for that. And then our man Jay accepts the gig and says, I'm going to do it. Of course I'm going to do it. I'm going to, I'm going to become renowned and then I can marry my lady love. And then he says, I'll be back in four months. So.
00:54:34
Speaker
The math is not quite mapping. Wait a minute. I didn't succeed in math growing up. i I know numbers, but they don't know me. Three months, one way. but I'll be back in four months. That seems optimistic, tray optimistic. I truly had to just not think about it because I couldn't, oh yeah I wasn't going to figure it out. I had to ah had to really sit with that for a minute and then just let it go. and so We now are in the point where we are in the second half of the movie where the story is about. The story is going to change so much, but I i do want to note yeah the rocket ship,
00:55:14
Speaker
That rocket ship was sold after the movie, and that was used in the Flash Gordon serials of the late 1930s as Dr. Zarkov's spaceship. So wow anyone who's watched Flash Gordon will recognize that spaceship. And I thought it was so interesting like reading a little bit about this movie that um Like i I saw a couple different people's sort of like opinion pieces talking about how this movie feels like a bad take on Flash Gordon, but it actually predates
00:55:54
Speaker
that those movies so it's sort of like it ah I don't it's like kind of hard to say like what its influence is because it predated a lot of things that then people think that it is ripping off by doing them badly yeah so it's sort of a weird like snake eating its own tail kind of situation Well, I wonder because I'm not familiar with Flash Gordon. I know the name, but I'm not familiar with the serials and nor am I familiar with the later movie that came out. But um I wonder if anybody who is familiar with those things would have the same questions we do about the rocket ship, i.e. where are any seats?
00:56:34
Speaker
Oh my God. Where are the chairs with 50 exclamation points after it? Because there is not a single chair inside the spaceship that they're going to be in for months at a time. It's technically built for one pilot. One. But our pilot Jay goes home and tells his sweet friend sidekick, I'm going to Mars, and his friend says, blink, blink, blink, I'm coming too. I've always been with you and we're always going to be together. And I was like, now kiss. And didn't happen. I was like, this is pre-code. We could do it. Didn't do it. Didn't do it. So now we have two people who are going to be in this space plane. And then at the last minute, we have three people who are going to be in the space plane because reanimated man is also going to be in the plane. Yeah. And I think he actually stows away. They don't plan on him coming, but he sure does come with them. Cause he definitely is like, I'm going to come with you too. In a great joke where they say we're going to Mars. And he's like, we'll take me too. I want to meet your mother. And I was like, Oh, the sound of silence.
00:57:42
Speaker
so loud after this. And I actually did when um when he first meets the inventor and the first mention of Mars, I typed out because this is a stream of consciousness set of notes. Oh no, not Mars. Oh no, not Mars. But we're going to Mars. We can't so help it. We have to. There's no storage in this rocket plane. So where is the food? There's no equipment. There's no equipment. Is there water? There's nowhere to sit. There's nowhere to sleep. And yet this potentially solo pilot is supposed to be inside of this tube for three months. Does it have windows? No. I don't know that it did. I don't know that it did. So I don't know how they're piloting it at all. Just vibes. Yeah, just vibes. Just point and shoot a rocket. They had some like levers and some dials, I think. They were just sort of like- The landing process seems like it would be nightmarish. I think this plane is in the the technological variety of set it and forget it. I'm just going to deliver that to Mars. and theyre The flight suits of Jay and his bestie, um are they feel like
00:58:53
Speaker
flight suits that you would see in like Rocketman, like early Rocketman stuff. o Like it feels 30s. It does. yeah It feels 30s. It feels like diving suits of the time, or like something if you're putting on a jet pack, just floating around. And so those feel very of the time, but I feel like they added either some excess fabric around the hips, or some details that are like pockets or something. I didn't quite see it. yeah Yeah. But they did try to change the shape a little bit of the suits.
00:59:31
Speaker
suica um beasty And we are absolutely hopping all over the place because we did skip the the airline pilots farewell, which is right before they take off. The whole sequence was so strange. and just So odd. But it was just like an excuse to have a bunch of musical numbers because please do not forget that this movie is a music it is a musical and one of the musical numbers is all of these airline pilots sitting at a table in what looks like a boardroom giving. J ah farewell, and they're all wearing their pilots uniforms. These uniforms are a mix of um three things to me, and I'm curious to see what they look like to you. For me, it's like a circus ringleader, a bell hop and a tailcoat. And but like really loud, which is where the circus comes in. And like I was feeling like, um like,
01:00:28
Speaker
the captain's table on the Titanic, like the nautical, um the the sort of like nautical uniform. um But yeah, all those like striped like vest things that guys were wearing with the tailcoats was so strange because that wasn't a thing, that as far as I know. And in this case with the the the uniform coats, jackets, the lapels are friggin' massive. Giant. They are flappin' in the wind. And they it was so interesting to have like like the sort of everyday men's wear absolutely no lapel in sight. And then when you go to these formal ones, they had these giant peaked lapels, which are there lapels where
01:01:13
Speaker
like but the point of the lapel, like on your chest, like points upwards instead of like to the side or down. Yeah. They seem to go up towards and into your so shoulder seam. Yeah. And they were super extreme and they were also like a contrasting color than the rest of the jacket, which made me think kind of like a military, like you kind of think of um like the colonial ah military uniforms where you have these like turn backs that are like a different color than the rest of the jacket. They were all over the place. They were. And they felt really theatrical, which is why they felt bellhop circus ringleader is because they just felt so, and also because there's so much, like, it feels more like natural tones, even though it is black and white, you can't really tell what the colors are. The turnbacks felt so stark that it was almost like they were white, you know, like, yeah, just like shockingly different than all the other colors.
01:02:11
Speaker
So it felt like they were brighter in a way than anything else. so And that made them feel real loud. pull out yeah And then we go straight from that into these space flight suits that feel almost like they were made out of like an an oil cloth. Yes, like an oil cloth or or like a melty rubber. It's like what yeah they had your imagination. Yeah, this kind of shininess to them. which was pretty, pretty amazing. But I don't feel like we could hear them moving like the fabric. didn't And we do definitely later on have some, some fabric that makes a lot of noise, a lot of noise. Yeah. And I think we should jump into the people on Mars. Oh my God. So much to say about that. You want to talk about the Romulan eyebrows.
01:02:56
Speaker
yeah bitter everywhere? I really, really do. I really would like to. I would like to note that there was not one once the men land on Mars, not one thought was given to whether they'd be able to breathe once they got out of the ship. There's no helmet. There's absolutely nothing. So we already know that Mars I guess is a safe place. It's covered in vegetation. Oh, in green trees, there's like wind. It's nice and balmy out. Like it looks like a nice walking type of day. It's pretty crazy. There's dirt that they can walk in that looks like yeah dirt and not dust. And there's all these like geological like formations, these like sort of crystal looking things like coming up out of the floor in these like clusters. But the first um Martians that we encounter
01:03:53
Speaker
are these sort of ah scantily clad ladies who at first don't talk at all. They just sort of make weird like hand gestures at the guys, which made me concerned that they weren't going to talk the whole time, which didn't end up being true, but would have been a really weird choice for one of the first sci-fi talky movies ever made to have these characters that kind of don't talk. And they definitely do have their own language. It's not sophisticated in the way that we think of yeah futuristic, alternate, you know, planet life form languages to be. It's basically... It really was. and
01:04:42
Speaker
i I would love to see up close what all of these costumes were made from because they almost very like they had a lot of like metallic elements to them. They're all very textural. And that's the difference. That's the difference between our Earthbound friends and our Martian friends is that everything that they have on Mars has like texture and leveled elements is yeah lots of pieces and it's like they expand away from the body. They are very, very large. And I noted
01:05:16
Speaker
So I was like enjoying it for hot minute that like the first couple scenes that you see with the Martians are like okay you meet this woman who feels like she's a leader like a queen of Mars and she's got this very reflective very metallic situation that is very very. I loved it. And she's got like these gauntlets on her fingers with like very slim fingers, yeah it was which I thought was amazing for gauntlets. And she's trying to give them information and help them survive. And then she offers, like we have places where you can eat, where you can rest, and where you can bathe. And this man comes out to help who this is.
01:05:55
Speaker
but Chef's kiss may be my favorite ah situation. the wigs the wigs oh yeah The wigs are wild. He has what I want to refer to as the King Koopa outfit. yeah Mario. His hair made me think of Goku from yes Dragon Ball Z. This is so many visuals. So the head of Goku and like these shoulder like pauldron situations of King Koopa, except that it feels like these scale like horn kind of things that are all over the pauldrons. It feels like they're the the tops of of baby bottles.
01:06:35
Speaker
a bless that that have been like glued onto something because they are so wild. And it felt like his character was all about nipples. And then it seemed like he was covered in nipples. And so it was just pretty amazing. And he takes our three gentlemen into the bathing room and he's trying to use sign language to express, you can take off your clothes and you can go in here and clean. And there are two handmaidens that come in with them. And I was all about their costume because this felt Martian. Like these things, they felt Martian in this world where it felt other. And it felt like they had these crazy head pieces that weren't really trying to mimic hair. It felt like they were something else. They had crazy eyebrows that were even beyond the Romulan arch that everybody else has. Yeah, just full on. Full on. Right to the hairline.
01:07:30
Speaker
And then I have a note here. Why are men from Earth who go to space always perverts? Why is that? like Yeah, they must screen for that. I don't really know. I mean, are our reanimated man is like really trying to make his handmaiden like chase him like he to get him to undress. And the other guy's like, no, I genuinely don't want you to undress me. like You're a lady that I don't know. Please don't take off my clothes. But our original man from the 30s, our reanimated dead man, really wants her to put her hand down his pants. and Yeah. and Then it takes a turn for me even beyond that point where as soon as they do get into the water, we have a very short site of more handmaidens coming in to perform for them while they're bathing yeah and then it cuts quick. and With that, I went, oh, this feels racist.
01:08:20
Speaker
ahha Because the the design of the culture of the Martians took a turn for me, and then I started to see the elements of the costumes of more people, and it feels like a borrowing of African and Southeastern and so South Asian things in order to make something feel exotic or to feel other. like and this is This is the perfect era for that, right? It's a lot of people were doing it. It was a lot of people were doing it. And it's just something that comes out. And then we go right into this crazy scene that has like caveman monkeys. Okay, this scene made me think of the opening of 2001. Mm hmm.
01:09:06
Speaker
And I enjoyed this scene more. But it was it was so bizarre because yeah, they're like kind of ushered into this giant like cavernous space. And there's like, sort of like a set almost like they're watching like a performance and It's all of the Martian women, I guess, um assuming they have gender, ah which I think they do. Dressed, yeah, like like primate like and sort of- And they have like clubs and they they go beyond the Uggabugga language of the higher Martians and they like club our characters or they had put them in a wagon, take them away. like
01:09:53
Speaker
yeah there's There's this element where we're not really understanding, but there there's a division in the society and they are like less cultured and less sophisticated in some way. And I also have to admit that I skipped forward a teeny tiny little bit in little tiny increments. I know, I'm sorry. I made it ah made it for the hour in like 15 until we got here. and Then I was like, we got it. We got to go. We go from this like caveman monkey situation um where they steal the three earth men. We have a great giant reveal that I had to write twice in all caps on my notes. Everybody on Mars has a twin.
01:10:35
Speaker
okay i desperately would like to know why they chose to do that, what that has to do with anything, how the guys figured that out, and what that does. And the best part is, so there's like a good twin and an evil twin. And I'm guessing that the rule is because there's a good twin and an evil twin of the woman who's wearing the metallic. Yes. And there's a good and an evil of our nipple King Koopa. Yeah. And they are all wearing the same clothing. Exact same. They look exact same. There's not even like some sort of mirror imaging happening. Like they are just wearing the same costume.
01:11:20
Speaker
So I thought that that was like a good effect for tricking people, right? But the effect is kind of lost because our sidekick, like, I've got it. Everybody has a twin. That's why the first lady we met was holding up two fingers. And it's like, no, I can't do this. No, I didn't know how he figured that out. I did not figure it out. Even when he said it, I was like, this doesn't make sense. Why would that be a thing? I was like, she's she's growling a lot more than the first one. Yeah, the first one was like laughing. This one's angry, I guess. yeah I don't know how you immediately jumped to. And we've also been going all over the place, so I don't know what's happening anyways. No. But this seems like it would have been maybe it was like a budgetary restraint or maybe it's just this is how they wanted the story to play out, which is also fine. That's what they wanted. and I need it seems like it and needed the the clue board from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. That's a deep cut if anyone knows what I'm talking about. Thank you for going on that with me. But I needed the pictorial clue board laid out for me to figure out this secret because I did not understand.
01:12:23
Speaker
Well, yeah, this would have been a perfect opportunity to use costume to to give us a hint yeah that like maybe the designs were inverted somehow or like, you know, King Koopa's elements didn't go outward, went inward, yeah thus inverted. Or maybe one of them is a white costume and one of them is a black costume because that is kind of a dichotomy that we recognize. absolutely overt and like really holds your hand in telling the story. But it's like this would have been a perfect moment for costume to like assist subliminally in that storytelling. And so I wonder why the choice was made. And again, if that's just how they wanted the story to play out. okay Okay. But it feels like it would have been a great opportunity to have something be off about them visually because their costumes are so big anyway, that you could do that somehow just by changing some shapes.
01:13:13
Speaker
and It seems like they had a ah pretty decent budget for an early movie because they had a lot of things that they had to do. so yeah that Everybody on Mars has a twin, take that take that home with you. Figure out why, please let us know. In the story, the three men are like, okay, well, we have to get away from the evil the evil versions of these people. and so They kidnapped King Koopa, Yeah, they like they do they like hit him over the head with something? I think our reanimated dead man does that and then like smuggle him on board and bring him back to Earth. But it's like you know the nice the nice lady wearing the mirrors is like, you can stay. And there's all these people on Mars who are like, you can stay. And some are like, stay. And we'll eat you. and then
01:14:02
Speaker
They all come back to Earth with this King Koopa man that they stole from Mars, yeah who just like them has no problem acclimating to a brand new planet. And also this rocket plane that was only built for one is now carrying four. I wrote in my notes, everyone on Mars is practicing radical acceptance because no one questions anything that's happening. No one is surprised that people from another planet are visiting them. No one is surprised that there's all these people living on Mars. Nobody's phased. Nobody blinks. Nobody bats an eye at anything that happens. Everyone's just like, yeah, this is what's happening. Great. Here we go. No problem. or Yeah, nope.
01:14:42
Speaker
Totally fine. And then they load themselves onto that rocket plane with no insulation, no seating, no beds, no straps, no food like to keep you down, no food, no water, no nothing. We don't even know what they like. And the fact that like our two main male leads are wearing pilot jumpsuits, like space suits, and the other two aren't, and they're going to be just fine. They're going to be just fine in the temperatures of space with no windows, no windshield. No, nothing. And they're like, I'm pretty sure, like, they just have like a notebook of explanation of how to, like, they don't even know how this plane works. They're just sort of like punching things in. was like in there was no training. It was like, you want to do it? Yeah. Get it. Get on board, buddy. Let's throw a party and then we'll send you off. And like their King Koopa captive, who's the evil version of, of the first man who like really wants to feel them up and and get friendly pre-code.
01:15:36
Speaker
This man, this Martian, is now kidnapped and in a space plane, basically naked because like he's got those pauldrons and like a cross chest strap and then like a skirt that's like a gladiator loincloth-y skirt situation. I'm like, sorry, if you had to travel through space like that, you would not end up on the other side okay. You would not be fine. No. You'd have to wheel him into that lab and like defrost him too. Yes. He would also have to be golfing before the lightning struck. and so We get back to Earth and they're just like, hey, we're fine, we're back. and they We don't see them, I think, disembark their rocket ship. no We are now in the part of the story with the two ladies who are like, what what's happening? Where are they? and They're trying to delay the marriage.
01:16:28
Speaker
Yeah. Like the judge is trying to marry our Ellen off to like Mr. Impressive Man. And so they're like, Oh no. And it's like, they have to, and the whole rush into the court room. Blondie Boop comes up with this story about you got me pregnant and you're not trying to take care of the children, the children. And I do love her costume in this scene for the finale. I love both Blondie and brunette boobs. Sorry, Ellen. I love their costumes because they are, very 30s they're very geometric and just like they they have a lot yeah of detail that's very soft and it it is very feminine which is like hey welcome back to earth where our women are very soft and curvaceous whereas the women on mars are wearing mirrors that are very pointy and they have all these very sharp edges even though there is some like skin reveal yeah
01:17:18
Speaker
but they are like metallic and hard. And so there's like definitely messaging and like identifying the the different female yeah existence on these different planets. But I loved those outfits. They they felt very 30s, but very, very nice 30s. I liked the kind of tweak that Blondie, her dress had like an ombre um Die where it was lighter at the hemline and like darker on the top and I don't recall ever seeing that in like a normal 30s wear so that was I thought that was a really interesting choice to to take something extremely familiar and just like a tiny little tweak of something you don't really see
01:18:02
Speaker
I mean, that was in the theme of the whole the whole movie with everybody on Earth was it was something that we're familiar with. The silhouette is something that we're familiar with, but you have to look a little bit closer to see that the details are different um or that a detail actually did kind of correct a future silhouette. by accident like the lab assistants dresses that kind of felt fifties in their shaping. So there's there's a lot in this about costume that is pretty cool to watch. yeah And I definitely recommend it.
01:18:33
Speaker
to watch those things and to like think about them. and Once you get to Mars, there's it felt like a little bit of a roller coaster because it it felt yeah very much of the time of people really not understanding other cultures, but pulling the designs from those cultures of traditional wear and then aligning that with some sort of bestial thing, which is what they do with the Martians. um so that is really annoying and and but it's not um as egregious as other things have been ah to say like there's no overt stuff. It's just like you look at those silhouettes and you're like this feels
01:19:17
Speaker
This feels like Indonesian or South Asian. like you can You can see these shapes and be like, this feels like something that was- It feels like you took it from someone else. It feels like you took it and it was designed from ignorance. yeah Why didn't you stay with the mirrors? you know like Why didn't you stay with that? Because when we first get on Mars, it feels pretty cool. It feels pretty sci-fi-y. But then you're like, wait a minute. And then you see more. And you go, oh, no. Oh, man. Oh, no. Yeah. I would say, so yeah overall, this movie, like the design of the set and the costumes is definitely the most interesting thing about it. Yes, definitely. Yeah, that's going to be the most interesting stuff about it. And I do, to to wrap up the movie, at the very last scene is our reanimated dead man, who has gone the whole movie, by the way, by the name Single O, because they tell him that he can't use his old name. He has to go by numbers. And there's nobody who goes by Single O.
01:20:15
Speaker
And so this old, old man, wizened old man walks up to him in the court and says, hey, did you have a wife named this back in the day? And he says, yes, I did. Did you have a son? named this back in the day? Yes, I did. Did you live in this apartment with your wife and your son? Yes, I did. Well, I'm your son. It's me. Hello, Papa. And this is like a, I'm sure like not as old as I'm going to say, but like it feels like an 80 year old man. It made no sense. The timeline just did not work.
01:20:48
Speaker
I'm your child. And he says, hello, Papa. And so our reanimated dead man like falls into a chair like, whoa, that's crazy and overwhelming information. And then snaps to, you're my baby boy. Sit down on Papa's knee. And this old man sits down on his knee and cuddles up into his neck. And I but but i said, this is how interstellar action have ended. Oh, my God. Somebody call Christopher Nolan.
01:21:24
Speaker
Oh my God. That was the such a rain just way to end it because it didn't make any sense. Like if he had a small child when he got frozen, that child would be in their 50 something. Yeah. Yeah. Like that was crazy. And so it felt because like, it felt like the bulk of this movie was on earth in 1980. And then we had a very concentrated moment. in Mars or on Mars. And then we boom, come back to Earth, but I'll bump wrap it up. And so the pacing is wild. yeah I, i it I think that's also why it was like so overwhelming to see all of that Martian stuff was because it was like there's there's no
01:22:13
Speaker
There's a lot of cultural information that you've built about these Martians that feels like just a tidal wave of information. Yeah. And then we're thrown back into the regular futuristic stuff. And then, yeah. Hello, Papa. hello papa And I will say like the the music in the movie was extremely forgettable. There was like nothing stood out. A couple of songs to me felt like Cole Porter rejects, like it was just not anything. And there's not really that many songs also. No. And I was genuinely grateful for that because the songs that they did have in there were
01:22:55
Speaker
Again, it's a different time. It's a different cultural expectation and attention span. But it felt like the songs were so long. And it's also because they didn't feel like song structures that we would recognize yeah as like something that we want to listen to today. right And so I am grateful that they just kept it to a few songs. They kept it to a few. And then they kept you captive for like the the air pilots. Goodbye. And then like that whole process, there's maybe there's like three, three numbers or something, three or four numbers. yeah And it felt it felt like a very long time. and So but would you recommend somebody watch this for the costumes? I
01:23:46
Speaker
I would recommend watching it for the costumes. Maybe if there's like short clips on YouTube, that might be a more enjoyable way to kind of get a feel for each of the sort of big set pieces and see the different sort of groups of designs that we get throughout the movie. It was long. It was kind of tough. Again, I also have a very like atrophied set attention span. And I have been really diligent about not having my phone available while watching these movies so that I'm not tempted to distract myself. I did the same thing. I had to put it in jail so that I would be forced to focus.
01:24:32
Speaker
and see and um I did watch it in a bit more of like a social setting. I watched it um with my boyfriend and my parents who were here visiting. So that was a little bit more fun because we could kind of comment a little bit as we were watching it and kind of be like, what was that? Or like, oh, check that thing out. Like, um, but yeah, I would say if you can watch clips or like, if at the very least look up some photos, because there is some really interesting stuff worth seeing, but I don't think it's going to be everybody's cup of tea to sit through this movie. Like it it was not successful for a reason, I think.
01:25:12
Speaker
Yes, I agree very much. I think that it's worth somehow being able to skip through or find clips so that you can see the costumes because I do think it is interesting to see how they did predict some fashion little things um accurately and also how they like misfired on some certain things I think is very interesting. yeah um And I do recommend the the Martian, I'm going to call her like the Martian Queen, look up that outfit and her man at arms or whatever, what I keep referring to as King Koopa. Those two Martian costumes are pretty, pretty amazing. And like the King Koopa one feels like a craft project that, you know, you would have put like somebody on and just been like, glue these things together and stick them on wherever you can.
01:26:04
Speaker
And so they seem like things that would have been great to look at. And the the Martian Queens ah whole setup, when she moves, you hear that, you hear it. They didn't change the sound. You hear it move with her. And so you can only imagine what it was made out of. And it's something that I wish that we could see up close and like feel. Yeah, I have to assume it was made from actual pieces of metal. It has this sort of scaled look to it that it would make sense if it was made of metal that you would have to construct it that way to let her move at all. Yeah. so And so it it felt like something that was heavy and that was like, that had a lot of character to it. And so that is pretty cool, but I would not recommend this. It's just a regular watch.
01:26:53
Speaker
No, I think there's a reason that no one's ever heard of it really other than like extreme movie buff people or people that are into like cinematic history in a very academic way. So yeah, I think it's fine to leave this one in the past. But and it's I do think it's an interesting it's it's an interesting movie in how it had ripple effects going forward because the design was good. And also kind of took from things that come before it. I know that the cityscape backgrounds were compared a lot to Metropolis, which is interesting. um But ah yeah, it's not
01:27:36
Speaker
Not an A+, not the best movie, but a really interesting one to watch from the 30s as it was billed as the first sci-fi talkie and the first sci-fi musical, whether that is 100% accurate, I can't say, but that is what it was marketed as. And it's very interesting to see, like we've talked about multiple times, um people from the 1930s attempting to look forward in in costume and to tell us a story about people in the future. um Thank you so much, Melinda. This was fun. Yeah, thank you. I'm glad we watch got to watch this crazy movie. I'm kind of glad we watched it. I am too. It's it's always a struggle, but at least and until we get a little bit further in the century, it's going to be a little bit.
01:28:23
Speaker
ah and But it was fun. Yeah. So um I guess we'll see everybody again. We are going to be covering the 1940s film, Doctor Cyclops. I'm really excited about this one. I'm looking forward to it. And I would like to read the small blurb that you have about it. A mad scientist in the jungle shrinks his friends rather than lose control over them. And that won me over. So I'm looking forward to watching this and seeing what madness lies ahead. Please join us when we talk about it. Okay. Thanks everybody. We'll see you then.