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 Idol Hands are the Dancers' Playground |
 Dale's Fate in the Hands of Ming's Oracle |
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| Good Queen Joyzelle tries to warn the Earthmen about -- well, something. She sends them off to prepare for a party and feast in their honor. (There was NO shower in the rocket ship, and their journey to Mars lasted a month.) | Flash fights for his life after prying Emperor Ming's 'filthy hands' off Dale. Princess Aura, tempestuous daughter of Ming, falls in love with the 'blonde giant,' and they are both nearly killed as she helps him escape the palace. | ||
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Both vaudeville comedian
and equally hapless co-pilot are entertained by dancing girls while
they bathe. Good Queen Joyzelle shows the captain her other-worldly
telescope.
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Aura stashes her battered and bruised Flash in one of Ming's rocket ships. After the door shuts, she says (with a DEEP sigh) "You will never see Dale Arden again!" | ||
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Lovesick space pioneer
John Garrick sees his fiancé,
Maureen O'Sullivan, through Joyzelle's miraculous lens. |
A moment in Pop culture history -- Fugitive Larry Gordon finds some clean clothes in the rocket's locker. | ||
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The Earthmen are
honored with -- even MORE dancing!
The Queen's tall Good-Natured Guard stands at the left. |
As he changes his sweaty, tattered togs, he assumes the persona of prototypical action hero FLASH Gordon. | ||
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Danger! Good Queen
Joyzelle rises in fright at the sight of Evil Twin Queen Joyzelle
and her Big Mean Twin Guard.
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He even takes initiative! When Flash sees a fleet of strange Gyro-ships (Flying Saucers) attacking the city ... | ||
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All three Earthlings
are captured after the Evil Queen Joyzelle attacks during an extremely
wretched dance number. (THAT'S what the warning was about!)
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... he takes off in his unearthly rocket ship. However, Flash is not only fighting enemies of his own imperial enemy, but crashes too. Luckily, he and the other pilot survive. | ||
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The costumes for
Just Imagine were done by Sophie Wachner, Alice O'Neill, and
Dolly Tree. This outfit was the first (and last) movie costume made
entirely of mica.*
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Charles (Ming) Middleton watches the battle on a view- screen. Zarkoff toils away in the mad monarch's lab, and learns that Dale will be forced into Ming's seraglio. | ||
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Good Queen Joyzelle
was gentle and maternal. Bad Queen Joyzelle laughs a lot, but she
also shrieks and screams.
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As Ming's harem girls watch, the evil High Priest hypnotizes Dale Arden with an electric ray. | ||
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The Earthlings are
locked in jail, where they witness a ritual, danced around an idol
resembling those big guards.
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The Oracle of Mongo is the idol of Mars from 1930. The Martian Chorus Ladies writhe again, six years later. | ||
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Just Imagine's
ritual dance sequence is longer than
Flash Gordon's, with more footwork on the floor. |
Those monstrous
hands come down almost immediately, and the brave women climb aboard to be lifted up. |
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Just Imagine
was made before arbitrary censorship eviscerated Hollywood's ever-beleaguered
creativity.
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As Dale Arden succumbs to the High Priest's evil ray, she is dressed in the latest extra-planetary fashion. | ||
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Ziegfield's Follies
had barely shut down when Just Imagine was released, but Minsky's
burlesque show was still in business.
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The Oracle of Mongo raises his metallic hands, as the mystical Martian houris wave their long graceful limbs. | ||
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The 'climax' of the
ritual occurs as the idol lowers an extra pair of huge mechanical
arms, which rise up again, carrying stunt dancers, while the other
chorus girls writhe below.
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Zarkoff spies out the unfolding sacrilege in the throne room. Princess Aura demands Flash for herself, but Ming does not intend to keep any promises he might make. | ||
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Good Queen Joyzelle's
Good-Natured Guard helps the Earthlings escape from Bad Queen Joyzelle's
dungeons. After a run-in with the Big Mean Twin Guard, the low-rent
comic starts their Rocket Ship, and they are safe!
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Classic Dale Arden appears on the screen for the first time. The Ceremony of the Oracle is seen on smaller view-screens as it reaches its 'climax.' (Hollywood's Hayes Office was more feared in 1936 than it was in 1930.) | ||
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Bad Queen Joyzelle
and her minions are left in the smoke, and the bumbling space pilots
awake enroute to Earth, saved by the dingaling.
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Jean Rogers is
elegant and beautiful in her new costume. (She's going to be wearing it for most of the serial.) |
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Planet Earth awaits
word on the fate of its space-faring pilots!
'Air Command' spots the returning Rocket Ship. (Futuristic view-screens were used in Just Imagine, perhaps for the first time in American Sci-Fi, but I'm not sure if they were double exposures or not.) |
As the Dancers from Mars cavort on the view-screen, Flash Gordon shows up with his newfound ally from the wrecked Gyro-ship. Zarkoff has lots of news for him -- Planet Earth is inexplicably out of danger, but Dale Arden faces a 'fate worse than death,' as they used to say. | ||
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Just Imagine
ends happily, or rather happily ends.
The Rocket Ship is escorted home by a fleet of airplanes. The young lovers are married, and 'Frank Lloyd Wright,' the inventor, is vindicated. El Brendel, the low-rent vaudeville comic gets the last word, but nothing's perfect -- especially THIS film. |
Our Martian dancers do a final 'Ring Around the Idol.' (Ashes to -- umm -- ashes, they all fall down.) Flash and his heavily-armed buddy race to stop the rest of the unholy ceremony. Will they make it in time, or will this 13-part adventure end with Chapter Two? GUESS! | ||
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Compare
Rocket Ships Around the Solar System!
Just Imagine and Flash Gordon are the property of their copyright holders. All images are used for scholastic purposes ONLY in the context of this article. Text and graphic design copyright by Michael R. Evans 2005 *www.moviediva.com |
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