Sci-Fi Films of the 1930s - A Decade in Review
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- čas přidán 6. 06. 2024
- Before diving into the sci-fi films of the 1940s let's recap the good, the bad, and the forgotten films of the 1930s. Over 10 episodes I discussed 60 films. Lots of serials, Bela Lugosi, Boris Karloff, rayguns and robots. From Just Imagine to Flash Gordon and from Earth to Outer Space.
Mars Wants Movies is a guide to the history of science fiction film (and eventually television). Thank you for joining me on this journey.
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Hi Everyone. I made a stupid mistake that I can't edit now that the video is posted. At 6:56 I switched the title cards for Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. Sorry about the error.
We appreciate you strive for accuracy. It takes a humble person to note corrections that need to be made. That's one of the reasons why I love this channel!
Thanks to one eagle-eyed viewer for pointing it out to me. Love you guys.
No worries. Anyone who's heard of Karloff and Lugosi knows who's who. Overall an excellent video. Thanks 👍
Dear Melissa,
A neat wrap-up; I'm looking forward to your next exploration of the genre.
Frank.
I really enjoy this period of movie making. I'm convinced that limited budgets and materials stimulate creativity.
Many of my favorites are from this decade. They were getting pretty good with cinematography and starting to get a good handle on sound so it was easier to present a story without the distraction of technical limitations.
I can't say I'm familiar with much science fiction cinema during the war. I'm really looking forward to your next videos as the technology of filmmaking continued to improve.
One of the many problems with Hollywood today is that they give directors too much money. Some of the best films today have lower budgets. Filmmakers should go back to using creativity instead of CGI. The sci-fi films of the 1940s are not as well known but its the calm before the storm of the 1950s.
So true about limited resources often leading to more creativity. On one hand, it's much easier to make a film today than it was 60, 70, 80 years ago so more people can tell the story they want to. On the other hand, many of those stories are derivative or downright cash-grabs on whatever made money the previous year. In older days there were fewer people able to produce a film which would reach any from of mass awareness, but the ones who did HAD to be good at what they did. On the other hand (yes I realize I'm up to three hands now -- hey, it's sci-fi! -- there have been those who built successful careers on making intentionally low-budget films, e.g. Roger Corman who recently passed.
I'm really enjoying this series. I know you need to take a few weeks between episodes for research and production, but it is worth it!
I'm hoping to find a way to clone myself and put them to work on research and editing. Then I could post weekly. LOL
Abel Gance may have ruined his career with the End Of The World by the '30s, but he was considered a cinematic GIANT in the Silent Film era, with several box office smashes that were 4, 5 to 6 hours long- Napoleon, La Roue (The Wheel), J'Accuse, etc.!!! The audiences of the Silent era 1900s-1919 were a different breed from later 1920s-30s. Who could sit through a 5 hour film today? What does that say about that era and todays?
Gance was ahead of his time. I loved that his version of Napoleon received positive attention last year after Ridley Scott's disastrous film.
@@marswantsmovies It is such a great film. And its companion pieces were never made which would have added many more hours of film. Truly a different era.
The decade in review - Cool! Another winner!
I don't have to watch the entire video to know the content is going to be GREAT! Thanks Melissa for another great episode.
Yay! Thank you! Have a great weekend.
@@marswantsmovies Your going to have your hands full when you get to the 1950's sci-fi. Alien invaders, Cold War propaganda and "End of the World" movies!
I may start preparing now. There's so much to cover in the 1950s. I'll have to make lots of smaller "special" episodes to focus on topics like the Cold War propaganda. I'm going to be a busy girl but I'm looking forward to it.
@@marswantsmovies Smaller episodes is a fantastic idea. It would be easier. Classify segments into smaller categories. (P.S. Blonde Jean Rodgers was drop dead gorgeous 😍!)
I'm considering doing the normal video covering one year but also some special episodes where I go into detail on themes of the 50s. So much to cover. And yes, blonde Jean Rogers was a knockout.
Like all the other comments in this post, a big thanks and congratulations Melissa and Glenn on your work with this tremendously enjoyable series! Kind regards, Terry, Australia.
Thanks so much. It was fun doing a recap video. The 1930s was an enjoyable decade for sci-fi.
Yay! so glad we can stay in the 1930's for a little longer. This is my favorite era for film. Maybe because it's the beginning if the talkies but I think it's because they show what the world was like at that time. The world changed so much (not necessarily for the better) after WWII and I love to see things before that. Thank you so much for all the work that goes into these wonderful episodes. Cheers
I really enjoyed diving deeper into this decade. So many fun serials, action adventures, and lots of Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. This was a fun episode to edit. Any excuse to revisit these films.
Excellent recap! Looking forward to your vids on the 1940s. I checked my files, I appear to have about 280 (not all sci-fi) movies & serials from that decade.
Very cool! When I started this series I would have been surprised that I'd cover 60 films and serials from the 1930s. It was not a quiet decade for genre films.
Thank you for doing this. I followed your recommendation and watched Cosmic Voyage and enjoyed seeing it.
Glad you enjoyed it! It's so different than the American sci-fi of the time.
A very fine decade. Shameful that Things to Come only has 6.6 on IMDB. A very good summary, as expected!
I think Things to Come is more highly rated is because it doesn't give the audience what they expect.
Thanks for this overview. It's nice having your observations for the decade.
Your videos get better and better; I've enjoyed finding out about so many films that I hadn't heard of before! Looking forward to the 1940s.
(Teeny tiny thing: at 6:50 the Lugosi and Karloff titles are the wrong way round...)
Thanks for pointing that out. I wish there was a way for me to edit it without taking the video down. I'll put a note at the top of the comments.
@@marswantsmovies A tiny thing! Doesn't get in the way of these wonderful clips.
A good recap.
All three of the Flash Gordon serials are excellent but the first, from 1936 with a blonde Jean Rogers, is the best and is really an outstanding achievement that holds up remarkably well today. It hasn't lost anything in almost 90 years. I've read the studio spent a lot of money on it and it shows.
The first Flash Gordon was one of the most expensive sci-fi projects of the 1930s. It was great re-watching it when I made my 1936 video.
I'm 78 & in June 1950, at age 4, I & two other older boys, were interviewed on an
early.live t.v show, hosted by Buster Crabbe! He was about 42, but still looked
very robust! He then showed one of his 1940's western movies as the Flash Gordon
serials hadn't been shown yet! (Jean Rogers was 'hot' to me, even then! Bye!)
@@rongendron8705 He actually was a pretty good actor. And an Olympic swimmer I think. That first Flash Gordon has some scenes with him in the water. I thought Rogers was very pretty too. But they made her a brunette in the third Flash Gordon serial.. Wonder why. I think I read somewhere she was actually a brunette in real life, Maybe she was a blonde because there were no blondes on the planet where Ming ruled and thus he was obsessed with pretty blonde Jean.
So glad I discovered your channel!
Growing up in the late 60's and early 70s, I absolutely devoured sci-fi books!
Being from the UK, my favourites were Aldiss and Ballard, with some Moorcock for schlocky fun. ;-) But I loved them all, wherever the authors came from.
Something seemed to happen to sci-fi literature in the late 70s that put me off - can't put my finger on it (borrowing tropes from contemporary drama has a lot to do with it - trying desperately to be 'taken seriously' - obviously embarrassed by their own genre) - and I stuck with the older books in the main. But I do like the hard sci-fi from Steven Baxter and a couple of others.
And now, as a retired person, my bedtime reading is exclusively short stories from the 40s, 50s and 60s - anthologies are so cheap on Kindle. So this channel is right up my alley!
Looking forward to the coverage of future decades.
Thank you so much. I'm so glad people around the world are going on this journey through sci-fi cinema history with me. The 1940s will be an interesting period to cover as we transition to the atomic age. It's great that so many books are available on Kindle. I often checkout Kindle books from my local library. I'm re-reading Childhood's End now and enjoying Clarke's early works.
@@marswantsmovies
Oh yes, Clarke is one of the greats. John Wyndham (Day of the Triffids) is another UK writer, who seems to have slipped through the net a little bit, but he was pretty influential in his day. Very low key - brought the drama down to a human scale.
Best thing about Kindle for me? As I get older, and my sight is not what it was, I can increase the size of the text! Total game-changer.
Increasing the size of the text is the biggest reason I love the Kindle plus and can take notes and highlight without damaging the book.
Very good presentation. Thanks for your efforts!
Have to say that although his performance as Dr. X was good (as in appropriately creepy), it's so weird seeing Humphrey Bogart in a sci-fi movie
Bogart was the best part. I loved that he turned up in a sci-fi movie.
@@marswantsmovies Yes, Bogart with the white hair streak was trippy looking!
Great overview! The bombing of Just Imagine and Thing To come where understandable. I only recently checked out Just Imagine and couldn’t keep my eyes open while Things to come suffers from an incoherent script and lots of stiff acting in spite of its great visual concepts. But there where some gems as well. My favorite being Cosmic Voyage. Thanks again for the great series. I am truly looking forward to the next decades. 😎😎😎
Cosmic Voyage is one of the standouts of the decade. We didn't get too many movies like it at the time. Things to Come was a visual standout but I agree that the script hurt it. My video on 1940 will be out on Friday (barring any alien invasions LOL)
@@marswantsmovies Your video reminded me that I still had to check out FP1 Antwortet Nicht. First impressions: The German version with Hans Aalbers surely carries some signs of the time, rearmament foretelling Fliegerlied and all, but there are a lot of things to like. It is for instance interesting to see Peter Lorre act with quite a bit of natural restraint in comparison to his later Hollywood tropes. Can’t yet comment on the whole movie yet though because I dozed off when they where just about to start building the darn thing!
FP1 is one of those films that should have been a lot better but I think the script missed the mark. Peter Lorre was the highlight of the film for me.
@@marswantsmovies Watched the rest. Oh boy! Reminds me of Danny Boyles “Sunlight”: Put a bunch of undereducated morons on the most advanced vessel the world has ever built and see what happens. Makes you think: Maybe it would actually be better if mankind ends! 😁
KA!
Hate the automated (A.I.?) narration. 👎🏼
That was excellent. I didn't know what to expect from the clip, but boy... the info was amazing. Titles and dates of films I didn't know and it lead me to finding even more cool stuff. Thank you for including the didactic stuff -it's a treat. Keep up the good work.
Glad you enjoyed it! And there's some forgotten gems coming up in the 1940s.
@@marswantsmovies Subscribed! Wonderful content you've put together.