L'amour en l'an 2000

This movie is now running on cable. It is an ambitious mishmash of Flash Gordon, Yiddish vaudeville, and Busby Berkeley musical, superimposed on a lame "romance thwarted" story structure. The acting is stilted or too stagey. The sound and cinematography are crude even by 1930 standards. By comparison, the production standards in Harold Lloyd's silent movies sparkle. The movie ends in a courtroom, just like many idiotic movies of today. Don't let this discourage you, though. There are some snappy one liners. It's fun seeing Maureen O'Sullivan years before her nude swimming sequence in the Tarzan movie; and Mischa is good as an astronomer. He will appear five years later in "My Man Godfrey" as the protege of Carol Lombard's mother. And the "vintage future" sets, swoopy modern clothes, mutant Martians, and personal hovercraft with twin boom tails resembling P-38s are wonderful. This movie is funny and not preachy, while "Things To Come" is the opposite. BC