Just Imagine (film)

Just Imagine
Lobby card
Directed by	David Butler
Written by	Buddy G. DeSylva Lew Brown Ray Henderson
Produced by	Buddy G. DeSylva
Starring	El Brendel Maureen O'Sullivan John Garrick Marjorie White
Cinematography	Ernest Palmer
Edited by	Irene Morra
Music by	Hugo Friedhofer Arthur Kay
Distributed by	Fox Film Corporation
Release date	November 23, 1930 (1930-11-23)
Running time	109 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$1,100,000

Just Imagine is a 1930 American pre-Code science fiction musical-comedy film, directed by David Butler. The film is known for its art direction and special effects in its portrayal of New York City in an imagined 1980. Just Imagine stars El Brendel, Maureen O'Sullivan, John Garrick and Marjorie White. The "man from 1930" was played by El Brendel, an ethnic vaudeville comedian of a forgotten type: the Swedish immigrant.

The film starts with a preamble showing life in 1880, where the people believed themselves the "last word in speed". It switches to 1930, with the streets crowded with automobiles and lined with electric lights and telephone wires. It then switches to 1980, where the tenement houses have morphed into 250-story buildings, connected by suspension bridges and multi-lane elevated roads.