It's Great to Be Alive (film)

It's Great to Be Alive (1933) is an American Pre-Code science fiction musical comedy film produced by Fox Film Corporation, is a remake of The Last Man on Earth (1924), and later influenced the novel Mr. Adam (1946) by Pat Frank.

It's Great to Be Alive
Directed byAlfred L. Werker
Written byArthur Kober
Paul Perez
StarringRaul Roulien
Gloria Stuart
Edna May Oliver
Herbert Mundin
Joan Marsh
CinematographyRobert H. Planck
Edited byBarney Wolf
Distributed byFox Film Corporation
Release date
  • July 8, 1933 (1933-07-08)
Running time
69 minutes
CountryUnited States

Plot

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A young aviator, Carlos Martin (played by Raul Roulien), is dumped by his girlfriend (Gloria Stuart), and heads on a solo flight across the Pacific Ocean. He has engine trouble and makes an emergency landing on an uninhabited island out in the Pacific. Shortly afterward, a pandemic of a new disease called "masculitis" kills every fertile male human on the planet. When efforts to cure the disease fail, the human race is doomed. Humanity's institutions are all run by women, including the Chicago underworld. Carlos escapes the island, and once he returns home and hears the news, it now depends on him to continue the human race.

Cast

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Production

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The film was shot during April 1933, with location scenes photographed at the Grand Central Airport in Glendale, California.[1]

Other cast members include Edna May Oliver, Joan Marsh, Edward Van Sloan, and Peaches Jackson.

A sequence depicts look-a-likes of the two top scientists of the era, Albert Einstein and Auguste Piccard, trying to find a cure for masculitis. The actor who was the Einstein look-a-like was Alexander Schonberg . Another scene portrays a burlesque show dubbed "Girls of all Nations".

References

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  1. ^ Gevinson, Alan (ed). Within Our Gates: Ethnicity in American Feature Films, 1911-1960. Berkeley: University of California Press. pp 511-512. web December 3, 2015
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