It's Great to Be Alive (film)

It's Great to Be Alive
It's Great to Be Alive
Directed by	Alfred L. Werker
Written by	Arthur Kober; Paul Perez
Starring	Raul Roulien; Gloria Stuart; Edna May Oliver; Herbert Mundin; Joan Marsh
Cinematography	Robert H. Planck
Edited by	Barney Wolf
Distributed by	Fox Film Corporation
Release date	July 8, 1933;
Running time	69 minutes
Country	United States

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.

Plot

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

Raul Roulien as Carlos Martin
Edna Mae Oliver as Dr. Prodwell
Gloria Stuart as Dorothy Wilton
Herbert Mundin as Brooks
Joan Marsh as Toots
Dorothy Burgess as Al Moran
Emma Dunn as Mrs. Wilton
Edward Van Sloan as Dr. Wilton
Robert Greig as Perkins
Lorraine Bridges as Singer
Peaches Jackson as Dancer, Cuban Girl
Claire Rochelle as Dancer, Dutch Girl'
Alexander Schonberg as Einstein Look-a- Like

Production

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

^ 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