Who's up for a two-hour Soviet silent movie with a touch of science fiction? Then try Aelita, Queen of Mars (1924). I read about this when I was looking up that big-eyed robot girl movie, and now I've seen it.
To summarize, Engineer Loss is working on a way to travel to Mars. He and many other scientists have been puzzled by a message from outer space: "Anta Odell Uta".
He has a wife that he ignores somewhat, and a corrupt bureaucrat uses this to try to make time with her. These scenes of domestic peril are interspersed with scenes from Mars, when Queen Aelita connives to sneak peaks at the Earth through a classified science telescope. She becomes enamored with Loss, and the Earth custom of ... kissing.
Loss goes through many trials - since he is a great engineer, he is in demand around Russia, getting various agricultural and industrial projects off the ground. But when he catches his wife and her slimy suitor (he thinks), he shoots her and decides to head for Mars. He gathers his co-workers and a stowaway and takes off from a log cabin in Siberia (?).
Once they get to Mars, he finally meets up with Aelita. But their forbidden love condemns them to the slave caverns. So they foment a slave rebellion, and form a Martian soviet. When they win control of the country, Aelita decides to screw the peasants and take power for herself. Loss is disenchanted and heads home. Besides, all along, when he was kissing Aelita, she sometimes turned into his wife.
At home, he finds that his wife is not dead (he never shot her? He missed? She got better?). He promises to give up daydreams of Mars and devote himself to the glorious revolution at home. The whole Mars thing was in his head, or something.
So - strange movie, goes without saying. The earthbound part was an ordinary, maybe even simple domestic melodrama. But the Mars stuff - wow. The sets and costumes were very Constructivist - a Russian art school from early in the revolution with lots of geometric influences - conical hats, triangular shoulders, sets with ramps, slaves with boxes for heads, etc. Aelita herself had a dark, masculine look, and a bra on her costume with three cups (none of them filled out much). Plus the whole "What is your Earth custom, this 'kissing'?" plot. Very Devil Girls from Mars or even Attack of the Mole Creatures. I think American International should produce a dubbed 70 minute cut, getting rid of most of the Earthbound stuff. Should be a hit at the drive-ins.
Oh and "Anta Odell Uta"? Turned out to be a tire ad. I thought it was a Martian request for female vocalists: Anita O'Day, Odetta, and Uta Hagen. Good guess, though.
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