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White House in Orbit | The Jane Hyperweb Site Index |
| Production data:
Produced by: Director: Cast: Jane: X8.5: The Reporter: Hachi Koma Go: Jyu Ni: The Emperor: and President Theordore Samuel Perkins as Himself |
Target: The Emperor (OUS Department of Information, 3033) was Frank Carpet's only "Jane" film, and something of an oddity.
An information movie wholly paid for by the OUS Department of Information at the outset of the Second OUS - Solar Nippon War (aka "The War Against Terror" or "The War To Get Rid of That Fellow With The Ugly Moustache"), according to rumour at the personal insistence of President Perkins, it retained only John Schwarzenmüller and Theodore Perkins from the original cast. The President, a great fan of "Marauders of Mars", had originally wanted to bring back Lulu Bunks as Jane and and hire the gifted Lena Riffstaffel of Berliner Grossfilm as director, but was thwarted by a Congressional decission to bring in an American director. Carpet cast his first lady Barbarella Standbayck as Jane, causing Perkins to make hasty changes in his manuscript outline. The President never did get along with the verbose Standbayck as he had with the more physical Bunks. On the other hand, he got along famously well with the senior Rotating Irakian bad-guy actor Max van Sadrow in the role as The Emperor. Sponsored by the government, the movie's scenes from the Orbital White House was actually shot on location. Perkins and van Sydrow, both enjoying practical jokes, played little games where van Sydrow in full Emperor makeup would jump from behind corners, strike a pose from his Dracula movies and claim to have gotten a vote of confidence from the Interstellar Union Security Council. So good was his act, that Perkins on one occasion actually suffered a minor stroke and had to be hospitalised. Due to long production time, the movie regrettably didn't premiere until the war was nearly over. Distribution was soon stopped, as it's message was considered inappropriate to the new political situation. On the other hand, it did succeed in painting a picture of the enemy as not only evil, but devoid of common decency. The scene where The Emperor in van Sadrow's guise simply refuse to offer tea to the American Special Forces come to capture him, is still considered a masterpiece of filmatic propaganda. |
