STARRING: Sam J Jones, Melody Anderson, Topol, Max Von Sydow, Ornella Muti, Brian Blessed
1980, 110 Minutes
Directed by: Mike Hodges
I saw this when I was 10 years old as the second half of a double feature with Popeye. I think that was the day I began loving movies. To those who may dismiss Flash Gordon as anything less than great, let me offer my simple movie philosophy: How well does a movie do what it sets out to do? Flash Gordon succeeds by this measure considerably. The scenes that are silly and campy and corny? They're meant to be like that. Director Mike Hodges would later go on to direct movies like A Prayer Before Dying and Morons from Outer Space, so it's safe to say this is his best film to date. Every detail is perfect from the drinks served in Ming's palace to the creepy tree monster (in a pretty damn intense scene).
The cast members all seem well aware of what's going on also, which helps a great deal. Our hero Flash (Sam Jones, destined to a life of softcore cable movies) is always brave and ever-prepared. His damsel, Dale (Melody Anderson, looking helpless and vacuous, which is her strong suit, I think). Dr. Zarkov is played by The Fiddler himself in a role so over-the-top and wild-eyed, you can't help but love him. Pre-Bond Timothy Dalton and big, hairy Brian Blessed show up as two princes, along with a metal-faced henchman named Klytus who is so cruel and evil, it's a great joy when he's slain and his eyeballs melt all over the floor. But Ming. Ming is played by Max von Sydow so perfectly, you love every scene he's in. He pulled out all his Grinch moves on this one, and he oozes a nasty vibe.
Basically Flash, Dale, and Dr. Zarkov blast into outer space on a cute little homemade rocketship, they fall asleep (and Flash cops a little boobie-feel), and wake up on some freaky disco planet and hop out to look around. Not surprised at all they can breathe the atmosphere, they quickly meet some nasty guards. A gun is produced and we learn that guns on this planet do not shoot bullets, but a laser-powered metal glove that strangles and pins the enemy to the ground. How's that for advanced technology? ("Look out! He's got a board with a nail through it!")
The newcomers are then brought to court in front of Ming. When Flash is attacked, he breaks into sudden football mode and begins tossing this giant green egg at bad guys, as Dale does her cheerleading in the background. ("Go, Flash, Go!") After much ballyhoo, our heroes are separated. Flash goes through A LOT of trouble and icky adventures while Dale and the loony Doc wait for him to rescue them.
A thrilling and tight sci-fi adventure. Something that's just simple fun done in an imaginative and entertaining fashion. The kind of movie that is remembered well by many movie fans, and it is clear to see why. Flash Gordon is a movie that was made with attention and a loving eye for detail and mood. The action sequences are extremely well-done, and the special effects hold up pretty well, even today. Done with a perfect combination of corn, affection, action and even a little Kapowza, to keep the kids interested.
A special mention goes out to Ornella Muti, who plays Ming's daughter, Aura. Not only is she sexy in her tight (and loopy) costumes, but her accent is awesome. ("No, not the bore worms!") If you can't find something in your heart in Flash Gordon to like, I question if you really like movies at all.
An irrelevant campy sci-fier from the producer Dino De Laurentiis. But, at least, as directed by Michael Hodges ("Get Carter"-1971) it's lively. Its liability is that its stars, Melody Anderson as Dale Arden and Sam J Jones as Flash Gordon, can't act. But there's some fun to be had in this bad flick through its bouncy musical score by Queen, its glossy sets arranged by Danilio Donati, its unintentional comedy through its trite dialogue, its exotic costumes, and most of all by Muti's sexy evil portrait of Princess Aura.
Flash Gordon is set in the gaudy Art Deco world of the planet Mongo, where the color red decorates the palace walls as if it was a bordello. The evil guards proudly flash their crystal swords as if they were as valuable as diamonds from Tiffanys, while the evil Emperor Ming (Max von Sydow) has at his disposal gadgets that kill in unique ways and allow him to read minds and attack the Earth with all kinds of weather disturbances.
The film opens as Flash and Dale meet on a plane in Dark Harbor, where the Blond Bomber is going back to quarterback the NY Jets after his vacation and she's a NYC travel agent afraid of flying who is going back to work after getting her head together from a relationship breakup. The plane experiences an unprecedented solar eclipse disturbance, actually caused by Ming playing with the Earth. The turbulence causes the novice pilot Flash to crash-land the plane in the lab area of Doctor Zarkov (Topol). He's a mad scientist dismissed by NASA, who believes the Earth will be attacked by outer space. When his assistant Munson informs him of the unusual turbulence on Earth, Zarkov says this proves he was right and they must both get into his home-made rocket and save the Earth from the space attackers (it is interesting to note that their plan of action is never presented). Zarkov says the rocket needs another person along so that there is someone to put their foot to the pedal. Munson refuses to go, and flees undetected. Luckily the scientist has Flash and Dale nearby, who have by now become lovebirds. He tricks them into stepping into his rickety rocket to make a phone call and then pulls a gun on them. He starts the rocket and they're soon in Mongo.
They are immediately captured by Ming's guards and taken to his palace. They realize that Ming is a psychopath who has conquered outer space by getting his subjects to war against each other. They have 12 hours to save Earth from his attack.
Flash gets into a football game with his more than eleven captors, using a large metal egg as a football. He is soon tackled, but not before he gets Ming's daughter all hot. Even though she's dating Prince Barin (Dalton), a subject of Ming's from another planet and the enemy of Prince Vulcan (Blessed), she's horny enough to want the lunkhead Flash in her boudoir and feels confident she can afterwards soothe Prince Barin's hurt feelings. But Ming orders Flash executed. This causes Aura to get one of her dad's doctor scientists to resurrect him with an injection after the execution, and then she escapes the planet with Flash in her rocketship. Meanwhile Dale is held captive in Ming's bedroom, as he decides to force her to marry him; meanwhile Zarkov is brainwashed and his mind is emptied (sort of like what could happen if you are on a steady diet of watching films like this one).
Flash becomes the hero of the hour, as he travels through the outer kingdoms of Mongo to unite the people of the Tree Kingdom and their enemies the Hawkmen to stop Ming. Prince Vulcan and Barin unite, and the trio stops the forced marriage and Ming's diabolical plans against the Earth just in the nick of time. Ming, supposedly, dies as a spaceship stabs him right through his heart.
If you have an nostalgia for those Saturday matinee Flash Gordon serial chapters starring Buster Crabbe you watched as a kid, which were just as unsophisticated as this film, then you might feel up to seeing this version. The film is adapted from a comic strip by Alex Raymond and was scripted by Lorenzo Semple Jr..
Not since "Infra-Man" has a movie opened with a development more ominous than the crisis facing Earth at the beginning of "Flash Gordon." But Earth scientists are playing it cool: A NASA spokesman denies that there's anything unusual about an unexpected total eclipse of the sun. Unusual? That the moon is out of its orbit? Ha! It takes a mad scientist like Dr. Hans Zarkov to realize that the Earth is under attack, and speed to the rescue in his private space ship-with Flash Gordon and Dale Arden aboard as unwilling passengers.
If memory serves, this is more or less the same beginning as in the original movie serialization of "Flash Gordon," back in 1936. Even if it's not, this new Dino De Laurentiis production is true to the tacky pop origins of the Flash Gordon comic strip and the serials starring Buster Crabbe. At a time when "Star Wars" and its spin-offs have inspired special effects men to bust a gut making their interplanetary adventures look real, "Flash Gordon" is cheerfully willing to look as phony as it is.
I DON'T mean that as a criticism. You can make a city float in the clouds and look marginally realistic (as in "The Empire Strikes Back"), but there's something sort of fun about the "Flash Gordon" city that floats in the clouds and looks like a large miniature model floating in fake clouds. And as the spaceships lumber past on the screen, I really wouldn't have minded if they'd left a tube of model airplane glue lying in the lower left-hand corner.
"Flash Gordon" is played for laughs, and wisely so. It is no more sophisticated than the comic strip it's based on, and that takes the curse off of material that was old before it was born. This is space opera, a genre invented by Edgar Rice Burroughs and Hugo Gernsback and other men of unlimited imagination harnessed to definitely limited skills. It's fun to see it done with energy and love and without the pseudo-meaningful apparatus of the Force and Trekkie Power.
The plot is simple: The Emperor Ming (Max von Sydow), bored with life in the universe, decides to pick on Earth. After warming up with a few hurricanes and earthquakes, he sends the moon spinning down toward the planet. Meanwhile, Zarkov, Flash (Sam J. Jones, last seen as Bo Derek's husband in "10") and Dale (Melody Anderson) crash-land in Ming's imperial space city. There are intrigues afoot, but meanwhile Dale catches Ming's eye, he determines to marry her, and Flash finds himself fighting for his life with a gladiator.
MIKE HODGES, the British director hired by De Laurentiis to orchestrate this comic space opera, is true to the visual tradition Of the, original serials: Everyone is dressed in capes and ridiculous boots and headdresses, and stand, around on the command decks of ornate space ships. There's an imperial court to applaud and boo at the appropriate times.
And there's a cliff-hanging showdown when the Hawk Men, looking amazingly like the winged angels in De Laurentiis' production as "Barbarella" (1968), engage the crew of a space ship in hand-to-hand battle (you know there's something lacking with the Ming technology when the commander of the rocket ship shouts "Stand by to the repel invaders!"). Is all of this ridiculous? Of course. Is it fun? Yeah, sort of, it is.
Sometime in the mid-70s, a young George Lucas tried to obtain the rights to Saturday serial superfranchise Flash Gordon with the idea of doing a remake. Thankfully he failed, or neither Star Wars nor this little gem would have ever made it to the screen.Eschewing the portentous epic feel of the Wars entirely, Mike Hodges (Get Carter) goes for comic book campery, with designer Danilo Donati (a Fellini collaborator) replicating the crazy angles, primary colour saturated frames of the comic book source material. Standout scenes include the flight of the Hawkmen, the reception at Ming's court and the Emperor's never-bettered wedding vows.
Max Von Sydow, Brain Blessed and Timothy Dalton act at the intensity of pantomime. Jones (now confined to DTV hell) is perfect as the blond bombshell himself, while the Queen soundtrack ratchets the flamboyance levels up a couple of notches. The question mark after The End, though, promised a sequel that was, alas, not to be.
This campy extravaganza has it all - heroes, villains, beautiful women and high stakes. Laughably bad and fantastically good all at once, this is a guilty pleasure that everyone can enjoy.
Largely forgotten hero of 1930s sci-fi serials and comic strips makes it to the big screen (with a big budget) in the wake of the success of Star Wars. (What is interesting to note is that George Lucas wanted to do Flash Gordon initially, but since the rights were tied up too tightly to allow him any artistic freedom, he decided to write his own space opera and came up with Star Wars instead. Now that movie would have been interesting . . .)
Unlike Superman - the Movie before it, this one tries to re-create the visual atmosphere of the original material. Later on, copying the visual style of the original comic book material would be fashionable with ventures such as Dick Tracey, Batman and The Shadow. Thus, in a sense, this movie was ahead of its time.
Obviously the film makers decided not to play it seriously (how could they?) and thus the costumes are garish and campy, the special effects tacky and obvious, the acting over the top. Whether you enjoy this sort of thing depends on your own personal taste, but there was something about the self-consciousness of all this that put me off.
Whether you enjoy the movie I suppose largely depends on your mood as well - so if you feel like camping it up, then rent this one. The music is by now defunct rock group Queen by the way . . .
Forget the hi-tech droidery of the current strain of sci-fi, Flash Gordon time warps us thirty years back into the baroque world of wedding-cake sky castles, crystal swords, hawk-men, and chaps who have just twelve hours to save the world, armed only with a lantern jaw and a clean pairof tights. The narrative is a little plodding, but adult punters will soon slip back into areverie for the lost visions of Saturday morning cinema, and their kids can get off on the extraordinary undercurrent of febrile sexuality. Acting honours go to von Sydow as Ming the Merciless and Mariangela Melato as his dark-eyed henchperson. Flash himself is as thick as a brick, but will no doubt appeal to gentlemen who prefer blonds.
Better than it might have been, given the limitations of this kind of brand-name filmmaking. Saddled with an outworn but still salable concept, director Mike Hodges faces the unenviable task of reinventing a fairy tale: his competition is our childhood memories of the material, colored with a sweep and grandeur that the old Universal serials, seen as an adult, don't really have. Hodges doesn't shirk his duties, and though the film lapses too often into easy facetiousness, much of it feels surprisingly substantial. The action moves smoothly and logically, finding a rhythm that engages your attention despite the patent lack of inspiration and genuine commitment. A respectable time-waster
The only good thing about this would-be camp version of the classic 1936 serial is the impressive production design by Danilo Donati. Sam J. Jones, who plays the title character, has to rank as one of the all-time worst casting choices; discovered by producer Dino DeLaurentiis on TV's "The Dating Game," he brought so little to his line readings that they had to be dubbed by another actor. This time around Flash is a gridiron hero, but, of course, he also saves the world from Emperor Ming (Max von Sydow). Young kids will probably enjoy this one, but anyone over 10 years old can forget it, as Lorenzo Semple's script pokes more fun at the audience's intelligence than at the story.