FLASH GORDON (1936), FLASH GORDON’S TRIP TO MARS (1938), AND FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE (1940)
— RANKING: 70 (THREE-WAY TIE) —
“HELLO, I’M FROM PLANET EARTH”: Buster Crabbe (second from left) vividly embodied Alex Raymond’s comic book “space cowboy.” The retro-future is present in the costuming of an alien leader in King Arthur armor, backed up by robot-like predecessors of George Lucas’s stormtroopers. Courtesy: Universal.
CREDITS
Universal Pictures; Frederick Stephani, Ray Taylor, dir.; Alex Raymond, comic strip, Stephani, Ella O’Neill, George H. Plympton, Basil Dickey, scr.; Henry MacRae, pro.; Clifford Vaughan, mus.; Jerome Ash, Richard Fryer, cin.; Saul A. Goodkind, Louis Sackin, Alvin Todd, Edward Todd, ed.; Ralph Berger, art dir.; Ed Keyes, F/X; 13 chapters; 245 min.; B&W; 1.37:1.
Buster Crabbe (Flash Gordon); Jean Rogers (Dale Arden); Charles Middleton (Ming the Merciless); Priscilla Lawson (Princess Aura); Frank Shannon (Dr. Alexis Zarkov); Richard Alexander (Prince Barin); Jack “Tiny” Lipson (King Vultan); Theodore Lorch (High Priest); Richard Tucker (Prof. Gordon); Duke York (King Kala); Muriel Goodspeed (Zona); Earl Askam (Officer Torch); Carroll Borland (Ming’s Mistress); Ray “Crash” Corrigan (Orangopoid).
MOST MEMORABLE LINE
He fights well, the Earth man.
PRINCESS AURA, TO HER FATHER, WHILE OGLING FLASH IN COMBAT
BACKGROUND
In 1928, the pulp magazine Amazing Stories published Armageddon 2419 A.D., by Philip Francis Nowlan. The novella, about space-traveling hero Anthony Rogers, caught the attention of a National Newspaper Syndicate editor who was in search of something different for his Sunday color comics. Nowlan was matched with illustrator Richard Calkins to create a weekly comic titled Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. The strip’s popularity did not go unnoticed at competing King Features. Alex Raymond, who had proven his flair with comics in such strips as Tim Tyler’s Luck and Jungle Jim, came on board to produce a competing tale. Any fear that theirs would be dismissed as a second-rate imitation diminished when Flash Gordon emerged as the more popular of the two, owing to elaborate plot twists and breathtaking panels. These recreated the future in the image of the past, all the grand fantasy icons from Robin Hood in Sherwood Forest to Cleopatra in Egypt coming together in a pop culture–fantasy mélange driven by a sci-fi element, space travel.
THE PLOT
Young Flash Gordon is concerned when a heavenly body rushes toward Earth, causing international panic. During the confusion, he bumps into an emancipated “modern girl” named Dale Arden. Shortly, the two lovebirds encounter eccentric Dr. Zarkov, who has built a rocket ship and plans to stop any oncoming collision. The adventurous pair joins him and finds themselves on planet Mongo, ruled by ruthless Ming and his beautiful but wicked daughter, Aura.
THE FILM
Movie serials had been around since silent films when cliffhangers such as The Perils of Pauline (1914) were produced with adult audiences in mind. With the advent of sound, studios churned out kiddie features that, along with cartoons and Our Gang shorts, screened at Saturday morning special showings. Universal, then moving from a minor to a major studio, wanted its serial to be the most spectacular. The studio produced the Flash chapter play on a then-immense $360,000 budget.
THEME
Though presented as escapist entertainment, Flash Gordon did convey an unintended theme. Ming and his daughter are spaced-out versions of the evil Dr. Fu Manchu and his luscious though lethal offspring, Su Maru. Films and other popular culture objects from the early twentieth century were filled with ethnic stereotypes; Asians were consistently portrayed as amoral and manipulative, secretively plotting world domination.
TRIVIA
In 1939, Buster Crabbe took time off between the second and third Flash serials to star as Buck Rogers. A former Olympic swimmer, Crabbe turned to films as a beefcake star. Flash’s battle with the Orangopoid pits Crabbe against Ray “Crash” Corrigan, an athlete turned stuntman.
FLASH GORDON’S TRIP TO MARS (1938)
ROBIN HOOD IN SPACE: As the highly popular trilogy of cliffhangers continued, Flash (Buster Crabbe, second from right) adjusted to the retro-future fashions. The series came to embody what social critic Susan Sontag would in time tag as “camp”: lowbrow junk movies that become a beloved and ongoing part of popular culture owing to a “so bad they’re good” aspect. Courtesy: Universal.
ADDITIONAL/ALTERED CREDITS
Ford Beebe, Robert F. Hill, dir.; Ray Trampe, Norman S. Hall, Wyndham Gittens, Herbert Dalmas, scr.; Barney A. Sarecky, pro.; Joseph Gluck, Saul A. Goodkind, Louis Sackin, ed.; Ralph M. DeLacy, art dir.; M. Berneman, costumes; Ed Keyes, F/X; Tom Steele, stunt double; 15 chapters; 312 min.; B&W; 1.37:1.
ADDITIONAL/ALTERED CAST
Beatrice Roberts (Queen Azura); Donald Kerr (Happy Hapgood); Richard Alexander (Prince Barin); C. Montague Shaw (Clay King); Wheeler Oakman (Tarnak); Kenne Duncan (Airdrome Captain); Anthony Warde (King Turan of the Forest People).
MOST MEMORABLE LINE
Take the Earth man to the disintegrating room.
MING, ORDERING THE HERO’S DEATH AS A SCIENTIFIC EXPERIMENT
THE PLOT
Somehow, madman Ming escapes from what appeared to be imminent death at the first serial’s conclusion. He now directs a death ray from Mars toward our planet. The intrepid space explorers embark again, hoping to reason with the Red Planet’s beautiful but aloof queen, Azura, who is Ming’s confederate. Azura’s minions pursue the astronauts into a cave where they encounter refugee members of the rebel forces who have been absorbed into the walls and are now half flesh, half clay.
THEME
The second serial emphasized an erotic element introduced in the original, with space maidens parading about in costumes that would have been considered unfit by censors for any story set in the present (ancient epics and futuristic fantasies always managed to survive the censors owing to their other-worldly aura). Flash and Dale are tied up and sadomasochistically tortured, she nearly molested by Ming, a lecher with eyes for the Earth woman. While the theme of a scantily clad dominatrix, drawn from pagan civilizations, had been presented on film as early as Méliès’s turn-of-the-century experimental films, here that image reached full fruition with Azura. This would be revived during the 1950s for such B movies as Cat-Women of the Moon (Arthur Hilton, 1953), Fire Maidens of Outer Space (Cy Roth, 1956), and Queen of Outer Space (Edward Bernds, 1958).
TRIVIA
The classy musical score was borrowed from more upscale, adult-oriented Universal horror/sci-fi thrillers such as The Invisible Man (1933) and The Bride of Frankenstein (1935).
FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE (1940)
ADDITIONAL/ALTERED CREDITS
Barry Shipman, scr.; William A. Sickner, cin.; Harold H. MacArthur, art dir.; 220 min.; B&W; 1.37:1.
ADDITIONAL/ALTERED CAST
Carol Hughes (Dale); Anne Gwynne (Lady Sonja); John Hamilton (Prof. Gordon); Herbert Rawlinson (Dr. Frohmann); Tom Chatterton (Prof. Arden); Shirley Deane (Princess Aura); Lee Powell (Capt. Roka); Roland Drew (Prince Barin); Mimi Taylor (Verna); Jean Brooks (Olga, Blonde Space Soldier); Luli Deste (Queen Fria); Mala (Prince of the Rock People).
MOST MEMORABLE LINE
With Ming at last dead, Flash Gordon conquers the universe!
DR. ZARKOV, FINAL LINE
THE PLOT
Ming is up to his old tricks again, this time employing the Purple Ray to decimate Earth. So it’s off to Mongo once more for the fearless trio. Flash, Dale, and Dr. Zarkov visit a couple of old chums from earlier stories—Prince Barin of Arboria and Queen Fria of Frigia—and elicit their aid in conquering Ming.
However unintentionally or coincidentally, Ming appears more Asian than ever in Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. Fans of the serial experienced, on December 7, 1941, a sense of déjà vu at the destruction at Pearl Harbor by what popular culture had long portrayed as the “Yellow Peril.” Once the United States entered World War II, all action films were enlisted in the war cause. Fantasies about wicked rulers, gorgeous beauties in lingerie-like outfits, and intrepid heroes gave way to contemporary Americans going up against the all-too-real Axis powers. The likes of Flash would not return until the early 1950s, when movie serials came roaring back.
TRIVIA
A combination of the new space program and UFO sightings brought sci-fi/fantasy back into popularity in the early 1950s. Crabbe was hired to host a daily TV show on WOR in New York that featured his own earlier cliffhangers. Among those mesmerized kids watching Crabbe’s series was George Lucas, who in the mid-1970s would attempt to secure the rights for a remake. When that proved to be too costly, he instead came up with his own similar space opera, Star Wars.
In 1954, Flash was adapted for TV as a weekly series by Joseph Zigman. The series starred Steve Holland, who proved unable to capture the wide-eyed innocence of Crabbe. Animated Flash Gordon series appeared in 1979, 1980, 1982, and 1996. The big-budget Flash Gordon (Mike Hodges, 1980) rendered outrageous the charming silliness of the original over-the-top film. With its disco-era sensibility and music by Queen, the film was a shrill, cynical, and smug disappointment. Flesh Gordon (1974), a soft-core porno project with surprisingly well-done F/X, perhaps comes closest of all later follow-ups to conveying the giddy fun of the original.
