 Flash Gordon, 1980 - laserdiscThere are stories that, since the birth of cinema, have been prime targets for money making schemes. Certain actors come around and, at that moment, producers and writers and directors and movie executives come together and say "HE WOULD BE PERFECT AS..." Conan is a prime example. Robert E. Howard had been writing Conan stories since the 1930's... and when Schwarzenneger came around... well, things just clicked. The same thing can be said for dozens of films that portray a character from a comic book, a novel... or perhaps an old serial. Flash Gordon was a comic book before it was a serial in the movies. Frank Frazetta had some Gordon material. Al Williamson, who is one of the better inkers around in comics today... did some of the most incredible work with Flash Gordon, including the comic adaptation of the movie. Created in 1934 by Alex Raymond, you can trace most space adventure to the likes of Gordon, including Star Wars. I'm always amazed at creations such as this. 1934. The beginnings of the depression and people were constantly looking for something to take them out of their lives for a few moments. Robert Howard, Edgar Rice Burroughs... these guys paved the way for science fiction writers. If you've never read a John Carter book (by Burroughs), you owe yourself the treat. They're incredible. The first Flash Gordon film came out a scant two years after Raymond put him down on paper. Starring Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon, Jean Rogers as Dale Arden and Charles Middleton as Ming... I would have loved to have been there to see the blown minds of the people in the audience. It must have been too much... just incredible, how far we've come in only sixty-six years. And that's nothing. Frederick Stephani directed not only the first film, Flash Gordon: Rocketship, but also the second installment Flash Gordon: Atomic Rocketship... they had a problem coming up with titles, I guess... Buster Crabbe would go on to shoot a number of Flash adventures, along with some Tarzan, Buck Rogers, Thunda, Billy the Kid, Billy Carson... he was rampant in the field of serials for both film and television. One of the things that struck me as simply incredible in the 1980 version of Flash Gordon was the strong morals of the character, portrayed by Sam Jones. I was constantly struck by the character giving himself freely to save his fellow humans. 1 life for billions. He said that more than once, and he meant it. The most moving part of that whole film, for me, was when the floating droid comes towards him, after he's defeated Ming... and Flash is on guard with a gold sword... and Dale comes over and tells Flash "Don't move, Flash!" Flash is waiting for something to happen... "Long live Flash. You saved the Earth. Have a nice day..." And Flash just jumps for joy, screaming Yeah! That moment, along with others in the film, defined the human spirit for me. I know how cheesy that sounds, but if you watch the movie... there was something there that hasn't been prevelant in films for a long, long time. The character was out to help. Flash Gordon was working as hard as he could, selflessly, to save the Earth. With Dale and Dr. Hans Zarkov along to help, too. And he won, and, above all, he was glad he saved the Earth. Completely and totally unselfish. I was blown away. I re-wound that part four times. The Queen music directly after it... framed the moment pretty perfectly. This film has a strange cast. Sam Jones still does work, though mainly b-movie material. Melody Anderson (who plays Dale) has not worked since 1993. Max Von Sydow is as busy as ever, having starred in the recently released Minority Report. Topol (probably had his name like this before the Cher era...) continues to work, though his biggest hit was Fiddler on the Roof, for which he earned an Academy nomination. He was also in For Your Eyes Only, one year after Flash Gordon. Ornella Muti was a Playboy Playmate prior to her role as Princess Aura. She continues to act, although mainly in Italy. Timothy Dalton. Whew. After Gordon, he would go on to pick up where Roger Moore left off, on one of the most popular franchises in movie history, James Bond. I enjoyed Dalton as Bond... I think he had a much better sense of humor than Brosnan has, and I was sad to see him leave the series. But, after Brosnan got out of his Remington Steele contract... well. You know the rest. Dalton would also go to star in The Rocketeer in 1991. He's still working, and I hope he continues to get some decent roles. I think he's a very accomplished actor. Brian Blessed, Peter Wyngarde, Richard O'Brien (of Rocky Horror fame) and John Hallam fill out the remainder of the cast. I think that the acting was, all in all, well done. I think that Sam Jones had a little difficulty with the work since all of his lines were over-dubbed... and I think for the time the movie was a little too ambitious. With elaborate set designs and state of the art (for the time) special effects... I'm sure it must have been quite overwhelming for a fledgling actor to get such an important role. Mike Hodges directed this rendition of Gordon. His previous work was for television, along with three feature films. His first feature was the Michael Caine film Get Carter, which I'm dying to see. He also directed Pulp, again with Caine and, in 1974 he directed the Michael Crichton adaptation of The Terminal Man. Hodges wrote all three of those films (adapting and producing Crichton's novel). I'm very impressed, to be honest. Going from television to three feature films in a row... both writing and directing... getting the Crichton project must have been a big step, because Crichton had already been produced five times prior to Terminal Man. He also wrote and directed Westworld, so Crichton was a name. The direction on Gordon is pretty solid. Hodges and producer Dino De Laurentiis obviously wanted to keep the campy feel of the serials while providing (at the time) a very sophisticated science fiction film with a large budget. Hodges would go on to direct some b-movie material afterwards, along with a lot of television. He would make his mainstream comeback with last year's crime documentary, Murder by Numbers. He is currently directing I'll Sleep When I'm Dead, starring Malcolm McDowell. Probably a straight to video film, but work is work. Dino De Laurentiis has been producing film since 1941. He has over 140 credits as a producer, and has worked on a large number of influential Hollywood pictures that would have been construed as a risk... including this film. I would have to gauge his big break hit in 1973 when he helped produce Serpico. Shortly after that he would begin producing some high profile films. Death Wish, Three Days of the Condor, King Kong, Hurricane, Orca... and then Gordon. I think it was after Gordon that life started speeding up for De Laurentiis:
Ragtime - 1981 Getting the rights to Stephen King novels, along with the Thomas Harris money making machine that has been happening over the past seventeen years... I'd have to say that De Larentiis (whose whole family is in the producing end of the movie business) made some very smart decisions. Michael Allin wrote the adaptation of the Flash Gordon comic strip to film. Allin's first work was Enter the Dragon in 1973. He went on to write some other feature scripts, but nothing as prominent as Enter the Dragon. There's a fifteen year hiatus for Allin between Gordon and his 1995 work Hotel Paradise, which (on IMDB) is heralded as the worst film of ALL time! Pretty strong words. Lorenzo Semple Jr. wrote the script to Gordon, based on Allin's work. Semple did much of the writing on the old Batman television series, writing out sixteen episodes and also writing the script for the Batman movie in 1966. I can understand now why Gordon's character had such high morales... based soley on Semple's work on the Batman television show. Semple would go on to adapt Papillon in 1973, and three films for De Laurentiis... Three Days of the Condor, King Kong and Hurricane. Semple would get the honor of writing Never Say Never Again (a remake of Thunderball) in 1983. It would be the end of his mainstream work, a film that would re-instate Connery as James Bond, even though Moore had been playing him since Connery's last role as Bond in 1971. I have to mention Gilbert Taylor, the cinematographer. Taylor had been working as a DP since 1948. Mainly features, along with some episodes of The Avengers, Taylor would shoot a couple of incredible films. In 1964 he would help Kubrick shoot Dr. Strangelove. That same year he would shoot A Hard Day's Night. In 1965 he would shoot Repulsion for Roman Polanski. In 1972 he would shoot Frenzy for Hitchcock. The Omen in 1976... and then he would be hired by George Lucas to shoot Star Wars in 1977. It's understandable why Laurentiis and Hodges wanted Taylor behind the camera of Gordon. That much effects experience... coming off of a film that helped pioneer special effects... Taylor's knowledge and experience must have proven invaluable to the cast and crew of Gordon. For the era, for the way that special effects were dominating the industry, and for coming off what was to become the most popular science fiction film ever made... well, Taylor did a pretty great job. I have to mention Queen. Have to. Their theme became an incredibly popular tune in the early 80's. They'd been around for quite some time already, and from a marketing standpoint, to get a band like Queen to do the music for a film that was already shaping up to be a huge budget bonanza... well, it just fit. The work is extremely 80's... but, you know, it's Queen! I couldn't possibly get into the special effects teams, or the production teams or the costume designers, but they all did an incredible job. You MUST keep in mind, while watching this film, the time that it was made. Keep that in mind, and I promise, you'll be surprised and pleased with the film.
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