Flash! A-ah! Saviour of the Universe! Flash! A-ah! He'll save every one of us! Flash! A-ah! He's a miracle! Flash! A-ah! King of the impossible!
Ming the Merciless (Max Von Sydow), ruler of the planet Mongo and Emperor of the Universe, gets bored one day and decides to attack Earth with hurricanes, earthquakes and bits of the Moon. When their plane crashes due to one of his attacks, quarterback Flash Gordon (Sam J. Jones) and travel agent Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) find themselves in the home of unhinged scientist Hans Zarkov (Topol), who forces them to help pilot his rocket so they can travel to Mongo and stop Ming from destroying the Earth.
Based on the classic comic strips and adventure serials of 30s and 40s, Flash Gordon was one of the many attempts to cash-in on the massive success of Star Wars. Funnily enough, Star Wars only even exists because of this movie. George Lucas originally wanted to make a Flash Gordon movie, but Dino De Laurentiis owned the rights and wasn't willing to sell them because he was intent on making his own version, so Lucas went off and made Star Wars instead. De Laurentiis originally hired Federico Fellini to direct the film, but he dropped out. Next he hired Nicolas Roeg, but wasn't happy with his concept for the film and Roeg soon quit. Sergio Leone was reportedly offered the job, but turned it down. Eventually Mike Hodges, who'd made his name with the gangster classic Get Carter, was hired.
Flash Gordon feels like something that escaped from another universe where Star Wars, Close Encounters of the third Kind, and Alien never happened. It's something of a throwback to the campy psychedelic sci-fi films of the late 60s and early 70s, sharing a lot of DNA with the likes of Barbarella, Fantastic Voyage, Logan's Run and Zardoz, the most common trait being extreme horniness. Seriously, this movie is just desperate to have sex, sometimes awkwardly so (did we really need to see Ming use his magic ring to get Dale publicly aroused?). Much of the erotic energy is provided by Ornella Muti as Princess Aura. Her introduction, sleeking onto the scene in what it would be charitably to described as even a revealing costume, was undoubtedly the source of many sexual awakenings.
Ironically, the least sexiest thing in it is Flash himself. He's the only hero in cinematic history who can claim the Freddie Mercury as his own personal hype man, which he should be eternally grateful for because he doesn't really deserve it. That theme song does so much heavy lifting to make Flash seem way more awesome than he actually is. He's basically a walking Ikea table; simple, functional, easy on the eye, yet ultimately wooden and bland looking. It's a role so empty that you desperately need to cast an actor drenching in charisma to overcome it. Too bad this film cast Jones, a vacant presence who landed the role because movie producers aren't interested in finding good actors, they want to find future movie stars they can exploit, only their concept of a star is often limited to people who are photogenic enough to slap on a poster.
One of the big problems with any attempt to adapt Flash Gordon is that Ming the Merciless is a blatant relic of the Yellow Peril era, something that this film really should've done more to move away from. What's really frustrating is that Von Sydow is so great in the role, bringing just the right amount of laid back camp to create a villain who is so comfortable in how diabolically evil he is that he destroys planets out of boredom and sits back and eats grapes while his own daughter is being tortured. If only they'd thought to give him a less offensive look. He also has two great minions in Peter Wyngarde as Klytus and Mariangela Melato as General Kala, who both bring exactly right level of ham their respective roles require, which is also true of the majority of the cast. Timothy Dalton knows to be earnest and dashing as Barin, and Brian Blessed knows to be AS LOUD AS POSSIBLE!!! as Vultan.
Ultimately, Flash Gordon is a film that has a lot that's fun, a lot that's cheesy, and a lot that's really cringy. When it just about manages to get the balances right it can make for a somewhat enjoyable film, but it helps if you approach it as something of an unintentional parody. According to the scriptwriter, the producer wanted an outright comedy while he wanted a serious take on the material. The resulting film falls somewhere in the middle. Everything is played straight, but there's enough knowing humour dotted around so you don't take it all too seriously. It also goes a long way to helping you overcome the quality of the special effects. Even for a film released 45 years ago, they are pretty naff looking. You wouldn't think this came out the same year as The Empire Strikes Back and was made with roughly the same amount of money.
Granted, the FX do suit the style of the film, but it isn't difficult to see why this film ultimately proved to be a box office disappointment when it first came out.
Notes and Quotes
--Sam J. Jones had a falling out with De Laurentiis and essentially quit before post-production started. This resulted in most of his dialogue being dubbed by an uncredited Peter Marinker.
--The Queen soundtrack alone assured the film's status as a cult classic.
--The opening credits, which utilises images from the comics mixed with Queen's theme, might be my favourite part of the movie.
--The extravagantly garish costumes and sets were provided by Danilo Donati, Fellini's regular production designer.
--The plot is rather faithful to the original comic strip, with one key difference that Flash plays American football instead of polo.
--As well as Ming's look, another one of the film's problem was how all the female characters are either femme fatale sexpots, screaming damsels in distress, scantily clad slave girls or General Kala.
--How old is Ming? He says he judges systems every thousand years. Is that Earth years or just really short Mongo years?
--Flash has exactly one plan and that's for everyone to team up to fight Ming. He goes on about it so much that I suspect everyone finally agreed just to shut him up. Funny thing is, he only needed the Hawkmen because the imperial fleet everyone is so afraid of is no where to be seen come the finale. A bigger climatic battle was planned, but got cut because of time and money.
--There's many well known faces in tiny roles like Richard O'Brien, John Osborne, and Robbie Coltrane.
--There is a brief moment when Dale first escapes that she suddenly turns into a badass action hero, doing flips and spins as she takes down guard after guard. That Dale isn't seen again for the rest of the movie.
--Why do Hawkmen even have rocket cycles?
Prince Vultan: "Gordon's alive???!!!"
Klytus: "Bring me... the bore worms!"
Aura: "No! Not the bore worms!"
High Priest: "Do you – Ming the Merciless, Ruler of the Universe – take this Earthling, Dale Arden, to be your Empress of the Hour?"
Ming: "Of the hour, yes."
High Priest: "Do you promise to use her as you will?"
Ming: "Certainly!"
High Priest: "Not to blast her into space?"
Ming: *glares*
High Priest: "Uhm, until such time as you grow weary of her?"
Ming: "I do."
Klytus: "Most effective, Your Majesty! Will you destroy this... Earth?"
Ming: "Later. I like to play with things a while... before annihilation."
Ming: "Pathetic earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would've hidden from it in terror."
Colonel: "General Kala, Flash Gordon approaching."
Kala: "What do you mean 'Flash Gordon approaching'?"
Undeniably one of the most memorable and distinctive of all the Star Wars cash-ins (with the best soundtrack), but still a flawed film that has not aged well in places. ⭐⭐⭐
Mark Greig has been writing for Doux Reviews since 2011 More Mark Greig
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