Flash Gordon (1980)

 

 

100 best science fiction movies from Slant Magazine

#98: Flash Gordon (1980)

 

“Great, our planet is under attack by the merciless Emperor of the Galaxy [Ming the Merciless] and our counterattack is comprised of one quarterback [Flash Gordon], a real estate agent [Dale Arden], and a mentally unbalanced rocket scientist [Dr. Zarkov]. What could go wrong?”

 

n  -- Critic Andrew Borntreger

 

This movie has, bar-none, the best theme song ever. Queen’s “Flash Gordon” with a catchy chorus (“Flash! Ah-ahhhhhhhh/Defender of the Universe/Flash! Ah-ahhhhhhhh /He’ll save every one of us/Flash! Ah-ahhhhhhhh /He’s a miracle/Flash! Ah-ahhhhhhhh /King of the impossible") and a simple, compelling beat which,  by itself, worth the price of admission back in the day. The band understood how to celebrate ridiculousness as if it were a sacred text, and flamboyant lead Singer Freddy Mercury could’ve easily starred in this film. The rest of the music was Composed by Howard Blake, and he wove in Queen licks at every opportunity. It still sings to me as I write this, so many years after my first encounter.

 

As for the rest of the film:

 

Dino De Laurentis was an amazingly prolific film Producer, responsible for more than 180 titles in a career lasting 67 years (1940 to 2007), and among them are several of the greatest movies ever made. Never-the-less, while I was growing up in the 1970s, I remember the film crowd making his name synonymous for the over-blown, over-expensive, and flat-out awful. They seemed to take Satanic glee in his every financial failure, but generally, I think this might have been they didn’t want to admit they loved his bad films better than his good ones.

 

“Flash Gordon” is his best, bad, film. It’s a total embarrassment when compared to another De Laurentis release from just the next year, the masterpiece “Ragtime.” Yet today, “Flash Gordon” has a much bigger audience than the obviously better film.

 

It’s based of the work of Alex Raymond, one of the most gifted Comics Artists to ever grace the newspapers of USA. His “Flash Gordon” arrived in 1934 and would run continuously for the next sixty years (though Raymond handed it over to others in the 1940s) expanding into every other imaginable media in the process.

 

In 1936, “Flash Gordon” became a movie serial that was Universal Studios’ second biggest money maker that year, and spawned two sequel serials. These serials were low-budget kiddie-fare, but still were, essentially, the only significant SF cinema in the English-speaking World for more than a decade to come. Now, almost a hundred years later, they still have an audience.

 

This feature film version owes more to the serials than the original newspaper comic, which was a shame, because though the serial was visually ambitious given its limitations, but this big-budget movie could’ve been more. I’d argue this film was less-ambitious than the low-budget serials, because except for the Costume and Set Design by Danilo Donati, it never tried try to match the poetry and breathe of imagination of Raymond’s comic strip, which the serials did attempt and sometimes even succeeded.

 

Made in the wake of “Star Wars” (1977), also inspired by “Flash Gordon,” this film played to gaudiness and camp, and both things do bring pleasure to the film, but “Star Wars” captured the texture far better. Also, “Star Wars” also cost half as much to make.

 

De Laurentis had wanted to make this film for a while. Earlier attempts never moved beyond concept or pre-production, but were to have been Directed by such giants as Federico Fellini or Nicolas Roeg. This film’s Director, Mike Hodges, had a significant resume, but with grim Crime Thrillers, like “Get Carter” (1971) and “Pulp” (1972). He did make at least one prior SF, “The Terminal Man” (1974), but at its heart, that was also a grim Crime Thriller. One can see none of that here, everything is colorful and light-hearted, even the threat of the destruction of the whole Human Race. Hodges should be credited for this atypical, light-hearted tone, but still, Hodges was a problematic choice for a screamingly obvious reason: This was filmed in Italy and he spoke no Italian, so he couldn’t communicate with most of his crew. "I really had to improvise all the way," says Hodges.

 

This was not the first big-budget comic-book adaption that De Laurentis was responsible for, previously there was “Barbarella” and “Danger Diabolik” (both 1968). In all these outings, he seemed be confused where camp ends and stupidity begins. Never-the-less, this was the best of the three.

 

Let’s start with the Villain, Ming the Merciless, who is more poorly developed in this Script than any of his other incarnations, both before or after -- BUT! -- he’s played by the incomparable Max Von Sydow, the best Actor in the film. Forget the straight-forward and realistic motive of Authoritarian Conquest, in the pre-credit sequence we’re told Ming wants to destroy Earth because he’s bored. Before him there is a control panel with buttons labeled with things like “Hurricane,” “Earthquake,” “Tidal Wave,” and “Hot Hail.” He happily pushed all these buttons and utters a sinister laugh.

 

The second Villain was Ming’s henchmen, General Klytus, face hidden behind a Darth-Vader-ish mask and voiced by Peter Wyngarde, who projects an evil authority worthy of James Earl Jones.

 

Then there’s the Emperor’s oversexed daughter, Princess Aura, played with cheeky aplomb by Ornella Muti. The film is heavy on the fetish and inuendo, and at least half of that circles around her. She lies, manipulates, cheats on her many lovers, may have an incestuous relationship with Ming, and when tortured with a whip, appears to be enjoying it (wrote Andrew Borntreger, “Aura's scheming libido knows no bounds.”). She wears the film’s sexist costumes, and lemme tell you, there was a lot of competition for that. Finally, when she goes one-on-one with a jealous woman, they have a pillow fight. That jealous woman just happened to be…   

 

Dale Arden, Flash’s love interest, and the script can’t seem to decide if she’s plucky, or merely an idiot. On the other hand, actress Melody Anderson brings great enthusiasm and humor to the role.

 

Timothy Dalton plays noble Prince Barin, one of Aura’s jealous lovers. Because Aura has the hots for Flash, Barin spends the first half of the film trying to kill him. In the second half, he’s allied with Flash and (though the script is a little muddled on this point) it is Barin who ultimately saves the Earth, no help from Flash. Dalton is the only Actor the plays his role completely straight, which is the best joke in the movie, and this probably secured his role as James Bond (“The Living Daylights” (1987)).

 

Prince Vultan of the Hawkmen is played by Brian Blessed, who was an avid fan of the original “Flash Gordon” serials while growing up. He’s big, bombastic, and (according to a reviewer whose name I’ve lost) “is having too much fun. Never a subtle actor, he seems to think the audience is made up of hard-of-hearing eight-year-olds.” Decades later Blessed said, "I can't go anywhere in Britain without people asking me to shout, 'Gordon’s alive!' and everyone cheers."

 

In the original comic-strip, Dr. Hans Zarkov was a strikingly sinister ally of Flash, but became progressively more sympathetic as the years unfolded. This clearly confused the Script Writer, and his characterization is an utter mess – BUT – he’s played by Topol, maybe not a famous as von Sydow, but an actor of near equal caliber, and Topol makes the clumsily written character immensely likable.

 

Basically, everybody is this movie is wins you over because they are clearly having fun…with one important exception.

 

Flash, himself, is played by Sam J. Jones, an ex-marine, “Playgirl” centerfold, and alleged Actor whose previous screen credit was as Bo Derek's character’s husband in "10" (1979). Though I remember the film, and the importance that Character was to the plot, I can’t remember Jones, which tells you everything you need to know about his thespian talents. His performance was universal derided (von Sydow, playing a worse-written Character, was universally hailed). He also had a falling out with the Producers and refused to commit himself to marketing the film.

 

Even Deep Roy, as one of the Royal family’s pet Dwarves and gets no dialogue and only three-or-four reaction shots, makes a stronger impression than Jones.

 

It was Written by Lorenzo Semple, Jr; his association with De Laurentis lasted several years and was fruitful for them both, but they both shared the same fate in that both are now most famous for their dumbest efforts. Though Semple has a number of fine, serious, scripts, like “Papillon” (1973) and “Three Days of the Condor” (1975) he’s now best remembered for the campy TV series and film “Batman” (both 1966) which, again, “Flash Gordon,” shares more with than the original comic strip.

 

Given that this project had been peculating in De Laurentis’ head for so long, I was shocked to read that when it was finally realized, it was a rush-job. Filming began with the script unfinished and the story-boards undone, and it shows. Everything looks phony, the Chroma Key effects have gritty borders or obvious frames, a Floating City of the Hawkmen looks like a plastic model suspended by wires. There’s a charm in this, especially because the exaggerated colors are so beautiful, but I still think that if you wanted to make it look like it was suspended by wires, you should’ve suspended it by wires and not used a much more expensive FX technology. (IMDB.com gives was a huge list of FX team leaders, too long to include here).

 

Though the FX were (at best) iffy, the costumes triumphed. Everyone is adorned in capes, ridiculous boots and headdresses. The female characters are either in lovely gowns, ultra-skimpy and ornate bikinis, or skin-tight leotards (Aura gets to wear all three). A large percentage of the male characters wear leather hot-shorts.

 

The whole look is of an overexcited yesteryear, especially the gaudy Art Deco of Ming’s Palace and Space Ships. All things Ming favor the color red, evoking a bordello more than Authoritarian threat.

 

While “Star Wars” violated the Laws of Science by have Space Ships behave like WWII Fighter Planes, “Flash Gordon” violates the Laws by having them behave like Spanish Galleons. In the climatic battle, the angel-winged Hawk Men swoop down and the Space Ship’s Captain yells, "Stand by to the repel invaders!" The fight takes place on an exterior deck and looked like an Errol Flynn movie with Lazar guns.

 

There are two exceptionally entertaining fight scenes, Flash single-handedly defeating a crowd of the Ming’s guards by essentially playing Football against them, and then Flash and Barin battling with whips on a tilting platform with spikes shooting up between their legs.

 

Far more a Comedy than SF or Fantasy, it was hated by fans of the comic-strip, which is understandable. The hostility of other contemporary critics surprises me, but on the other hand, 1980 was a better-than-average year for Comedy (“9 to 5,” “Private Benjamin” “Airplane” Caddyshack” etc.) so maybe they were just spoiled. The film is often viewed as a bomb, but no, it was only disappointing profitable. Over time it developed a Cult audience, but Semple moans, “one of the definitions of a cult classic is the cult are not people who buy movie tickets.”

 

Music Video instead of Trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYTYqs-ytSk