Flash Gordon (1980)
If you value the changes that Star Wars made to film, special effects, and history, you have Dino De Laurentiis to thank. George Lucas originally wanted to do a film of Flash Gordon, which had been a comic book hero and a movie theater serial character from the 1930s and 40s. However, Dino De Laurentiis held the rights to character, so Lucas created Star Wars. And I'm so glad he did that and Laurentiis did this one. Flash Gordon is perfect the way it is. It's a comic book come to life, complete with bright colors, unsubtle dialogue, and some of the most fantastic art direction this side of Speed Racer. Instead of going for a dirty used look of space vehicles and other planets as Star Wars had done, the filmmakers decided to go a decidedly camp route. Everything is shiny and bright here. The score would not be done in a classical grandiose style as that film was either. Instead, there would be minimal orchestration and the score would be done by a rock group. Who better to do a space opera soundtrack than the biggest band in the world at the time, Queen?! Their theme song for the film has become the thing of legend. So camp, so catchy, and you love it or you hate it.
I don't know how one could hate that song, but some do. And some people also hate the movie. It's for the same reason some hate the 1966 Batman film, which oddly enough has the same screenwriter. Imagine that. This film does not go to the height of stupidity that that film does, playing itself at least somewhat straight at times. I see the film as just a celebration of the comic strip and the serials. Every single shot in the film would fit perfectly as a comic book panel by the way they are blocked and shot. There's no realism here, which I guess turns some people off, especially nowdays. I'm not a huge fan of everything being strongly realistic, as most of the time it makes films a chore to sit through, all the fun being sucked out. I know I'm in the minority on that one, but hey it's my blog. I get to say what I believe.
Now Flash Gordon had originally been a comic strip, then it was adapted into 3 different movie theater serials (back when people went to the movies once a week), then into a 1950s TV show, two soft-core porn parodies in the 1970s called Flesh Gordon, and finally this movie. The story here is that the villainous Emperor Ming, ruler of the planets of Mongo has taken to playing with Earth, causing tidal waves, earthquakes, "hot hail", fireballs, and sending the moon off it's orbit. The earth will be destroyed in a few days. Meanwhile Flash Gordon, quarterback of the New York Jets, is flying home in a plane along with a girl named Dale Arden. The plane's pilots disappear due to Ming and it crash lands in the lab of Dr. Hans Arkov, who is pretty sure that evildoers in space are causing all this mess. He's made a rocket ship to try to make contact and save earth, and he kidnaps Dale and Flash and the rocket goes up into space. It lands on a planet of Mongo and Flash tries to start a rebellion after Ming tries to have him executed and takes Dale as his sexual plaything. Arkov is supposedly mind-washed into being a secret agent for Ming. Yes, this is the stuff that used to happen in space operas. In fact, Star Wars isn't too different. Lucas simply took earth out of the equation, which was a smart move. And in fact, having Earth involved is the one weak spot in this film. After the first 5 minutes, we don't see Earth again, and we could care less if it's destroyed or not. Besides, these new planets, races, and monsters are much more fun than boring old earth.
The film was made on a good sized budget of 20 million dollars. By comparison, Star Wars cost 11 million and Empire Strikes Back, which came out the same year as Flash Gordon, cost 25 million. The film would get pretty good critical reviews, but in America, the film only made 27 million, which was a disappointment as they were trying to get Star Wars sized success. (A feat which few films that tried ended up even getting close to.) Still, the film was a pretty good success in England, probably mostly due to their understanding of campy film which Americans don't get and due to the Queen soundtrack. In fact, the Queen soundtrack went Gold on the Billboard charts even here in America despite vocals only being on two of the songs. However, in 1980 Queen was at the peak of their success in America and most of the world, having just released the one album that gave them #1 hits in America, The Game. The more highbrow critics didn't care for the movie, but those that realize that some films are there for "fun" loved it, including my favorite critic Pauline Kael. And that's what the movie is. Fun. It's not art, it's not an important piece of cinema history, it's not worthy of Oscar praise. It's just pretty and fun. And sometimes that's enough.
The movie has a hit or miss list of actors and actresses. You have Playgirl model Sam J. Jones as Flash, Melody Jones as Dale... Two actors most have never heard of. In fact, until the movie Ted that came out a few years ago, no one probably knew who Sam J. Jones was. And in that film, he just reprised his role of Flash. (That whole movie worships this movie. It's wonderful.) However, the rest of the actors are of very high caliber. Max Von Sydow, main actor in many Ingmar Bergman films and the old priest Father Merrin from The Exorcist plays the odious Emperor Ming here, and he's definitely enjoying the role. He's so over the top and evil. Critics gushed over him in this role even if they didn't like the film. You have now famous British actors like Brian Blessed, Timothy Dalton, Peter Wyngarde, Richard O'Brien.... And for some reason Topol was chosen to play Dr. Zarkov. And all I see is Fiddler on the Roof... Still it's a very fun cast.
The special and visual effects are great. Not realistic at all, but a comic book come to life. I mean hell, you got henchmen that look like Shy Guys from Mario!
Most of the effects work, like Star Wars was done via blue screen and rear projection, however, unlike Star Wars, which used black backgrounds of space in order to hide the matte lines and such, there's a lot of red in this film. And I mean a LOT of it. And on Arboria, one of the planets, everything is green tinted. As I said, the art direction is great.
So why should you see this film? Well, because there's nothing else like it out there. The closest things are probably the 1966 Batman and maybe Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow. Seriously, if you haven't seen the film, track it down. It's the perfect popcorn film. It's not heavy sci-fi, but it's a good fun time for the whole family. Here. Revel in this scene's comic book dialogue, hokey acting from Dale, great music, and profound playfulness!
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