Flash Gordon (1980) – Review

In the early 70s, a young filmmaker by the name of George Lucas wanted to make an exciting space opera that harkened back to the serials of Flash Gordon that he grew up watching, unfortunately, securing the licensing rights to the stories of Flash Gordon’s adventures ended up being strangely difficult to obtain so he went off to make his own space fantasy movie, something called Star Wars. Enter renowned Italian producer Dino De Laurentiis who upon seeing Lucas’s little film becoming the biggest-grossing picture of all time, quickly obtained the rights and greenlit his own Flash Gordon movie.

With the opening line “Klytus, I’m bored. What plaything can you offer me today?” delivered by the great Max Von Sydow as Ming the Merciless, one must quickly accept what kind of movie you are about to watch. Flash Gordon is a rock opera with a visual style verging between the absurd and the beautiful, and though it derives its roots from the same material that spawned Star Wars it is clear that this film lies heavily in the genre of camp as its tongue in cheek delivery of goofy dialogue, arch-villains and Femme Fatales vamping around various exotic locals was not meant to be taken too seriously. Or was it? What is interesting to learn is that producer Dino De Laurentiis had every intention of audiences taking his Flash Gordon very seriously as he’d been a fan of the character since his childhood, but then he hired screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr. to pen the script, which is an odd choice to provide a serious take on the character as Semple J. was most recently known for helping to create the campy Adam West Batman series.

“Holy despotic emperors, Batman!”

When it came to updating the story from its original 1930s setting not much really had to be changed as most of the plot takes place on the fantastical planet of Mongo and thus it was only our Earthling heroes who needed a bit of modern tweaking. In the original comic strip, Flash Gordon was a handsome polo player and Yale graduate while in this 1980s version, Flash Gordon (Sam J. Jones) is now a star football player and decidedly not a Yale graduate. In his portrayal of Flash Gordon actor Sam Jones gives the character a sense of innocence and naiveté whose simple nature grounds all the ludicrous and over-the-top elements of the world surrounding him. He’s teamed up with travel agent Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) who at first seems to be fulfilling the duties of a damsel in distress, as was the case of the character in the comic strip, but in this movie, she has more agency and isn’t found sitting around waiting to be rescued. She may not want to kill the various soldiers of Ming the Merciless but that won’t stop her from ditching her heels and blasting away.

Dale Arden is decidedly against harems and forced marriages.

As for the residents of the planet Mongo producer Dino De Laurentiis, and director Mike Hodges, collected some of the best British and Italian actors to fill out the cast. One of the trickier roles to pull off was, of course, that of Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow) as the original character was a victim of the racist “Yellow Peril” stereotype in the vein of such East Asian villains as Fu Manchu, and though Sydow does don apparel quite similar to the one found in the pages of the Flash Gordon comic strip his depiction is more European fascist than it is of Eastern origin, case in point, his mental assault on Professor Zarkov (Topol) brings along with it images of Hitler and The Holocaust. Emperor Ming is given second in command that is totally original to this production in the form of the masked figure of Klytus (Peter Wyngarde) whose melodious dulcet voice adds an extra level of menace to the proceedings.

Ming the Merciless and his totally not Darth Vader subordinate.

Dale Arden may be the hero’s primary love interest but she has her work cut out for her when it comes to competition for Flash’s attention as Ming’s daughter Princess Aura (Ornella Muti) is not only incredibly beautiful but is also extremely cunning and dangerous. She sets her sights on Flash Gordon, despite being involved in two love affairs while also fending off the attentions of Klytus, and she is quite capable of either seducing or killing someone depending on the situation. As to Aura’s relationship with her father, well, that could at best be described as either very complicated or downright fucked up. He has no compunctions about having his daughter tortured for information or offering her as a reward to Klytus for a job well done and this leads to her being one of the more “fleshed” out characters. On the other hand, Flash Gordon has no character arc to speak of, there is no “Heroes Journey” for him, and by the end of the film, it is Aura who has changed and become a better person, while both Flash and Dale are basically the same people they were before leaving Earth. Ornella Muti’s performance as Princess Aura is one of the strongest elements in the film and will be the one most noted during repeat viewings.

She epitomizes the term Femme Fatale.

One of Aura’s lovers is Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton), the leader of the forest region of Arboria, who in the comic strip was pretty much a Robin Hood knock and so Dalton was outfitted as if he was Errol Flynn from The Adventures of Robin Hood, and like the character of Aura he actually shows some growth by the end of the film, going from being a rival and adversary of Flash’s to being an ally which, again, is more than can be said for our hero. Next, we have Prince Vultan (Brian Blessed), who doesn’t succumb to Aura’s charm but he certainly doesn’t restrain himself when it comes to admiring the female form, and I dare anyone not to fall madly in love with Brian’s performance in this film. The exuberance and energy he displays in Flash Gordon is simply staggering and he easily carries much of the film on the back of his widespread wings as he delivers almost every line as if they’re for the audience in the theatre next door.

“GORDON’S ALIVE!”

Great cast of actors aside this film would not be so well remembered if not for how absolutely gorgeous it looked and much of this comes from the work of Oscar-winning production and costume designer Danilo Donati who created an incredibly eye-popping collection of locations and costumes to populate the world of Mongo, often to the chagrin of director Mike Hodges, apparently, Donati was rumoured to not even bothering to read a script and, instead, would make things up that inspired his own creative juices which then forced Hodges to be a quite bit more “fluid” with his shooting and storytelling than he was used to, but one can’t argue with the result as visually speaking this film is a pop art masterpiece.

Stray Observations:

• The opening title sequence uses panels from the original King Features comic strip and many of them show a sword-wielding swashbuckling Flash Gordon, not quite what we get with this football star version of which Sam Jones is playing
• I love that Ming’s disaster machine, which has buttons for such things as earthquakes, hurricanes and meteor storms, also has a setting for “Hot Hail” because, why not?
• Ming seemed strangely fixated on an aircraft whose passengers consisted solely of a football star and a travel agent.
• Zarkov’s conservatory/launching pad looks as if it was designed for Lovecraft’s The Dunwich Horror.
• Flash Gordon isn’t much of a fighter until he gets a “football” in his hands.
• To escape being raped by Ming the Merciless Dale Arden roofies one of the slave girls and leaves her in her place, and I always wonder what happened to that poor girl.
• Is Princess Aura an actual blood relation of Ming’s? We are told that Aura is his daughter but when she is whipped it’s clear that she is red-blooded yet when Ming is speared at the end of the film he has green blood. Maybe she was adopted?
• Is the “Trial by Combat” aboard the hawkmen’s floating city only for non-hawkmen because tilting the platform over an abyss doesn’t seem to be all that much of a threat if you have wings?
• Watching Timothy Dalton as Prince Barin one can’t help but wonder why he was never hired to play Robin Hood.

Dalton would certainly have been better at it than Kevin “Bloody” Costner.

One cannot speak of Flash Gordon without pointing out the amazing score by the rock group Queen, with the pounding drums of Roger Taylor and the searing chords of Brian May this movie has some of the best heroic themes ever released, and it should be noted that while the movie failed to set the box office on fire the soundtrack reached number 10 on the United Kingdom charts and number 23 in the United States. But why did Flash Gordon do so poorly at the box office? Well, in fact, it did quite well in the United Kingdom and parts of Europe but with its release in the States it found itself up against the likes of Superman II and The Empire Strikes Back as well as an audience that had become tired of the campiness of the 60s and was ready for more realistic and gritty fare, even when it came to fantasy.

Note: The fantastic designs of the ships of Mongo were a wonderful tribute to the style of the original Alex Raymond comic strip as well as that of the serials.

Over the years the 1980s Flash Gordon has slowly grown quite the cult following and with the advent of Bluray and now 4K technology the gorgeous costumes and sets can now be seen as they’ve never been seen before. I hope this latest release will bring new viewers to this wonderful movie as it truly is a film not to be missed and can be equally enjoyed by the young and the young at heart.