FLASH GORDON (1980) MOVIE NEWS & REVIEW

flash gordon (1980) movie

Genre              |   Science Fiction

Classification   |   PG

Running time   |   111 minutes

Released         |   5 December 1980 

cast

Sam J. Jones ... Flash Gordon
Melody Anderson ... Dale Arden
Max von Sydow ... The Emperor Ming (as Max Von Sydow)
Topol ... Dr. Hans Zarkov
Ornella Muti ... Princess Aura
Timothy Dalton ... Prince Barin
Brian Blessed ... Prince Vultan
Peter Wyngarde ... Klytus
​Mariangela Melato ... Kala

director

Mike Hodges

writer

​Lorenzo Semple Jr. ... (screenplay)
 
Michael Allin ... (adaptation)
 
Alex Raymond ... (based on the characters created by)

cinematographer

​Gilbert Taylor ... director of photography (as Gil Taylor)

music

Howard Blake ... (orchestral score)
Queen

film editor

​Malcolm Cooke

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box office result

Worldwide             $​​​​​​ ​​​27,107,960

Australia                 $​​​​​ not available

North America       $​​​​​​​​​​27,107,960

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movie minutiae

​According to Brian Blessed, it took about three days to prepare the Ajax sequence and put everything, including dozens of hanging Hawkmen, in place. Blessed put in his own special effects, going "pew pew pew" as he "shot" his cardboard bazooka. Because of this, they had to take another day to reset. Blessed didn't feel too bad, as Sam J. Jones was also a pretty hot hand with his prop gun, also filling in the "pew pew's"

​For the scene in which Dale turns into a giant spider for a dream sequence, Melody Anderson spent six hours getting painted green, wearing fake eyes and fangs, with a head piece that weighed over 20 pounds. When Mike Hodges came in, he said, "This is wonderful, but we can't use this! It has absolutely nothing to do with the script."

The original FLASH GORDON serials were a major influence on George Lucas's Star Wars films. This film was made largely in response to the success of the first film. It also featured two future STAR WARS cast members... Brian Blessed appeared in STAR WARS: EPISODE I - THE PHANTOM MENACE (1999), and Max von Sydow appeared in STAR WARS: EPISODE VII - THE FORCE AWAKENS (2015).

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related movies

STAR WARS ​(1977)

FLASH GORDON (1980) MOVIE IMAGES

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Posters

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FLASH GORDON (1980) STORY SYNOPSIS

​Featuring an all-star cast and a much-celebrated soundtrack by Queen, this is the original and best version of the sci-fi classic Flash Gordon, based on the comic books by Alex Raymond and Don Moore. Now you can enjoy this gloriously camp version in lurid Technicolor. Flash (Sam J Jones) is a football hero skyjacked aboard Dr Zarkov’s (Topol) spaceship along with the beautiful Dale Arden (Melody Anderson). The threesome is drawn into the influence of the planet Mongo where they encounter Ming the Merciless (Max Von Sydow) and together must foil his plot to destroy Earth.

FLASH GORDON (1980) MOVIE REVIEW

Reviewed by Mark Geraghty   |   Review date 5 December 2015

​​Pop Movee Rating

There's not a great deal nice that can be said about the 1980 feature film adaptation of FLASH GORDON, as it's weighed down by such a poor script, the film never really gets going. Try as he might, Director Mike Hodges is unable to muster the flair required to capture the spirit of the FLASH GORDON cartoons or the Buster Crabbe TV show on which the movie is based. That's not to say his cast weren't trying, it's just that the screenplay, by Lorenzo Semple Jr., is so basic and juvenile that it robs the performances of any impact; leaving just a lot of scantily-dressed good looking actors trying their best in a very expensive pantomime.

The story, such as it is, involves the destruction of Earth by Ming (Max Von Sydow), the Emperor of planet Mongo and ruler of the known universe. Ming's climate-changing assault on Earth coincides with the crash-landing of a plane at the research facility of Dr. Hans Zarkov (Topol), who lends a peculiar type of helping hand to crash survivors Flash Gordon (Sam Jones) and Dale Arden (Melody Anderson). Gordon and Arden end up aboard Zarkov's home-made rocket, designed for what he believes was an inevitable attack on Earth by superior alien forces. The trio blast off and travel the a kind of wormhole, emerging on the other at the planet of Mongo and face-to-face with Ming!

It doesn't take long for Lorenzo Semple Jr's script to ramp-up the action and adventure, as Hodges makes use of his star's football player physique to inflict all manner of mayhem upon Ming's hapless soldiers. At various stages, the likes of Timothy Dalton, Brian Blessed and The Rocky Horror Picture Show's Richard O'Brien all appear in the film as various inhabitants of Ming's empire. There's all manner of pointless fight scenes as Flash bounces around from one scene to the next, each new astounding physical feat adding to the romantic mystique of his persona and filling Ming's enemies with new hope that they may have finally found a champion in the fight against their oppressor.

Despite the PG tone of FLASH GORDON, it's quite a sexualised film. In the film's early scenes, Flash and Dale flirt with one and their relationship seems to move at the speed of light. Ming's daughter Princess Aura (Ornella Muti) also takes a special interest in Flash and her ongoing advances lead to some of the film's lighter moments that almost turn the film into a sci-fi version of a Carry On movie. Many of the characters costumes add to the sexually-charged nature of the film with both Dale and Aura being provocatively dressed for the majority of their screen time. The boys don't miss out either! Sam Jones gets to flaunt his bare-chested braun for the second half of the film, acting as some kind of signal to the inhabitants of Mongo, and the viewer, that the less clothes you wear the more heroic you are!

FLASH GORDON is very much a tongue-in-cheek affair and it needs to be viewed with that in mind. The cast and crew must have been very aware of what they were making. Even with that knowledge, the script is terrible (and not in a deliberate manner that could have been the case if the film had employed a level of retro self-awareness that could have made it a real classic, like THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW). Besides the scenery-chewing of both Max Von Sydow and Brian Blessed, one of the film's real highlights is the pop metal numbers provided by British Rock band Queen. Who better than one of the campest musical acts of the late 1970s and early 1980s to provide the music for a big, camp B-grade science fiction adventure!

FLASH GORDON is terrible.

There's no avoiding that issue...

The script is pointless.

The performances are all over the place.

The visual effects are straight out of the BBC school of shonky laser blasts.

Sometimes though, it's not the destination, but the journey. In FLASH GORDON's case, the film's highlights come from certain moments that were borne out of circumstance. These moments do just enough for Flash Gordon to elevate it above the type of John Borman-induced stupidity of a film like ZARDOZ without capturing the true spirit of the classic FLASH GORDON serials of a bygone era when good and evil were far simpler to embody in word, sound and image for audiences.

FLASH GORDON (1980) USEFUL LINKS

Flash Gordon (film) - Wikipedia
​Flash Gordon (1980) - IMDb
​Flash Gordon (1980) - Rotten Tomatoes​

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