NFR Project: 'Flash Gordon' (1936)

 

NFR Project: ‘Flash Gordon’

Dir: Frederick Stephani

Scr: Frederick Stephani, Ella O’Neill, George H. Plympton, Basil Dickey

Pho: Jerome Ash, Richard Fryer

Ed: Saul A. Goodkind, Louis Sacklin, Alvin Todd, Edward Todd

Premiere: April 6, 1936

245 min.

What fun! The best of the old movie serials is a wonderful science-fiction fantasy. Flash Gordon the comic was created in 1934, in response to the popularity of the sci-fi cartoon strip Buck Rogers, which debuted in 1929. The great comics artist Alex Raymond created multiple stunning worlds, creatures, and adventures for his heroic space traveler to experience. It immediately enchanted comics readers.

Movie serials were a unique feature of Golden Age movie making. Shown before the main feature, they were melodramas, episodic stories, pitting a hero against a villain or villains in a series of trials. Ten to fifteen minutes long, they ended with what was termed a "cliffhanger" -- a situation deadly to the hero that seems to be inescapable. The following week, the hero's escape from peril is revealed.

This story of the film concerns the imminent destruction of Earth, caused by a rogue planet that’s sailing through the aether on a collision course. The young athlete Flash (Buster Crabbe, an Olympic swimming champion, like Tarzan’s Johnny Weissmuller), with female companion Dale Arden (Jean Rogers), join the genius Dr. Zarkov (Frank Shannon) in his home-made spaceship, to travel to the planet Mongo to prevent the destruction from happening.

When they land on Mongo, they find it full of strange, giant beasts (blown-up footage of lizards adorned with spikes and horns), and hostile soldiers. They are taken to the throne room of Emperor Ming the Merciless (Charles Middleton), where Ming decides he wants Dale, and does his best to rid the planet of Flash. And so, for 13 episodes, Flash and Ming battle it out, moving boldly from one cliffhanger to another. There are Lion Men and Hawk Men, and a city that floats in the sky, and an “ourangopoid” (a guy in a gorilla suit with a horn glued to his head). In all the places he finds himself, Flash never gives up his devotion to Dale.

Universal spent a lot of money on the production, and despite the limitations of special effects at the time, the filmmakers cobbled together a convincing enough series of settings. Props and costumes were recycled from the studio’s earlier horror films (Dr. Zarkov’s laboratory is filled with Kenneth Strickfaden’s machines created for Frankenstein). The project had a large budget, and you can see it in carefully made miniatures, sweeping settings (lots of curtains are used to cover the lack of money for sets), and convincing costumes.

All the performers do a decent job of producing a believable effort. Tops among them, however, is Charles Middleton as the bald-pated, merciless Ming. (Ming is unfortunately an Asian stereotype, based on the fictional character Fu Manchu). Middleton gets fully into the character, going over the top as he emphasizes Ming’s cruel and arbitrary outlook. Ming remains one of cinema’s great villains.

The NFR is one writer’s attempt to review all the films listed in the National Film Registry in chronological order. Next time: Fury.