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==External links== ==External links==
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*{{imdb title|id=0027623|Flash Gordon}} *{{imdb title|id=0027623|Flash Gordon}}
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Revision as of 22:27, 24 May 2007

1936 film
Flash Gordon
Directed byFrederick Stephani
Ray Taylor (uncredited)
Written byBasil Dickey
Ella O'Neill
George H. Plympton
Frederick Stephani
Alex Raymond (based on the comic strip by)
Produced byHenry MacRae
StarringBuster Crabbe
Jean Rogers
Charles Middleton
Priscilla Lawson
Frank Shannon
CinematographyJerome Ash
Richard Fryer
Distributed byUniversal Pictures
Release date1936
Running time245 min (13 episodes)
Country United States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$350,000

Flash Gordon is a 1936 film serial which tells the story of three people from Earth who travel to the planet Mongo to fight the evil Emperor Ming the Merciless. Buster Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Charles Middleton, Priscilla Lawson and Frank Shannon played the central roles. This serial has been selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry.

This first Flash Gordon serial has been called "the American Siegfried", referring directly to Fritz Lang's 1924 silent movie from the personality of its title character, its costumery, intensity, and special effects, as well as many plot similarities; and indirectly to Richard Wagner's Ring cycle because of its (sensational but admittedly lesser and imperfectly cued) music — a collection of the science fiction and mystery theme music from the feature films of the Universal Studios. The archetypal plot points common to both legends include the personality differences of the two main female characters, the monarch's desire for one of them and her magical seduction, and the hero's invisibility and his fight with a giant lizard.

The Flash Gordon serial was the most expensive of them all, the only serial advertised in some theaters above the name of the feature presentations, and probably the serial with the greatest attendance. It was the only sound serial with sexual tension, and it has become the best-remembered serial of them all.

Years later, in a television appearance in his native Oakland, Crabbe told an inteviewer that he was unhappy when Universal insisted on coloring his hair blonde to match the comic strip character.

Flash Gordon was followed by two more serials, Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938) and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940). During the 1950s, the three serials were shown on American television. To avoid confusion with a made-for-TV Flash Gordon series airing around the same time, they were retitled, becoming respectively Space Soldiers, Space Soldiers' Trip to Mars, and Space Soldiers Conquer the Universe. In the mid-1970s, all three serials were shown by PBS stations across the US, bringing Flash Gordon to a new generation, a full two years before Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind re-ignited interest in the science fiction genre. All three serials were later heavily edited and released on home video.

The theme tune is an excerpt from Franz Liszt's Les Preludes.

Cast

Episode list

  1. Planet Of Peril
  2. Tunnel Of Terror
  3. Captured By Shark Men
  4. Battling The Sea Beast
  5. The Destroying Ray
  6. Flaming Torture
  7. Shattering Doom
  8. Tournament Of Death
  9. Fighting The Fire Dragon
  10. The Unseen Peril
  11. In The Claws Of The Tigron
  12. Trapped In The Turret
  13. Rocketing To Earth

See also

References

  1. Images Journal Flash Gordon article, retrieved 18/03/2007
  2. Creature Features interview on KTVU, Oakland

External links

Preceded byThe Adventures of Frank Merriwell (1936) Universal Serial
Flash Gordon (1936)
Succeeded byThe Phantom Rider (1936)

Template:Space opera serials 1910-1960

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