Flash Gordon was the first of the serials based on Alex Raymond's eponymous hero. This 13 part epic has everything a science fiction fan could ask for: strange new worlds, dinosaurs, spaceships, submarines, underwater cities, floating cities, ray-guns, invisibility machines, monsters, atom furnaces, and hunky guys in short shorts or/and hot girls in skimpy halter-tops. Buster Crabbe is all noble, jut-jawed hero and Jean Rogers makes a gorgeous, if somewhat ineffectual, Dale Arden, who spends most of the serial being threatened with a 'fate worse than death' by first Ming, then by a sharkman, then a hawkman (even the good guy Thun the lionman seems to 'cop a feel' while helping her escape in episode 5). The special effects, costly at the time, will seem quaint to modern viewers but that just adds to the charm as Flash makes his way from cliff-hanger to cliff hanger with the help or hindrance of some memorable secondary characters (although Jack Lipson's Prince Vulcan is a pale foreshadowing of Brian Blessed's booming presence in the 1981 version). 1936 saw the release of this serial and of William Cameron Menzies "Shape of Things to Come", archetypes of low-brow and high-brow science fiction: one's a silly, action packed adventure, the other a pedantic, philosophical bore. Probably not a tough choice to audiences of the time (especial the kids at whom Flash was aimed) and while I appreciate Menzies' vision, Flash is a lot more fun, and in the end, about as realistic. An added bonus is that watching this silly, innocent serial is the perfect segue into watching 1974's equally silly but much less innocent, "Flesh Gordon".
Review of Flash Gordon
