Incannerax What a waste of my time!!!

Livestonth I am only giving this movie a 1 for the great cast, though I can't imagine what any of them were thinking. This movie was horrible

Ezmae Chang This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

Ortiz Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

arthurtuscadero (No fear of a spoiler here. The author assumes that everyone and his brother has seen these shows at least four or five times, so discussion of plot outcomes would be redundant.)The Flash Gordon series is not shown on TV today, mainly because it is completely obsolete scientifically. In its favor, it handled issues much more complicated (read: "adult") than shows like Rocky Jones.) The science is just completely magical.For instance, Gordon travels to distant galaxies with Dale and the Doctor. However, it is not until later in the series "The Lure of Light" that a faster than light drive was developed. So how did they get to these places and return to earth so quickly?The time travel episodes do not fare any better. In "Deadline at Noon," the bomb planted by an enemy agent who traveled to the distant past to bury it, was buried under the rubble of a building in West Berlin. Apparently the very late (compared to the bomb) building was constructed by persons who did not realize they were incorporating a prehistoric bomb into the structure. The so-called deadline is not effective, because with time travel, there is plenty of time to stop anything. You can take as long as you need. The planets Neptune and Saturn are depicted as rocky planets with humans living on them.Asteroids are depicted as very tiny, earth- like planets, with vegetation and breathable atmospheres.Flash Gordon apparently did outdo Start Trek, though with the time travel episode. Since the characters went back centuries to 1954 Germany, the film is able to use the set of local Berlin areas, (As Star Trek used Los Angeles) to give the episode a much more realistic feel as far as the filming is concerned.Finally, the selection of West Germany to film this production was ingenious. Although the aliens are all too humanoid to be completely believable, they have great difficulty speaking English, as if it is a language alien to them. This does add to the realism, since in almost all sci-fi shows, the aliens speak better English than the Earth people do.

John T. Ryan TO BEGIN WITH, let us state upfront, that we had believed, do believe and always will believe that the 3 Cliffhangers/Chapter Plays/Serials from Universal Pictures in the 1930's & early '40's were the quintessential rendering of Alex Raymond's comic strip to the celluloid medium, period. Okay, now we have that out of the way. (Now ain't full disclosure, Schultz?) TO OUR WAY of thinking, attempting to do a FLASH GORDON TV Series, while the local channels were full of FLASH GORDON (Universal, 1936) and FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS (Universal, 1938)* as tantamount to programming suicide. We remember as young boomer kids that Buster Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Frank Shannon and Charles B. Middleton WERE definitely THE Flash, Dale, Zarkov and Ming.WELL, THE SERIES was made and in spite of our feelings, there were many really good aspects to its fundamental elements.FOR ONE, ALTHOUGH the serials had a rather elderly Irish born actor in Frank Shannon in the role of Dr.Zarkov, this TV series cast a much more youthful Joseph Nash in the role of Dr. Hans Zarkov.** In examining samplings of the comic strip, one finds that this younger version of the brilliant scientist was much more closely molded in the original concept.AS FOR THE choice of Irene Champlin in the role of Dale Arden, we have no real objections. True, she didn't wear any skimpy, sexy burlesque queen outfits; but to be fair, the strip had long abandoned the practice. We figure that Hearst's King Feature Syndicate (the copyright owner) had found a different costume designer.CONCERNING HAVING CAST Mr. Steve Holland as Flash Gordon, we think he was at least adequate in the part. The athletic actor had the proper attitude and a trim physique; but lacked the musculature of the all around Mr. Everything athlete and 1932 Olympic Swimming Champion, Clarence Linden "Buster" Crabbe.THERE WERE MANY aspects of this telling of FLASH GORDON Saga that strayed over and seemingly 'borrowed' some plot aspects from rival spaceman dean of the comic strip interplanetary genre, BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY. Whereas FLASH GORDON had been set in contemporary USA, Mongo and other worlds, this series opted for the futuristic.WELL, WE KNOW for sure that at least one episode did. It also made reference to the futuristic city below their rocket-ship as Berlin! (Remember, Schultz, that this series was a West German Television production!) NOTE * To the best of our recollection, FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE (Universal, 1941) wasn't released to the television market until much later than its two predecessors, circa 1957.NOTE ** Perhaps there was a growing Anti-Nazi Sentiment added to World War I Anti-German feelings in the mid to late 1930's, but rather than calling him Hans Zarkov (as in Alex Raymond's strip) the only given name in the serials was that of Dr. "Alexis Zarkov" in the second serial, FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS (1938).

rudge49 I have fond if hazy memories of this series, when I finally found one episode in a Woolworth's bargain bin 20 years ago I immediately purchased it. For a 1950's kid for whom TV was something exciting and wonderful-and with no exposure to the Buster Crabbe serials-this program was Flash Gordon come to life. Steve Holland looked the part and was fairly athletic, Joe Nash also made a good Dr. Zarkov, and yes Irene Champlin was an eyeful and holds up well. Having since learned that it was filmed in West Berlin and then France I can see that it does have a different look and feel from contemporary Hollywood productions. The stories were played straight, many of the episodes had a grim feel to them. almost a film noir feel. Yes the special effects are low budget and to our CGI spoiled eyes might seem a little cheesy and what science there is laughably out of date-hey, I recall seeing a "Star Trek" episode where one of the characters is awaiting a computer printout and the sound effects are clearly of a printing press- but part of the fun of watching yesteryear's science fiction is comparing it to what we have and seeing where they got it "wrong". "Star Trek" or "Star Wars" it's not, it's definitely not the Buster Crabbe productions. Think of it as a local theater group's production, sit back and enjoy the show. And go back 50 years.

TVPowers The Flash Gordon 1950's TV series is interesting, mostly due to it's being one of the first science fiction series to be shot on film. The fact that it was made in the still recovering post WWII Germany, and the later episodes in France gives it different look and feel than comparable American lensed shows, such as Rocky Jones, Spacer Ranger.Some of the German episodes are rather dark and grim, with an almost expressionistic look. The budgets are quite low, and while there are a number of model shots of the space craft (such as Gordon & Co.'s Skyflash) many of the effects in the German episodes are largely photo and cel animation. The French episodes feature the Skyflash II, a very shiny rocket model, which seemed to complicate matters for the slightly more ambitious FX in the later episodes.Male model Steve Holland played Flash, which is intriguing, as Holland was the artist model used by James Bama for the Doc Savage novel reprints that were highly successful in the 60's and early 70's. Holland turned up on the cover of many action hero paperbacks. For someone with no real acting experience, he's not too bad -- but he's certainly no match for Buster Crabbe's portrayal.Joe Nash is generally quite good as Zarkov. Irene Champlin seemed to have some trouble (as did many of the actors) in getting her lines out and try to make an actual performance gel in the rushed looking -- possibly single take -- scenes.Producer Ed Gruskin was known for his work in radio (including a Doc Savage series) and writer Bruce Elliot wrote for the pulps, notably a number of Shadow novels under the house name of Maxwell Grant.Some of the music by Roger Roger (yep, that's his name) in the French produced episodes will be very familiar to viewers of low budget horror and Sci-fi films of the 50s,60s, and 70's. The tracks became part of a music library, and are still licensed for use today.