Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe

In this 12-chapter serial from Universal Pictures and directors Ford Beebe & Ray Taylor, the evil Ming the Merciless (Charles Middleton) is once again the emperor of the far-off planet of Mongo. He has been sending ships to the Earth to drop "electrified dust" that causes a plague known as the Purple Death. To try and stop him, Flash Gordon (Buster Crabbe), Dale Arden (Carol Hughes), and Dr. Alexis Zarkov (Frank Shannon) travel back to Mongo. There they reteam with ally Prince Barin of Arboria (Roland Drew), but they face fierce foes in Ming, his chief soldier Captain Torch (Don Rowan), and the treacherous Lady Sonja (Anne Gwynne). Also featuring John Hamilton and Chief Yowlachie as the King of the Rock People.

This was the last of the great science fiction serials starring Buster Crabbe, following Flash Gordon (1936), Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938), and Buck Rogers (1939). There's a lot to enjoy here, but things are starting to wear thin, as well. The sets are obviously minor redresses of the ones used in Buck Rogers, and much time is spent in the cramped cockpits of various spaceships. Carol Hughes replaces Jean Rogers (who declined to return), and she does a decent job.

Highlights of the movie include Anne Gwynne as the evil Lady Sonja, a sweet-faced blonde always ready to stab someone in the back. Gwynne is also part of a long SF legacy, as besides her appearance in this, her grandson is Chris Pine, the most recent Captain Kirk in the three latest Star Trek movies. I also liked the Rock People, who live in a desolate rocky waste known as the Land of the Dead. They wear silly rock outfits, and their spoken language is English played backward. They also get menaced by a giant lizard in footage that looks lifted from another movie. Speaking of which, there are both scenes and music borrowed from the German movie White Hell of Pitz Palu (1930).

As I said, this marked the end of the science fiction serial for the most part, as the format leaned more heavily on superhero, police, and spy serials during the forties, with a brief return to science fiction in the early 50's before the format was permanently killed by TV.

This was a pretty good serial. Buster Crabbe was made to play the heroic Flash Gordon and Charles Middleton is the perfect Ming. However, it is the action sequences that carry this film. The special effects for this time period are also pretty good, even for the 1940's. The only flaw I find with this, though, is that Jean Rogers is not playing Dale or that Richard Alexander is not playing Barin. The two actors that replace them are okay, but the originals defined the roles. Also, there is no reference to the second serial. Maybe its because if they were to show any footage from the first two, the audience would definitely see that there are different actors playing Dale, Barin and Aura. However, despite these flaws, it is still a great Saturday afternoon serial

The success of the 2 prior Flash Gordon serials and the continued and ever expanding popularity of the Newspaper Comic Strip no doubt were the prime movers behind the filming of the third installment. Universal Pictures had done well with the production of many other titles belonging to Hearst's King Features, so they were given the go ahead for the new project.

Buster Crabbe was brought back for his powerful, faithful characterization. This was after he had time out to portray rival Spaceman* in the title role of BUCK ROGERS (Universal 1939).Also returning were Charles B. Middleton (Emperor Ming) and Frank Shannon (the good Dr. Zarkov).

Replacement for Miss Jean Rogers was Carol Hughes, a dark haired beauty of a starlet, who had a lot of success in the '30's and '40 in many supporting roles and Female leads, mostly in 'B' Films.

Prince Barin(Roland Drew) and Princess Aura(Shirley Deane)** were also played by newcomers to the roles. But it wasn't just a difference of actors, for their appearance as well as the overall look of the Planet Mongo, was now radically different.We'll try to explain, at least offering some theory.

The surface of Mongo now looked more like medieval western and northern Europe. Barin's domain, the Kingdom of Arboria was like one, giant Sherwood Forest. Baron, himself, and his soldiers often sported the green costuming of a Robin Hood and his Mery Men.They were armed with long bows and swords in addition to their ray guns.The frozen land to the north was called Frigia and was the Domain of one Queen Fria. The Queen looked very much like popular Sweedish Ice Skating Champion turned Movie Star, Sonja Hejne. The Queen also had a very Scandanavian sounding accent.

All of these changes would seem extremely puzzling to any modern day viewer, 'for back in the day', everybody read the comic page and knew the story lines. It was the comic strip,in the news print,that caused all the changes. Creator, Alex Raymond, had made gradual changes in the design and artwork. This equaled a sort of evolution from a setting that looked like a of combination Romanesque,Chinese, Egyptian and Art Decco to a very modern, western-styled decor*** and costuming. Now Ming had secret police, slave labor camps and spies. We also hear Ming referred to as 'Dictator' Ming. In short, the comic page and serial now mirrored developments in Western Europe and the rest of the World in that period of time between World Wars.

The story line in this FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE is most action filled and loaded with a load of new developments. Robot attackers, invisibility screened rockets, a new race of 'Rock Men' and incendiary projectiles were all featured prominently in the see-saw action. There is a sort of back and forth series of battles in which combatants from either side are captured and subsequently rescued or ransomed.

Maybe I'm being a little too critical here, as we must remember that these Serials were meant to be seen a chapter a week, not all at once in one or two sittings.

There is one point thus far overlooked in this review, and that is the general look of the production. The Robin Hood type sets were as good as there were around. The cinematography is as beautiful as any in a serial, ever.

As a kid growing up in Chicago one could identify with this last of the FLASH GORDON Trilogy. Afterall, our area is annually transformed into a veritable Frigia for at least 6 to 8 weeks every December, January and February.

NOTE: * Flash and Buck were not and could not be rivals as Buck Rogers's adventures are set 1n the 25th Century. They were real competitors in the market place,for "Box Office"(more newspaper subscribers),if you will.

NOTE: ** The evolution of this Royal Couple also was effected by the 1938 Waener Brothres' Film, THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD, as Barin's appearance morphed from looking like a Power Lifter in Roman garb to a sort of 'Road Show' Errol Flynn. Aura changed from a scantily clothed nymphomaniac to a perfect picture of nobility.

NOTE*** 'Western'as in Western Civilization, not Country & Western.

The heroic theme music strikes up, the chapter number and the 'story so far' prologue scroll up the screen and into the distance, and we are thrust into a new adventure where our hero and his companion, now disguised as Imperial Guards, having entered the stronghold of their enemy by spaceship, are about to rescue the beautiful Princess from his evil clutches! Elsewhere in the complex our hero's elderly mentor, dressed in his hooded wizard-like robes, also works to thwart the villain's dastardly plans…

Sound familiar?

Yes. Of course it does, for this is FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE (actually clunkily titled in all the opening credits as FLASH GORDON SPACE SOLDIERS CONQUER THE UNIVERSE) and is, of course, along with FLASH GORDON ('36) and FLASH GORDON'S TRIP TO MARS ('38), the inspiration for Mr. Lucas's other famous space opera, the name of which escapes me for the moment. We even have Imperial Spaceships bombarding our heroes on an Ice Planet (imaginatively called 'Frigia') and a battle on a Forest Moon ('Arboria' – Wow! Who dreams up all this stuff?), where friendly Prince Barin and his 'Merry Men' are bow and arrow wielding precursors to the Ewoks of Endor. There are many other elements too that eventually made their way into George's epic saga, but you'll have to watch it to see how many you can spot.

The acting is dreadful, the costumes ridiculous, the 'special effects' laughable and the plot (using the term very loosely) has holes in it big enough to fly an Imperial Battle Cruiser through - but enough about STAR WARS (ah, that was it!). Seriously though, FLASH GORDON may be ropey but I challenge anyone to fault their enthusiasm and the whole is weirdly compelling and great fun.

Shamelessly grabbing any spare backlot sets, props, sound effects and costumes available, a trend the much later STAR TREK original series, and others, continued, we are treated to such sights as Imperial officer's uniforms that appear to have been delivered by mail order direct from Ruritania; Prince Barin's 'treemen' clad in medieval castellated Lincoln Green (we assume) skirts and tights straight out of THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN HOOD ('38), and backstreets of Mongo that could have equally been trod, and no doubt were, by both Errol Flynn and Frankenstein's Monster. Even the music is stock, the most noticeable being Franz Waxman's 'Birth of the Bride' from his score to BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN ('35), which is plundered repeatedly. Fin-accessorised bullet shaped spaceships buzz around (again to a FRANKENSTEIN laboratory's electrical hum) with sparks falling downwards and smoke drifting up (an amazing thing the vacuum of space), and, no matter the destination, they always land, spirally, in the same scenic valley.

All 'dynamic' twelve chapters are presented in this boxed set with irresistible titles like 'The Purple Death', 'The Palace of Terror', 'Freezing Torture', 'The Destroying Ray' and 'Walking Bombs' (these particularly are a hoot), complete with the necessary cliff-hanger endings and opening and closing credits for each, but sadly, and a bad oversight, there are no special features. I know that perhaps this is difficult given the age of the material, but some accompanying old movie newsreels, as on the DVD release of THE DAY THE EARTH STOOD STILL, might have put it into some kind of historical perspective.

In this age of CGI effects where anything is possible, it's nice to look back and see where it all began, and I've no doubt that in 1940 it was equally as enthralling as any SFX blockbuster claims to be today.

Get some beers in, some friends around and have some fun as FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE!

Trivia Note: Although FGCTU was Buster Crabbe's final appearance as Flash in the old Universal serials, he did make one final cameo appearance as the character in season one of the 1979 TV series BUCK ROGERS IN THE 25TH CENTURY which starred Gil Gerard as Buck, a character Crabbe had also played 40 years earlier in 1939. In the two-part episode 'Planet of the Slave Girls' (a typical old Gordon/Rogers chapter title in itself) Crabbe appeared as 'Brigadier Gordon', a former space fighter pilot called out of retirement, and there's a pointed piece of dialogue toward the end of the episode where the new Buck (Gerard) is, in fact, talking to the old (Crabbe):

Buck: That's pretty good shooting. Gordon: Son, I've been doing this since before you were born. Buck (the character of course thinking he was born five centuries earlier): You think so? Gordon: Colonel, I know so.

Only four years later Clarence Linden 'Buster' Crabbe had passed away, making this a nice and timely touch in an otherwise unmemorable series.

I'm sure that even when this came out a lot of the stuff in this serial seemed pretty silly. But if you watch it, especially if you watch it as it was meant to be watched, one chapter at a time with a break in between, you'll probably find yourself getting into the cliff hangers, and occasionally dazzled by the occasionally sumptuous production values (huge pile of writhing dancing girls, snow mountain photography) and the sometimes ingenious special effects (those mud men always make me jump).

The rest of the time, sit back & laugh.

They must have known that they were stretching the premise when they made this, the third and last Flash Gordon serial, but the plot pretty much hangs together if you choose to pay attention to it (which can be hard, a lot of explanations are pretty rushed), and the performances are mostly good.