Peril from the Planet Mongo

Original filmed in 1940 as a serial (short films shown before the main feature, with a new episode shown each week) and re-edited into one complete story. This film was chapters 7-12 of the serial "Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe." This installment involved Flash Gordon, Dale Arden and Dr. Zarkov returning to the planet Mongo to stop a disease unleashed upon earth by the evil Emperor Ming the Merciless. It's low budget, silly, and clearly aimed at children, but it's infectiously entertaining, packed with gloriously antiquated special effects, terrifically silly looking sets and costumes, and pretty much wall-to-wall space swashbuckling action. What's not to like? My first exposure to Flash Gordon was the Mike Hodges 1980s film version, which after watching this film seemed as if it was a pretty spot on as a full-color rendering of the original campy serial. What's funny is that the 1980s Flash Gordon was an attempt to capitalize off the popularity of "Star Wars," which itself owed quite a lot to these original Flash Gordon serials. But back to "Flash Gordon: Peril from the Planet Mongo," it's not exactly "The Day the Earth Stood Still," but if you're simply looking for rollicking good juvenile entertainment from the days of yore, this was pretty fun.

Though I always found them exasperating as a child when watching the serialisation, this edited feature (from the last half dozen episodes of the 1940 "Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe" series) really does miss the episodic ending "cliffhanger" scenes that helped generate a sense of peril. That said this is still quite a fun sci-fi adventure with Buster Crabbe's "Flash" out to thwart the evil "Emperor Ming" (Charles Middleton) from using his evil death ray and his even more deadly purple death dust to take over the universe. Luckily he has the doughty "Dale" (Carol Hughes) and "Prof. Zarkov" (Frank Shannon) to help him on his life or death quest. It's end-to-end stuff, with plenty of action and derring-do, and I just loved those spaceships powered by Halloween sparklers. This is the stuff of childhood nostalgia and for me I very much enjoyed it. Certainly the production is basic, the dialogue cheesy and no, I don't suppose their is much jeopardy despite me always wanting "Ming" to win...

Peril from the Planet Mongo (1966) is a movie I recently watched on Tubi. The storyline picked up with Ming rebounding from his previous attempt to use his planet to destroy Earth. He now has a new plan to capture and destroy everyone responsible for stopping him last time and release a virus on Earth known as Purple Death. Can Flash thwart his plans?

This movie is codirected by Basil Dickey (Green Hornet) and George H. Plympton (Zombies of Mor Tua) and stars Buster Crabbe (Buck Rogers), Carol Hughes (Gold Mine in the Sky), Charles Middleton (Duck Soup) and Anne Gwynne (House of Frankenstein).

This movie is a mashup from the original series with some segues better than others. The characters and circumstances are very good the sets and backdrops were entertaining. The rockets and space scenes are fun and the action sequences were well done.

Overall this isn't as good as the Rocket Ship movie but is still well done and a must see for science fiction and Flash Gordon fans. I would score this a 6/10 and strongly recommend it.

Like any film compiled out of a serial, the action and pacing is very jerky and jumpy but overall its quite enjoyable. Unlike many compilations I've seen the overall story line flows well enough that you aren't left lost. This is a good enough for a taste of the old space opera serial but if you are a fan of old serials I'd recommend seeing the complete serial if you can find it.

I found the background music very distracting, it didn't seem to mate with the action on the screen well which is probably a result from an attempt to reedit to match the edited footage. However, it winds up dominating the sound track often overpowering the dialog. I also seemed to catch other music in the background probably from the original soundtrack that wasn't edited out.