Flesh Gordon

There is so much to see in this movie (besides the nekkid people), Great special effects, weird sight gags, penisaurs, robots... Many images are indelible, The black swan spaceship of the lesbian queen, the great claymation monster saying "My AAAsss!", robin hood seducing flash gordon (those aren't the character names but you get the idea...), oh yeah, and emperor Wang's cheerleaders.

Not a great movie by any means, but really odd. And so much better than the Dino DeLaurentiis version that came later.

If this is supposed to be a "porn" movie it is the funniest one I have ever seen. Reminds me of the old Keystone cop and Sinbad The Pirate movies. Love the character Emperor Wang, such a dildo. Have seen the original Flash Gordon and all the cartoons and this sorta kinda resembles them. This movie is hilarious, great fun!!!

When I was a kid one of the cinemas in the Isle of Man would have special late night showings in the summer season. It would alternate between soft core films and kung fu films.

Flesh Gordon would be wheeled out each summer, I think it promises more than it delivers.

A spoof of early Flash Gordon serials. Earth is hit by sex rays from outer space sending people into a sexual frenzy. When an aircraft carrying Flesh Gordon and Dale Ardor is hit by sex rays, the plane crashes as everyone starts having an orgy including the pilots. Flesh and Dale escape by parachute and land near the laboratory of Flexi Jerkoff who has a plan to stop the sex rays which emanate from outer space.

They travel to the planet Porno in Jerkoff's phallic rocket. They crash land in planet Porno ruled by Emperor Wang and he intends to marry Dale while Flesh is taken by Queen Amora as a sex slave. Somehow Flesh needs to defeat Wang but he faces rapist robots, lesbian pirates, a penisaurus, and giant monster called the great god porno.

Flesh Gordon has some really good stop motion animation, an obvious tribute to Ray Harryhausen. The film itself parodies the 1930s Flash Gordon serial rather faithfully.

However in its heart this is a campy softcore parody with some bad puns and wooden acting from Jason Williams who plays Flesh. As the title implies there is a lot of flesh on display and it has a few inspired smutty scenes. I do remember some lads at school had seen a pirate version of this movie and thought it was hilarious.

However what would had been classed as daring in the 1970s is now tame and lot of it is dull as well not helped by the poor quality of the video. It works as a piece of naughty kitsch.

This is a wonderful parody of the original serial version from the mid 1930s. The quality of acting, writing, directing, budget, costuming, and effects is dead on, almost a one-for-one match. Lots of great dialog, very quotable ("Good, there's Oxygen on this planet.").

There are two versions of this film floating around, the unrated version and a cut "R" version. The unrated version is the one to see! Most films can have "X" material edited out of them with no consequence, but not here. Whole sections of the plot (as thin as it is) are missing without the deleted footage.

This film features early work from Greg Jein, David Allen, Rick Baker, and Jim Danforth (who is listed with his name spelled backwards "Mij Htrofnad"). All went on to greater things in their careers.

Avoid the sequal from 1989, it tried too hard and fell flat on all fronts.

The beauty of Flesh Gordon is that it has no pretensions to seriousness. Much soft porn of the 70's was so mind-bogglingly asinine that lots of us nearly gave up sex. Flesh is so totally different, being funny, that it remains in my memory from the time I saw it in the Mid-70's. I still remember Dr Jerkoff unveiling his spaceship shaped like a giant erect phallus with the words "Fortunately I was able to complete the design before the Sex-ray took effect".

The word 'Penisaurus' has passed into the vocabulary of Britain now, as an insult, obviously. The rapist robots with their little spring willys still linger in my memory.

If I had seen it alone I would probably have walked out, but as a teenage miscreant with a friend it was hysterical. If you are not offended by the sight of breasts and enjoy a laugh watch it with some friends and a beer or two. Excellent fun.