Had no idea about the points, thanks. Hmm, maybe I'll have a chance to break into the top 10.psychotronicbeatnik wrote: ↑January 30th, 2020, 10:12 pmAll three of those Flash Gordon serials are a lot of fun and work far more often than they should. Middleton is an excellent Ming, not quite up to Max von Sydow in the role but who would be?OldAle1 wrote: ↑January 30th, 2020, 9:00 pm
31. Flash Gordon (Frederick Stephani, 1936) (re-watch)
I've been on a bigger nostalgia kick than usual this winter, and it was time to re-visit one of my earliest sci-fi memories, the Flash Gordon serials. Well, the first one anyway - one of these inside a month is enough. I have no idea which serial, or which parts of which serial, or whether it was a whole serial or one of the cut-up b-movie 70 minute versions that I saw back when we lived in Chicago in the early 70s, but I distinctly remember the scene, repeated many times, of the rocket ship as it circles and lands in the cheap papier-mâché sets
and even more vividly I've always remembered the buzzing sound of the ships. I first watched the three serials straight through around 2002 or so, on VHS from the local video store in Burlington, VT, and then I watched them again around a decade later on the OK Image DVDs, the same source I have now. It'd be nice to see these transferred in HD with some extras but I'm not holding my breath, and the DVDs are OK. What to say about them...if it's good acting, or storytelling, or direction you're looking for, well...these are above the standard quality for serials for sure and the production design, sets and FX are about as good as you get in 1936 which is to say certainly very dated but fun if you can cast yourself back to those days. The acting is probably the hardest thing to take though to be fair I think the very quick shooting schedules and frankly the attitude behind these things ("they're just for kids, they won't notice") is a big part of their flaws. Charles Middleton as Ming is most memorable and probably gives the best performance but it's all ham; Jean Rogers as Dale is simply horrendous, with a deer-in-the-headlights look plastered on her Harlowe-esque countenance most of the time. It's fun to look at the storytelling flaws - one thing this film shows as well as most serials is the lack of any coherent time/space values - it feels like it's all taking place over, I dunno, a couple of days at most (we never see anyone sleep), with just a couple of costume changes for the females and none for most of the male actors, with people flying all over space from planet to planet in seemingly a few seconds or minutes time, and Zarkov inventing a new gadget in every episode in the matter of 5 minutes - new rays, new weapons, etc. But it's a hell of a lot of fun if you can buy into the whole serial idea, probably still among my 5 favorite Hollywood examples from the era.
If you watched the '36 serial you are shorting yourself some points. Serials are usually counted similar to mini-series or TV where the episodes are under 40 minutes. That one runs 4 hours plus so it's worth 4 points.
Yeah I love these, really like most all serials though I don't watch them that often. Probably will watch an unseen one next before doing another Flash. Do you have any particular favorites outside of the SF genre (I've seen most of those, at least the ones that are available)? Particularly the spy stuff, haven't seen much in that area.
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Point taken though; the 240p copy that I watched was very blocky/choppy and probably wasn't the best way to experience the movie. But yeah, it is an experience for sure, no matter what reservations I might have about it.
