Film Highlights

The Flash Gordon films stand as tributes, and testament, to the timelessness of an enduring icon. Flash Gordon was featured in three serial films starring Buster Crabbe: Flash Gordon (1936), Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938), and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940). The 1936 Flash Gordon serial was also condensed into a feature-length film titled Flash Gordon.

The classic sci-fi adventure film Flash Gordon (1980) stars former Playgirl-centerfold Sam J. Jones in the title role. Its plot is based loosely on the first few years of the comic strip (and in particular the famous Alex Raymond Sunday page, "Flight of the Hawkmen", revising Flash's backstory by making him the quarterback of the New York Jets instead of a polo player. Raymond's drawings feature heavily in the opening credits, as does the signature theme-song "Flash!" by rock band Queen, who composed and performed the entire musical score.

Riding the coat-tails of Star Wars, Superman, and Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Flash Gordon was not a critical success on release, but the film has been buoyed by its later cult-status, and is particularly lauded for the calibre of both its score and supporting cast, which featured many notable actors. Melody Anderson co-starred with Jones as Dale Arden, alongside Chaim Topol as Dr. Hans Zarkov, Max von Sydow as Ming, Timothy Dalton as Prince Barin, Brian Blessed as Prince Vultan, Peter Wyngarde as Klytus and Ornella Muti as Princess Aura. Produced by Dino De Laurentiis, with extraordinarily ornate production designs and costumes by Danilo Donati, the bright colors and retro effects were inspired directly by the comic strip and 1930s serials.

The film's mixture of action-adventure, science fiction, comedy and the earnest seriousness of its central characters have contributed heavily to its longevity and cult status. A highly quotable script - by the 1960s Batman scriptwriter Lorenzo Semple, Jr. and Michael Allin - full of tongue-in-cheek gentle humor, parts of which were sampled by Queen for the title track, have also contributed to the collective affection with which it is remembered. In particular, Brian Blessed's performance as the Hawkman Prince Vultan lodged the veteran stage and screen actor into the collective consciousness for the utterance of a single line - "GORDON'S ALIVE?!" - which, nearly 30 years later, remains the most repeated, reused, and recycled quotation from both the film and Blessed's career.

Steve Holland starred in a 1954-55 live-action TV series which ran for 39 episodes. The first 26 episodes had the distinction of being filmed in West Berlin, Germany less than a decade after the end of World War II. This is notable, given that some episodes show the real-life destruction still evident in Germany several years after the war. The final 13 episodes were filmed in Marseille, France. In this series, Flash, Dale (Irene Champlin), and Dr. Zarkov (Joseph Nash) worked for the Galactic Bureau of Investigation in the year 3203. The actual timeline was established in one episode, "Deadline at Noon", in which Flash, Dale, and Dr. Zarkov went back in time to Berlin in the year 1953. The GBI agents traveled in the Skyflash and Skyflash II spaceships. The series was syndicated, appearing on stations affiliated with the long-defunct DuMont Network, and many other independent stations in the United States. Stylistic similarities with the Buster Crabbe films are obvious, and may have been desired by the producers. It was recut into a movie in 1957.