King of the Impossible
Took advantage of the old HMV "3 DVDs for 30 Euro" offer on Saturday to pick up a few choice items that had been missing from my collection till now.
Item 1 was John Carpenter's Escape From New York: Special Edition [Ed: Are there any normal editions any more?], which now nestles snugly beside several other (pre-1990) J.C. titles on my shelves.
Item 2 was The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly…which though not ranked as highly in my affections as Leone's (utterly sublime) Once Upon a Time in the West, still falls into the category of "DVDs I feel I should own".
Item 3…well…can best be described as a guilty (a very guilty) pleasure: The 'Silver Anniversary Edition' of Mike Hodges' delirious, demented, and indescribable Flash Gordon (1980).
I must admit that I hadn't seen Flash for many years, but my abiding impression (like most people I'd imagine) was of a hilariously OTT camp-fest, dominated by the jockish ("Gee Whizz!") gormlessness of Sam J. Jones (Flash), and the unstoppable, theatrical gurning of Brrriiaaan Blessed (Prince Vultan).
Watching it again, through more adult eyes, not only confirmed those lingering impressions, but demonstrated that my fragmented memories were merely the tip of an extravagantly kitsch iceberg. From Brian May's "Mongo Wedding March" (which, interestingly enough, sound's identical to Mendelssohn's '[Earth] Wedding March') to the delightful cheesiness of much of the dialogue ("This Ming's a psycho!"), Flash walks a fine, and thoroughly lunatic, line between genius and disaster…
The outlandish look of the film makes some kind of sense when one realises that the Production, Set, and Costume Designs are all the products of the late Danilo Donati, a frequent collaborator of Fellini's. Anyone who's seen Donati's creations for Il Casanova di Federico Fellini, for example, will immediately see Flash as something of a kindred spirit, aesthetically speaking. The design, a winning combination of Donati's decadent theatrics and a retro-futurism borrowed directly from the Buster Crabbe Flash serials, signals pretty emphatically that here we're in the realm of fantasy with a capital 'F'.
My own, admittedly tongue in cheek, reading of Flash leads me to think that it may be even more fantastical than it initially appears (and, let's face it, that's pretty damn fantastical). There a few intriguing clues peppered throughout the film suggesting that the entire Mongo episode may be little more than Flash's own jockish fantasy/dream (he suggests as much himself at one stage). The landing on Mongo, with an unconscious Dale, Zarkov, and Flash awaking, Dorothy-like, to a world of vibrant colours (in contrast to the drab earth they leave behind) simply screams of The Wizard of Oz, and hints that we may not be in Kansas any more…
In Flash's 'dream world' the ladies (both good and evil) instantly fall for our hero's square-jawed charms, while Ming is ultimately defeated by (and I'm not making this up) Flash teaching the beleaguered subjects of Mongo's moons the value of teamwork! In addition, like all good God-Fearing boys, Flash's imagined adversaries are (without exception) sexually 'depraved', S&M-lovin', uber-decadent types who seem to enjoy cruelty and villainy purely for its own sake.
Does this interpretation make any sense? Probably not, but then we are dealing with possibly the most bonkers comic-book adaptation of all time…
Go Flash Go! I need a lie down…
February 6, 2006
17 responses to King of the Impossible
well be the hokey,
I spent the weekend having a staring contest with Greek tv (miraculously, I won!) and my efforts were rewarded with the unadvertised appearance on Saturday of one Flash Gordon. It was nice to see Max von Sydow in the days before he moved to Roscommon and dedicated his life to the legalisation of cannabis. Fair play to him.
I particularly liked the scene where Flash and James Bond slug it out with whips on a revolving platform embedded with ferocious foam spikes all the while teetering on the edge of a (no doubt vast) psychedelic void. Upon sparing Bond’s worthless life (a trend many’s a villain has since foolishly followed) Blessed, as I recall, is asked by a neighbour; “what is this?”. “Humanity” is his reply.
Humanity indeed.
Was there some kind of a fella who looked like a big mad bird? Maybe that was buck rodgers.
Londoner,
Brian Blessed and ALL his gang were indeed like big mad birds – should you ever visit the planet Mongo, I would suggest not parking your car under a tree.
By the way, this had somehow limbo’d ‘neath my radar:
Read in full here – Irish Examiner
We’re in trouble deep folks.
I found Flash a superdisturbing movie as a kid – it’s full of primordially scary stuff – Brian Blessed as ye’ve mentioned lads – but also that freaky log with all the holes in it; Sile na Gig is only trottin’ after it.
With the costuming and headache inducing sets, Flash was the true heir to Barbarella, and Ming to Duran “I’ll get you with my giant death ray” Duran.
King of the Impossible indeed.
Barbarella is, of course, an obvious comparison and a notable entry in the “Kitsch Space Opera” sub-genre.
The log you mention (with the holes in it) contained a super-poisonous toad-like critter used to test young lads as an initiation rite (Ooer).
Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton) used it to put Flash to the test, which led to a scene in which Flash ‘cleverly’ pretends to have been stung. Just as Barin is about to put him out of his misery, Flash pops up, grabs Barin’s sword and then proclaims triumphantly “Tricked you, Barin!”
He was delighted with himself, of course, as he’d obviously (being a total meathead) never tricked anyone before in his life.
Btw, Foolhardy, the exchange involving Brian Blessed you mention went as follows –
Go Flash Go!
You save every one of us!
Surely, the log test has within the seeds of Arborian society’s destruction. While the manhood of the youths may well be proved, they are almost certain to have been put off ever sticking any of their appendages into…
I think I’ll leave it there actually.
Flash, ah ah!
sexually ‘depraved’, S&M-lovin’, uber-decadent types who seem to enjoy cruelty and villainy purely for its own sake.
Glenroe it ain’t, and in that let us rejoice for this wonderful ’30s pastiche.
I see over at the guardian that real life alien stuff is afoot – or at least evidence that it was…
Some dude found a jar in his attic with a “grey” inside!
I haven’t seen it in years but this has thrown up a funny memory mix up.
There was indeed a ‘bird man’ in the Buck Rogers series- the mysterious Hawk, who as far as i can remember bore no resemblence to any other BR character (people or robots) so may well have wandered in from the set of a whole other show. By the way, has anyone seen the original full length Buck Rogers movie?
Copernicus,
I couldn’t possibly leave that uncommented on!
Just dashed off a quick post.
It is one thing to sit through a movie that you don’t like for the sake of someone who does like that movie. It is quite another thing indeed to to rip a movie to shreds online simply because you don’t like it.
If you don’t like it, fine. That’s your choice, but that doesn’t make it a bad movie.
Er…is the last comment ‘spam’ or what’s the story? No link, so it’s not an obvious one. Hard to see what relevance it has to the post though (I like Flash!) so some sort of automated response it may well be.
It’s genius. We are being denied the right to be tongue in cheek and affectionate at the same time.
I think we should have a fight with this commenter and get all IMDB message boards on her ass. I’ll start.
Yes. That is, indeed, one thing.
Yes. That is, indeeed, quite another thing. Not remotely a related thing, however. Thus, a tuttable non sequitur. Tut.
It is also the case that if we remove the lazily employed, impliedly loaded term “simply”, the above sentence reads -
But that’s, surely, why you’d be thus inclined. And what’s the “online” thing about. “Okay, do it if you must, bastardface, just not online. Just don’t go there, okay?”
This is entirely true. But it merely brings us back to the original point. Nobody who commented mentioned a dislike of the movie. I’ve not been able to enjoy films I recognised as having a degree of merit. I rather suspect though that the commenter doesn’t realise that so nuanced an attitude is a possibility and is in fact suggesting that pointing out that an Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes (ie that a movie is a steaming pile of shite) is really rude and might make someone who liked it and didn’t realise it was total cack feel bad about themselves.
That’s fascism, lady. We demand the freedom to muse. No pasaran!
Balls, the formatting isn’t happening there. I’ve misremembered the tagging and used message board style.
I done fixed it for you.
It’s all rather odd – particularly as I have a lot of affection for the film and think that comes through fairly clearly in the post (having read it again). How anyone could read the above as an example of “rip[ping] a movie to shreds online” is beyond me, thus leading me to believe we are hearing an automated voice.
Then again, the other trappings of spam are absent.
Curiouser and curiouser…
Dear Fústar,
Thought you might be interested in this. My old student film, ‘The Scarlet Avenger’, is currently playing on YouTube.com in 3 separate chapters. It’s a tribute to all the 1940s action/adventure serials, mainly ‘Spy Smasher’, ‘King of the Royal Mounted’ and ‘Manhunt In The African Jungle’. There’s a little bit of the old ‘Flash Gordon’ thrown in there too.
Chapter 1 of 3 can be found at :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WV5FelaScrc
Chapter 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoxqr49QNP8
Chapter 3:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DKJGRzQjC5c
A British film critic reviews the picture at:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kNrHS4cd7Zw&watch_response
Hope you enjoy it! Thanks.
Sincerely,
Scott C. Clements
Toronto, Canada
P.S. Please rate and comment on the film if you can and, if you like it, share it with your friends.