WEBVTT - Weirdhouse Cinema: Flash Gordon (1980) 0:00:03.040 --> 0:00:08.760 Welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:13.440 --> 0:00:16.920 Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb and. 0:00:17.000 --> 0:00:20.720 This is Joe McCormick. In. Today's film on Weird House 0:00:20.720 --> 0:00:26.720 Cinema is the cheeky nineteen eighty science fiction adventure Flash Gordon, 0:00:27.200 --> 0:00:31.200 allegedly starring Sam J. Jones and Max Foncito, but I 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:36.520 would say more like starring Brian Blessed and Queen And boy, 0:00:36.920 --> 0:00:39.080 what a film this is, you know. I was just 0:00:39.120 --> 0:00:42.879 thinking about how we cover all kinds of movies on 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:46.680 Weird House Cinema. We do good movies, conventionally, bad movies, 0:00:46.760 --> 0:00:50.839 well known movies, obscure gems, big and small, loud and quiet. 0:00:50.880 --> 0:00:53.479 But lately I think we've kind of been on a streak. 0:00:53.600 --> 0:00:58.400 We have featured a lot of very big, very loud 0:00:58.640 --> 0:01:03.520 type movies extravags, if you will, Specifically movies like this 0:01:03.560 --> 0:01:06.000 from the early nineteen eighties that are kind of a 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:09.120 weirdness overload. So we did The Apple from the year 0:01:09.200 --> 0:01:12.640 nineteen eighty, we did Zoo Warriors from the Magic Mountain 0:01:12.680 --> 0:01:15.760 from nineteen eighty three, and now we're back with another 0:01:15.840 --> 0:01:18.400 movie of this type yet again from the year nineteen 0:01:18.480 --> 0:01:21.880 eighty and its Flash Gordon. In the tradition of the 0:01:21.920 --> 0:01:24.399 other two I just mentioned, this movie is a lot. 0:01:24.440 --> 0:01:30.040 It is almost overwhelming in its thrilling and hilarious flamboyance. 0:01:31.080 --> 0:01:33.000 Yeah, there's so much here. This is a film I've 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:36.080 seen many times over the years, and yet going into 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:38.160 it again, you know, watching it maybe for the first 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:43.759 time in oh maybe ten years, there's so much I'd forgotten. 0:01:43.800 --> 0:01:46.560 So there were the big things that I was eager 0:01:46.600 --> 0:01:50.320 to re experience, and then equally overwhelming things that had 0:01:50.360 --> 0:01:53.520 slipped my mind, and things that were maybe a little 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:56.320 more subtle that are also just as weird and wonderful. 0:01:56.400 --> 0:01:58.400 So it's quite an experience. 0:01:58.680 --> 0:02:00.400 You know. There are a lot of things I want 0:02:00.440 --> 0:02:02.560 to talk about with this movie, but one thing that 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:07.080 really struck me about it is that, and of course 0:02:07.120 --> 0:02:08.960 it's not the only movie of this sort, but it 0:02:09.000 --> 0:02:11.320 felt really strong here is that this is a movie 0:02:11.360 --> 0:02:16.639 made with a palpable sense of nostalgia. It feels interesting 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:19.440 because this now is a movie that's like forty three, 0:02:19.560 --> 0:02:23.400 forty four years old. Probably a lot of current adults 0:02:23.480 --> 0:02:27.440 have nostalgia foreseeing the nineteen eighty Flash Gordon movie as 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:30.760 a kid. But it's also a project where you can 0:02:30.919 --> 0:02:35.919 feel how the filmmakers were trying to with some ironic distance, 0:02:37.200 --> 0:02:40.880 just like shamelessly indulge in nostalgia for a type of 0:02:40.919 --> 0:02:45.880 storytelling they themselves had loved as children, maybe forty years 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:46.919 or so before that. 0:02:47.880 --> 0:02:50.919 Yeah, yeah, getting into Flash Gordon's origins as a Depression 0:02:50.960 --> 0:02:55.120 era comic book. It's passed as a part of these 0:02:55.200 --> 0:02:58.480 various action serials and so forth. It was a very 0:02:58.520 --> 0:03:04.560 influential a series, a very influential fiction on a number 0:03:04.720 --> 0:03:09.639 of future filmmakers, future writers, future comic book authors and illustrators, etc. 0:03:11.120 --> 0:03:14.640 Now, this movie is not overtly a comedy. I guess 0:03:14.680 --> 0:03:17.680 you would say that the genre is science fiction adventure. 0:03:18.200 --> 0:03:22.200 But it is a deeply funny movie. And you could 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:24.240 look at movies like that that are, you know, not 0:03:24.360 --> 0:03:27.360 overtly comedies but are very funny, as the kind that 0:03:27.400 --> 0:03:29.560 are intentionally funny and the kind that are not so 0:03:29.639 --> 0:03:32.520 intentionally funny, maybe the latter category, you know, ed wood 0:03:32.520 --> 0:03:37.000 films and such. This movie, though, is very intentionally funny, 0:03:37.160 --> 0:03:42.200 even though comedy is not its overt category. One way 0:03:42.240 --> 0:03:46.200 I would describe this is a defining sensation in watching 0:03:46.240 --> 0:03:51.000 Flash Gordon is the thin clacking sound of plastic pieces 0:03:51.040 --> 0:03:54.120 of costume armor hitting one another in the battle scenes. 0:03:54.480 --> 0:03:57.360 Like it feels like a significant choice that there was 0:03:57.440 --> 0:04:01.200 not an attempt to edit out that plastic clacking sound 0:04:01.480 --> 0:04:04.320 or to like folly in a weightier sound. It's just 0:04:04.440 --> 0:04:06.840 part of the magic of Flash Gordon. You are supposed 0:04:06.880 --> 0:04:09.040 to hear the plastic on plastic grind. 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:12.080 Yeah, that's a good point about the plastic armor. Gosh, 0:04:12.120 --> 0:04:16.000 there's so much plastic armor. Yeah. It is an extravagant 0:04:16.320 --> 0:04:21.479 campy updating again of this old comic book, this old 0:04:21.560 --> 0:04:25.440 series into a kind of late seventies cinematic vision comes 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:28.279 out in nineteen eighty, but you know very much the 0:04:28.360 --> 0:04:32.840 late nineteen seventies trajectory getting this film made, and it is, 0:04:32.880 --> 0:04:35.560 without a doubt, yet another sci fi film of this 0:04:35.680 --> 0:04:39.159 era that was chasing the hit that was Star Wars, 0:04:40.440 --> 0:04:43.400 which is ironic, of course, because George Lucas was heavily 0:04:43.440 --> 0:04:46.520 inspired by the old Flash Gordon comic books and actually 0:04:46.760 --> 0:04:50.000 wanted to make a film adaptation at one point, but 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.240 the rights were too expensive, so he began an alternate 0:04:53.320 --> 0:04:56.040 journey that would result in Star Wars and the Star 0:04:56.120 --> 0:05:00.599 Wars franchise that would spill out of it. In the 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:04.479 wake of the success of Star Wars, however, famed Italian 0:05:04.520 --> 0:05:07.400 producer Dino de Laurentez, who've talked about on the show before, 0:05:08.160 --> 0:05:10.800 picked up the film rights and set out to produce 0:05:10.839 --> 0:05:11.320 the picture. 0:05:12.000 --> 0:05:14.640 That is funny and Yeah, I was wondering about exactly 0:05:14.680 --> 0:05:16.680 that kind of thing, because for a long time I've 0:05:16.760 --> 0:05:20.760 understood that part of the animating spirit behind the creation 0:05:20.880 --> 0:05:25.120 of Star Wars was an excitement for this type of 0:05:25.160 --> 0:05:28.520 storytelling that George Lucas remembered from when he was a kid. Yeah, 0:05:28.560 --> 0:05:31.400 like the adventure serials and stuff, and he wanted to 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:34.000 recreate that feeling with his own movie. I don't think 0:05:34.040 --> 0:05:37.040 I realized that he directly wanted to do an update 0:05:37.080 --> 0:05:40.880 of the Flash Gordon comics, but that would make a 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:43.400 lot of sense. Ultimately we got Star Wars, which is 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:46.960 a more new, original kind of thing, which is wonderful 0:05:46.960 --> 0:05:48.920 in its own right. And then, yeah, like, so you're 0:05:48.920 --> 0:05:52.320 saying that the Star Wars that George Lucas had to 0:05:52.320 --> 0:05:54.600 make because he couldn't make he couldn't get the rights 0:05:54.600 --> 0:05:57.920 to Flash Gordon ultimately inspired them to make a new 0:05:57.960 --> 0:05:59.040 Flash Gordon movie. 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:03.320 Yeah. Yeah, essentially, Star Wars is an evolution of the 0:06:03.600 --> 0:06:06.320 basic concept. So in a way, what do you know 0:06:06.400 --> 0:06:08.640 Delarentis then sets up to do is kind of it 0:06:08.680 --> 0:06:11.080 almost feels kind of backwards by comparison, Let's go back 0:06:11.080 --> 0:06:14.280 to the thing that inspired the amazing new thing and 0:06:14.640 --> 0:06:17.560 see what we can create. And you know, to their credit, 0:06:18.279 --> 0:06:21.800 it doesn't feel as much in its substance like a 0:06:21.839 --> 0:06:24.719 Star Wars ripoff. It doesn't feel like you're chasing Star 0:06:24.800 --> 0:06:28.160 Wars so much, certainly not as much as other pictures 0:06:28.160 --> 0:06:31.640 we've talked about. But yeah, with this film have come 0:06:31.680 --> 0:06:34.640 into being without Star Wars being the success that it was, 0:06:35.680 --> 0:06:38.400 it can make a strong argument that it would not. Now, 0:06:38.720 --> 0:06:41.600 of course, Dino Delarento's was not going to direct this. 0:06:42.520 --> 0:06:46.040 It's predominantly it's always been a producer, puts the pieces 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:49.320 together right. At one point he had none other than 0:06:49.400 --> 0:06:53.280 Nicholas Rogue attached, who of course directed The Man Who 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:57.400 Fell to Earth, which we previously discussed on the podcast. 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:00.800 I love Flash Gordon the way that it is, but 0:07:00.960 --> 0:07:03.400 I wish we could have seen the Nicholas Rogue version. 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.880 I'm imagining it would be a lot sadder and more 0:07:06.880 --> 0:07:10.520 psychologically complex and would have like fifty times more full 0:07:10.520 --> 0:07:11.920 frontal nudity. 0:07:11.880 --> 0:07:16.480 Yeah, yeah, there's there's actually a whole special feature about 0:07:16.520 --> 0:07:19.400 this project that never came to be on the Arrow 0:07:19.440 --> 0:07:22.880 Blu ray of Flash Gordon, which I watched for this episode, 0:07:23.160 --> 0:07:26.960 rendered from videodrome. Of course, Rogue apparently wanted to make 0:07:27.000 --> 0:07:29.520 a big Hollywood picture, and a lot of work went 0:07:29.560 --> 0:07:33.360 into writing and storyboarding his vision for Flash and they 0:07:33.400 --> 0:07:37.000 point out that Rogue was notoriously protective of his vision 0:07:37.040 --> 0:07:41.120 for a picture. In the end, however, Dino didn't think 0:07:41.280 --> 0:07:44.600 that his vision was fun or funny enough. It was 0:07:44.640 --> 0:07:49.440 apparently like pretty serious and you know, just like you'd imagine, 0:07:49.520 --> 0:07:52.080 it wasn't as campy as what we end up getting. 0:07:52.480 --> 0:07:55.960 And so he know, de Learnce is get ends up 0:07:55.960 --> 0:07:59.360 going in a different direction, someone perhaps more suited in 0:07:59.400 --> 0:08:02.680 his view, you for the vision that he sees for 0:08:02.760 --> 0:08:05.960 Flash Gordon. And also, according to some of the commentators 0:08:05.960 --> 0:08:08.320 that they talked to in this feature atte someone who's 0:08:08.360 --> 0:08:10.400 maybe a little a little more willing to play the 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:14.080 game with a producer like Dino. MM. So yeah, it's 0:08:14.080 --> 0:08:16.760 always fun to imagine, you know, pictures that could have been, 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:21.560 especially with some of these big, big films like this, 0:08:21.760 --> 0:08:25.000 But you know, it's hard to It's hard to imagine 0:08:25.720 --> 0:08:28.240 another version of Flash Gordon being as fun as this 0:08:28.320 --> 0:08:28.640 one is. 0:08:29.200 --> 0:08:31.160 I think that would fully depend on whether they got 0:08:31.200 --> 0:08:34.520 Brian Blessed or not. And it sounds like the rogue 0:08:34.600 --> 0:08:37.240 version of this film Brian Blessed's presence would not make 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:37.959 as much sense. 0:08:38.280 --> 0:08:41.440 Yeah, he is the atlas holding up this picture. I 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:43.719 don't have an elevator pitch for Flash here, Joe, I 0:08:43.720 --> 0:08:44.720 don't know if you if you do it, I mean, 0:08:44.720 --> 0:08:46.719 it's it's Flash Gordon. What can I tell you? 0:08:47.000 --> 0:08:48.160 Here's the elevator pitch? 0:08:49.679 --> 0:08:51.240 You only have fourteen? 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:58.000 Yeah, that pretty much sums it up, all right. Let's 0:08:58.040 --> 0:09:01.360 listen to the original trailer audio here because and if 0:09:01.400 --> 0:09:03.600 you haven't seen the film, and there's a lot to see, 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:13.360 but still, the sonic experience of the trailer is pretty convincing. Clites, 0:09:13.559 --> 0:09:17.640 I'm bored. What playing can you offer me today? 0:09:18.240 --> 0:09:21.000 An obscure body in the Escase system of your majesty. 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:25.200 The inhabitants refer to it as the planet Earth. 0:09:26.000 --> 0:09:30.480 I like to play with things while before annihilation. 0:09:31.080 --> 0:09:35.959 Pathetic Earthlings who can save you now. 0:09:42.760 --> 0:09:45.640 Dange object imaged in the Imperial Vortex. 0:09:53.840 --> 0:09:57.120 Move the Earth Woman. Prepare her for our pleasure. 0:10:00.679 --> 0:10:26.839 Don't kid yet, father, I want him for schools. Can't 0:10:26.880 --> 0:10:31.240 know it was as. 0:10:33.000 --> 0:11:23.560 So far as its. 0:10:39.920 --> 0:11:02.959 Stream all right. Well, if you want to go out 0:11:02.960 --> 0:11:05.440 and watch nineteen eighties Flash and Gordon, there are multiple 0:11:05.480 --> 0:11:08.520 places to see the film these days. Wasn't always the case. 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:10.720 I remember a period of time when I wanted to 0:11:10.720 --> 0:11:12.920 pick the movie up and I don't think it was 0:11:12.960 --> 0:11:15.679 available on disc gett. But again, I watched it on 0:11:15.760 --> 0:11:19.280 the excellent Arrow Blu ray. That Blu ray also includes 0:11:19.400 --> 0:11:23.840 the full length documentary Life After Flash amid a bunch 0:11:23.880 --> 0:11:25.080 of other extras. 0:11:25.400 --> 0:11:27.400 I just streamed it on one of the major services 0:11:27.440 --> 0:11:29.760 and the quality was good. So yeah, it's out there, 0:11:30.080 --> 0:11:30.400 all right. 0:11:30.480 --> 0:11:32.440 Let's talk about the people involved here, Okay. So the 0:11:32.440 --> 0:11:35.240 director is not Nicholas Road. The director that Dino Dealer 0:11:35.280 --> 0:11:38.679 Netto has ended up going with is Mike Hodges, who 0:11:38.679 --> 0:11:42.920 lived nineteen thirty two through twenty twenty two. English director 0:11:42.960 --> 0:11:45.800 and writer whose first big film hit was nineteen seventy 0:11:45.800 --> 0:11:49.839 one's Get Carter starring Michael Kine, followed by seventy two's Pulp, 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:54.160 seventy four as the Terminal Man, and seventy eight's Damien Omen. 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:57.680 Iwo ah, that's the OMEN movie with the all boys 0:11:57.720 --> 0:11:58.360 Prep school. 0:11:58.880 --> 0:12:01.360 Okay, have you seen that one? I haven't seen that. 0:12:01.480 --> 0:12:04.560 I know you went through a tear with your Omen 0:12:04.600 --> 0:12:05.400 movies a while back. 0:12:05.520 --> 0:12:07.960 Yeah, a couple of years ago, or either last year 0:12:08.040 --> 0:12:10.079 or the year. Maybe it's just last year. Rachel and 0:12:10.120 --> 0:12:13.199 I watched all of the Omen movies. We enjoyed the 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:15.120 second one. I don't know if i'd say it was good, 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:15.920 but we enjoyed. 0:12:17.280 --> 0:12:20.800 I just Subsequent credits after Flash included eighty five Morons 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:24.520 from Outer Space, eighty nine's Black Rainbow, and two thousand 0:12:24.520 --> 0:12:27.600 and threes I'll Sleep when I'm Dead. Also, he did 0:12:27.640 --> 0:12:31.120 some TV, including a nineteen eighty six action movie called 0:12:31.160 --> 0:12:35.040 Florida Straits with Raal Julia in the lead role. And 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:37.800 he also did two music videos for Queen Flash, which 0:12:37.840 --> 0:12:40.440 is of course, is one of them. The songs from 0:12:40.440 --> 0:12:43.360 this film, as well as body language. 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:47.920 Weird coincidental or I would assume coincidental. Double Panos Cosmados 0:12:47.960 --> 0:12:51.680 overlap This guy is a movie called Black Rainbow, and 0:12:51.840 --> 0:12:54.680 in Flash there's a planet called Arborea, which is the 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:57.920 name of the center in Beyond the Black Rainbow by 0:12:57.960 --> 0:12:59.120 Penos Cazmonos. 0:12:59.360 --> 0:13:04.000 Yeah, connections are there. One has to believe they have meaning. Now, 0:13:04.040 --> 0:13:07.360 apparently Hodges had the right energy for this project, which, 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:09.520 according to some of the bits I was watching on 0:13:09.559 --> 0:13:12.160 the Blu ray, involves a lot of sort of going 0:13:12.200 --> 0:13:14.720 with the flow on such a large and at times 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:19.680 it sounds like maybe slightly chaotic project, you know, because 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:22.360 you know, a lot of moving pieces, and I think 0:13:22.400 --> 0:13:25.760 there were definitely some places where they say that you know, 0:13:25.960 --> 0:13:27.320 they had to kind of make things up on the 0:13:27.360 --> 0:13:29.920 fly to figure out how to piece everything together. 0:13:30.640 --> 0:13:34.439 I think with one advantage of doing a big extravaganza 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:38.320 movie like this is that the success of the film 0:13:38.440 --> 0:13:42.120 doesn't hang so much on the on the story being 0:13:42.160 --> 0:13:46.400 executed in a coherent way, so like you can have 0:13:46.600 --> 0:13:48.360 you can have a lot of things kind of like 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:51.319 get pieces get moved around and things get messed with, 0:13:51.440 --> 0:13:53.840 and still over all the experience will kind of work. 0:13:54.320 --> 0:13:57.880 Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't have to be perfect with Flashboard, 0:13:58.760 --> 0:14:01.120 which is not to discount of the talent that went 0:14:01.160 --> 0:14:03.719 into this film, Like so much about the just the 0:14:04.040 --> 0:14:06.280 visual flare of the film, and we're not even gonna 0:14:06.280 --> 0:14:07.960 be able to get into all the names involved there. 0:14:08.000 --> 0:14:10.920 But yeah, so many pieces do come together perfectly. It's 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:13.760 just that you can definitely tell their moments where things 0:14:13.800 --> 0:14:18.320 feel like certain scenes have been rushed in terms of 0:14:18.360 --> 0:14:21.760 the overall vision for the picture and the flow of 0:14:21.760 --> 0:14:25.600 the plot. Uh huh, all right. The screenplay credit goes 0:14:25.640 --> 0:14:30.320 to Lorenzo simple Junior I live nineteen twenty three through 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:33.440 twenty fourteen, American writer whose credits include one hundred and 0:14:33.440 --> 0:14:36.320 twenty episodes of the original Batman series, which I think 0:14:36.400 --> 0:14:40.040 is telling, but also films like nineteen seventy three's Papillon, 0:14:40.520 --> 0:14:43.680 seventy four's The Parallax View, seventy fives, Three Days of 0:14:43.680 --> 0:14:47.800 the Condor, the nineteen seventy six King Cang movie, nineteen 0:14:47.840 --> 0:14:50.760 eighty three is Never Say Never Again, and nineteen eighty 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:55.160 four Shena. The other writer that's credited is Michael Allen, 0:14:55.720 --> 0:14:59.600 whose other credits include Enter the Dragon and Also I 0:14:59.600 --> 0:15:02.120 Have Do and other titles, but Flash being the biggest 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:05.520 by far, and it's where we also should point out 0:15:05.560 --> 0:15:08.680 that the character Flash Gordon was created by Alex Raymond, 0:15:08.680 --> 0:15:11.520 who lived nineteen oh nine through nineteen fifty six, an 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:15.360 American cartoonist an illustrator who created Flash four King Features 0:15:15.360 --> 0:15:19.000 Syndicate back in nineteen thirty four. And I believe it 0:15:19.040 --> 0:15:22.800 was essentially an attempt to like, like, Okay, the competitor 0:15:22.840 --> 0:15:25.720 has Buck Rogers, we need a Buck Rogers too. Let's 0:15:25.720 --> 0:15:28.240 make him. Okay, what are we gonna call him? Well, 0:15:28.240 --> 0:15:30.920 we can't call him Buck. How about Flash? We can't 0:15:30.920 --> 0:15:33.800 call him Rogers? How about Gordon? There you go, make 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:45.160 it work. And it grew from that. All right. Now, 0:15:45.200 --> 0:15:47.480 getting into the cast here, I'm gonna try and divide 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:50.040 it up among like our core factions. You know, it's 0:15:50.040 --> 0:15:51.800 sort of like Game of Thrones here we have different 0:15:51.880 --> 0:15:55.120 factions involved. Yeah, we're gonna start with the Earth Links, 0:15:55.480 --> 0:15:58.240 all right. First up, we have Sam J. Jones as 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:03.360 Flash Gordon born nineteen fifty four, former US marine model 0:16:03.400 --> 0:16:06.320 and American football player, who was cast in this film 0:16:06.400 --> 0:16:09.880 over various hot commodities in Hollywood due to his debut 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:15.320 in the nineteen seventy nine Blake Edwards ten. His professional 0:16:15.360 --> 0:16:17.920 life after Flash, which again is the subject part of 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:20.880 the subject of his twenty seventeen documentary, consisted of a 0:16:20.880 --> 0:16:24.280 lot of TV work, as well as films like eighty 0:16:24.320 --> 0:16:28.120 five's Jungle Heat, ninety two's Maximum Force, and a lot 0:16:28.160 --> 0:16:32.400 of just you know, general action television action films, not 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:35.520 necessarily like the cream of the crop, you know, But 0:16:35.880 --> 0:16:38.960 he worked a lot more recently. He was in both 0:16:39.000 --> 0:16:42.040 Ted and Ted two, and he remains active to this day. 0:16:42.560 --> 0:16:44.800 It's easy to see why he was cast when you 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:48.160 think about this movie as a comic book adaptation, because 0:16:48.160 --> 0:16:52.560 he has such a comic book illustration look about him, 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.240 more so than most biological humans. 0:16:56.160 --> 0:16:59.160 Yeah, there's no denying has a great look. Also no 0:16:59.280 --> 0:17:03.240 denying that he's rather green. But at the same time, 0:17:03.880 --> 0:17:09.080 it's it's almost unfair to compare his acting to other 0:17:09.160 --> 0:17:12.240 actors in the film, because you know, he and also 0:17:12.280 --> 0:17:14.080 is co star Melody Anderson, who will talk about in 0:17:14.080 --> 0:17:16.000 a minute. I mean, they're in there with just an 0:17:16.040 --> 0:17:20.360 international cast that features not only like very tenured actors, 0:17:20.560 --> 0:17:24.639 but also generational talents, and so it's you know, how 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:27.160 can you compare one to the other. And then also, 0:17:27.200 --> 0:17:30.480 and I think this is more important, he gets there's 0:17:30.520 --> 0:17:32.520 a fair amount of fun that's made at the expense 0:17:32.600 --> 0:17:35.160 of this character and to a certain degree of this performance. 0:17:35.200 --> 0:17:37.919 But I think it's pretty perfect, right, I mean, what 0:17:38.119 --> 0:17:41.080 more do you want from the role of Flash Gordon here? 0:17:41.400 --> 0:17:43.919 Oh yeah, come on, let's be nice to Sam J. Jones. 0:17:43.960 --> 0:17:48.120 He does Flash great. You know what, what what would 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:49.680 you change? What kind of notes are you going to 0:17:49.720 --> 0:17:50.040 give him? 0:17:50.480 --> 0:17:53.159 Yeah? I mean if we were talking about Nicholas Rogues 0:17:53.200 --> 0:17:55.919 Flash Gordon. Yeah, okay, maybe that's that's a different animal 0:17:55.960 --> 0:17:59.760 we're envisioning. But this vision, this Flash Gordon, I think 0:17:59.800 --> 0:18:02.119 there's nobody else you put in there. I've read that 0:18:02.160 --> 0:18:04.960 people like Arnold and even Kurt Russell who would have 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:07.760 been interesting in this role, you know, I've heard that 0:18:07.760 --> 0:18:10.160 they were up for it, but it just I can't 0:18:10.160 --> 0:18:12.000 imagine it wouldn't be the same, wouldn't be the same. 0:18:12.359 --> 0:18:14.400 I'd go as far as to say that Arnold, even 0:18:14.440 --> 0:18:16.480 at the time, would have been wrong for this role. 0:18:17.480 --> 0:18:19.960 Yeah, I'm an Arnold defender. You know, a lot of 0:18:19.960 --> 0:18:22.400 people make fun of Arnold Schwarzenegger's acting, but I think 0:18:22.400 --> 0:18:25.120 he's actually a better actor in a lot of ways 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:28.480 than people give him credit for. But I don't know 0:18:28.480 --> 0:18:30.160 if he's who I want is Flash? 0:18:30.359 --> 0:18:33.199 Yeah, And I'm definitely not in nineteen eight now, I 0:18:33.200 --> 0:18:37.040 mentioned Melody Anderson. This is the actress playing Dale Arden. 0:18:37.200 --> 0:18:41.000 This is the other key Earthling. This is his I 0:18:41.000 --> 0:18:43.600 guess it's not his girlfriend at the beginning, but becomes 0:18:43.720 --> 0:18:45.760 essentially the Flash Gordon love interest. 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:46.280 Yes. 0:18:48.080 --> 0:18:48.159 So. 0:18:48.400 --> 0:18:51.560 Anderson was born in nineteen fifty five Canadian actress who 0:18:51.560 --> 0:18:54.080 started off on TV with small parts and shows like 0:18:54.160 --> 0:18:59.400 Welcome Back Cotter, the Logan's Run TV series Battlestar Galactica. 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.600 She also had a supporting role in John Carpenter's nineteen 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:04.120 seventy nine Elvis TV. 0:19:04.040 --> 0:19:07.240 Movie Oh interesting, Did that have Kurt Russell in it? 0:19:07.480 --> 0:19:09.080 Yeah? That was Kurt Russell as Elvis. 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:09.680 Okay. 0:19:10.840 --> 0:19:14.000 She followed up Flash with a nineteen eighty one horror 0:19:14.000 --> 0:19:17.679 movie Dead and Buried nineteen eighty six is Firewalker, and 0:19:17.800 --> 0:19:21.280 various TV shows. She retired from acting in the mid nineties. 0:19:21.600 --> 0:19:23.720 You know, I think Melody Anderson's a lot of fun 0:19:23.800 --> 0:19:26.480 in this. She has the right you could tell she 0:19:26.520 --> 0:19:28.920 has the right sense of humor in approaching this role. 0:19:29.640 --> 0:19:32.640 Yeah. Yeah, so I like her in this role as well. 0:19:32.920 --> 0:19:37.480 All right, So that's two out of three Earthlings. The 0:19:37.600 --> 0:19:43.080 important third is doctor Hans Zarkoff played by Topol Topel 0:19:43.160 --> 0:19:46.879 lived nineteen thirty five through twenty twenty three Israeli actor, singer, 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:49.399 and illustrator, best known for his starring role in nineteen 0:19:49.400 --> 0:19:52.480 seventy one's Fiddler on the Roof and his supporting role 0:19:52.520 --> 0:19:55.760 in nineteen eighty one's For Your Eyes Only. It's been 0:19:55.760 --> 0:19:57.480 a while since I've seen For Your Eyes Only. He's 0:19:57.480 --> 0:19:59.320 not the villain in that Bond movie. 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:03.639 He's like no, he plays like ally. Yeah, he plays 0:20:03.640 --> 0:20:07.040 a criminal that Bond ends up joining forces with to 0:20:07.359 --> 0:20:10.000 to take out the villain in the end. He's he's 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:12.520 sort of like a lovable rascal smuggler. 0:20:13.119 --> 0:20:16.680 Yeah. Other projects of note include the starring role in 0:20:16.840 --> 0:20:20.119 a in a nineteen seventy five Galileo movie, and he 0:20:20.119 --> 0:20:22.960 also shows up in one episode of Tales of the Unexpected. 0:20:23.480 --> 0:20:26.080 And I have to say it's it's easy to forget 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:29.480 about this performance in a movie that features both you know, 0:20:29.560 --> 0:20:33.960 Brian Blessed and Max Foncido just aiming for the rafters 0:20:33.960 --> 0:20:39.000 with their performances, but Topaul hits the ground running with 0:20:39.080 --> 0:20:44.800 some just great a ridiculousness just also just really chewing 0:20:44.880 --> 0:20:48.000 up the scenery. Well. Also later on the picture, you know, 0:20:48.160 --> 0:20:52.240 breathing varying degrees of not only ham but also thoughtfulness 0:20:52.320 --> 0:20:54.800 in some of the scenes. So it's he does a 0:20:54.800 --> 0:20:55.359 great job. 0:20:55.520 --> 0:20:57.880 And you know, for this picture, yes, I'm gonna say 0:20:57.880 --> 0:21:02.680 this character and to Paul's performance is all over the map. 0:21:02.840 --> 0:21:08.960 It's inconsistent, but it's mostly very good. Like he's zany 0:21:09.000 --> 0:21:12.080 in some scenes, and he brings a very good, convincing zaniness. 0:21:12.720 --> 0:21:14.760 There is one scene I want to talk about later 0:21:14.920 --> 0:21:19.320 that I think is just wildly tonally inappropriate for the 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:22.920 movie in that it gets very serious and even emotionally 0:21:23.000 --> 0:21:26.120 moving in a way that does not exactly feel welcome 0:21:26.560 --> 0:21:31.119 in the context. But it's mostly because of him that 0:21:31.200 --> 0:21:34.960 it works out that way, and it's quite powerful. Strangely, 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:37.119 I think you know what I'm talking about, Like the 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:38.520 mind conditioning scene. 0:21:38.880 --> 0:21:40.680 Yeah, yeah, that'll be a good one to talk about. 0:21:41.080 --> 0:21:43.880 All right, let's get into Ming's court though. This is 0:21:43.920 --> 0:21:46.480 like the centerpiece of the film. And of course, as 0:21:46.520 --> 0:21:50.440 we mentioned already, we have Max Foncito playing Ning the merciless. 0:21:50.560 --> 0:21:54.280 Foncito lived nineteen twenty nine through twenty twenty. 0:21:54.520 --> 0:21:56.600 So one of the things that has not aged well 0:21:56.640 --> 0:22:00.000 about this movie is that I think it's pretty undeniable 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:03.159 that there are some elements of racial caricature in the 0:22:03.200 --> 0:22:05.320 way Ming the Merciless is imagined. 0:22:06.160 --> 0:22:08.600 Yeah, it is important to note that the character Ming 0:22:08.840 --> 0:22:11.360 is along with the likes of fictional characters like Fu 0:22:11.400 --> 0:22:15.600 Manchu and more than a couple of characters from like 0:22:16.240 --> 0:22:19.040 Marvel Comics and so forth. There are examples of the 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:23.199 quote yellow menace trope, and it's also a character here 0:22:23.200 --> 0:22:29.040 that's steeped in orientalism and racial stereotypes. Various later adaptations 0:22:29.040 --> 0:22:32.720 of Flash have sought to distance the character from these origins, 0:22:33.760 --> 0:22:36.200 and I don't know. In this picture we see kind 0:22:36.240 --> 0:22:39.359 of like a mixed approach there where certain things are done, 0:22:39.480 --> 0:22:42.399 but also you could make a strong argument that not 0:22:42.600 --> 0:22:44.840 enough is done, certainly by modern standards. 0:22:45.280 --> 0:22:48.480 Yeah, So from what I understand, I'm not deep on 0:22:48.680 --> 0:22:51.359 a Flash Gordon lore. From what I understand, the character 0:22:51.480 --> 0:22:55.080 is an alien, so it's not like he is from 0:22:55.119 --> 0:22:57.280 a country on Earth. But it's just that in the 0:22:57.320 --> 0:23:00.520 way he is depicted, it relies a lot on like 0:23:01.040 --> 0:23:05.760 on visual and thematic cues associated with stereotypical Asian villains, 0:23:05.920 --> 0:23:07.000 mainly Fu Manchu. 0:23:07.680 --> 0:23:13.119 Right, Right, So that's that's undeniable with this particular film. 0:23:13.320 --> 0:23:15.360 For a long time, I always felt like, Okay, well, 0:23:16.080 --> 0:23:20.240