No one but the pure of heart can find the golden grail (Flash Gordon (DVD))

Member Name: hogsflesh

Product:	Flash Gordon (DVD)
Date:	11/01/05 (1079 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Flash! Flash! I love you!, But we only have 14, hours to save the earth!

Disadvantages: You fools! He's playing, some kind of barbaric game., Now match him! Like this!

Ah, my favourite film. The greatest film ever made, in fact.

Flash Gordon was released in 1980, one if a bunch of films around that time designed to cash in on Star Wars. But while the likes of Battlestar Galactica and The Black Hole are tedious, Flash is a masterpiece (it was intended to be the first of a trilogy, although tragically it didn't do well enough for the other films to be made). A remake of a 1930s serial, which was itself an adaptation of a comic strip, the film shows the Earth being attacked by evil space emperor Ming the Merciless (Max von Sydow). Square-jawed American footballer Flash Gordon (Sam J Jones) and pretty travel agent Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) are kidnapped by Professor Zarkov (Topol), a rogue scientist. He rockets them off to Ming's home planet (Mongo) to save the Earth. Many adventures follow. Flash catches the eye of Ming's horny daughter, Aura (Ornella Muti), annoys the dashing but mean-spirited Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton), and meets the amazing Vultan, king of the birdmen (Brian Blessed). Will our heroes save the Earth? Will Flash choose pretty-but-dull Dale or sultry-but-bad Aura? Will Barin find good in his heart just in time to save the day? Will Brian Blessed shout a lot? I wouldn't want to spoil it for you...

There are a number of reasons why this film is marvellous. It doesn't take itself at all seriously, for one thing. It has no pretensions to be anything other than an entertaining romp through a number of colourful alien environments, and it's everything it tries to be. This isn't one of those unintentionally funny things. The director, Mike Hodges, was previously responsible for the superb Get Carter, so clearly knew what he was doing. The script is very self-consciously over-the-top, something which all the actors (except perhaps the American leads) understand all too well. It's (intentionally) very funny, but it also generates such a feeling of unrestrained joy that you'll find yourself laughing out loud at the sheer greatness of it. Some people may criticise it for not being serious enough - such people are fools. Clearly we, the audience, are never really meant to worry about the plot; just sit back and enjoy the ride.

The visual style of the film is incredible. While most films that came after Star Wars tended to ape its visual style (muted colours, functional costumes, emphasis on pseudo-realistic-looking technology), Flash goes in completely the opposite direction. Taking its inspiration from the original comic strips, the look is basically brightly-coloured art deco. Consider Ming's throne room. If you toned down the colour scheme slightly and kicked out the midgets, it could almost be used in an Evelyn Waugh adaptation. And the costumes are wonderful: opulent, brightly coloured, decadent. Prince Barin's Robin Hood outfit is a favourite, as is Ming's glorious red regal get-up. Klytus, Ming's chief henchman, is very striking with his black cloak and gold mask. Best of all, of course, are the costumes for Princess Aura, especially her first appearance, where you almost see her knickers (although the more discriminating members of the audience prefer to imagine that she isn't wearing any).

And then there's the music. The film is essentially the glam rock Star Wars, so who better to get to do the soundtrack than the epitome of camp glam excess, Queen? Freddie and the others were by this point drifting towards their catastrophic flirtation with disco, but here they pull out all the stops and produce a sublime soundtrack that perfectly matches the film. There are also good orchestral bits by Howard Blake (I'm especially fond of the musical sting when Ming realises that Dale's escaped his clutches).

The acting is mostly superb. Flash and Dale are kind of bland, and the fact that neither of them went on to much else is hardly surprising. But the European actors have a whale of a time. Max von Sydow, Ingmar Bergman's favourite actor, is wonderful as Ming, probably the only one who underplays his part. Timothy Dalton is great as Barin (delivering the line 'Freeze! You Bloody bastards!' with considerable aplomb). Even better is the immortal Peter Wyngarde as Klytus, one of the great pantomime villains of cinema history. Topol overacts to perfection, giving one of the least restrained performances ever. But the real star of the show, as everyone surely knows, is Brian Blessed. Before Flash Gordon he'd been a popular character actor. Afterwards he became a personality, a bona fide light entertainment superstar. It was here that he perfected his classic 'shouting man with a beard' persona, and as a culture we have benefited from that immensely. No one can laugh like Blessed, no one can shout like Blessed, and no one is as much fun to watch as Blessed. 'Ah well, who wants to live forever. Dive!!!'

The supporting cast is full of people you'll recognise. Richard O'Brien is in it, so is Peter Duncan from Blue Peter. One of Klytus's weird, bald cyborgs also plays Lobot, the weird, bald cyborg in Empire Strikes Back. Ming's high priest is played by Malcolm MacDowell's dad from A Clockwork Orange. More surprising is the presence of John Osborne as the Arborian Priest. Osborne was the author of Look Back in Anger, arguably the most important British play of the post-war era, and it's pretty weird to see him turn up in Flash Gordon.

The fight scenes are over the top and often hilarious. The dialogue drips with sexual innuendo, usually purred out by slinky Princess Aura ('I loooove initiations!'). And it's all so endearingly dumb, with the Earth attacked by 'hot hail', with lizard men who have somehow evolved eyes inside their mouths, with executions that can be reversed by a simple injection. True, the special effects are rubbish by today's standards (they're pretty bad even by 1980 standards). But it doesn't matter, really it doesn't.

This is a pretty old DVD, so sadly there are no extras apart from a photo gallery (which at least has a certain nostalgia value, as the photos are the same ones used on promotional cards given away with Weetabix when the film was first released). The picture quality is nicer than on VHS, obviously, and it's in widescreen, but it hasn't been remastered or anything. This year is the film's 25th anniversary, and I can only pray that they'll produce a new DVD with commentaries (after all, the director and all the main cast members are still alive; there's an opportunity going begging here).

I know that not many people share my extravagantly high opinion of Flash Gordon. I think that to love it like I do you'd have had to have been the right age when it was released (5 or 6), then 9 or 10 when the BBC first showed it. Having videoed it at some point, you'd have watched it regularly during adolescence. (It's about this point you'd have started to understand the innuendo, and Princess Aura was certainly an acceptable stopgap until you got a copy of Duran Duran's Girls on Film video, if you know what I mean). Then, going to college, you'd have met others who revere the film, and would have made sure you watched the film at least twice a year from then on. If you did all that (chances are you didn't) then you'll probably like this film as much as I do. If not, then all I can say is that you have my deepest sympathies.

Flash Gordon can accurately be regarded as the pinnacle of Western culture; it's all been downhill since. Five stars isn't enough, it deserves six, seven, maybe even eight.

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