Flash Gordon’s Trip to Mars (1938)
Runtime: 299 minutes!
Directed by: Ford Beebe… and Robert F. Hill… and Frederick Stephani
Starring: Buster Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Charles Middleton, Frank Shannon, Beatrice Roberts
From: Universal
In the future, I really need to watch serials over the span of a few nights rather than all at once. You see, this is 5 hours in length so it’d be best even with the ones “only” around 4 hours to split it up so it could be viewed more like how serials were back in the day. Back 2 ½ years ago I saw the original Flash Gordon serial and while not wacky fun like the ’80 movie, it was still a quaint and charming diversion. This was the law of diminishing returns.
Flash, Dale Arden and Zarkoff return to Earth from the planet Mongol and get a ticker-tape parade in NYC because they saved the world. Soon, though, it’s shown that the Emperor Ming has survived, and has a ray pointed at Earth which is F’ing up its atmosphere. The trio plus an odious comic relief reporter (the type of person that Trump thinks all reporters are) get their asses to Mars to stop both Ming and the magical ruler of Mars, a lady named Asura; believe it or not, at one point you do hear the phrase “Asura’s wrath”, which I know will cause some to mark out pretty hard.
Unfortunately for the serial, this felt quite repetitious as it seemed like they were filling this up with nonsense-there are flashbacks to the first serial, after all-to make it 15 chapters long. Then there’s the big issue of all the main characters committing multiple boneheaded moves which also stretch out the story-there are too many dumbass moments to count. Worst of all was Asura’s magical powers, or what exactly she could do and how. Among her talents were turning human beings into “clay people” that prove to be the enemies of her people; presumably she can only do that face to face but it’s logic-breaking that she doesn’t do this or other magical things to Grandmaster Flash & the Furious Three as you see that some abilities can be done remotely…
I know not to think too hardly about schlock done on the cheap but this just was not as thrilling to me as the first serial, campy charms still noted. My opinion of this will not affect my desire to see more serials in the future; what a fascinating aspect of cinema that has been gone for decades yet influenced some legendary filmmakers, mainly Spielberg and Lucas. One thing I’ll mention as a positive: starting in Chapter 2, the main highlights are mentioned for those that haven’t seen all the episodes by… comic panels. A nice nod to its origins.
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