Flash Gordon (1980)

This year is the 40th Anniversary of Flash Gordon, and to celebrate (cash in) Paramount are releasing a wonderful 4k boxset (which I have on pre-order!)

Flash Gordon first appeared as a comic strip at the start of 1934 and was created to compete with the already established Buck Rogers comic strip.

In 1936 the first of 3 serial feature films were released starring Buster Crabbe, they were Flash Gordon (1936)(13 episodes 245 mins), Flash Gordon's trip to Mars (1938)(15 episodes 299 mins) and Flash Gordon conquers the Universe (1940)(12 episodes 195 mins)

 All 3 serials were re cut to feature length to be sold to TV syndicates, and then released  further times at different lengths with different titles, it does get a bit confusing!

 Dino De Laurentiis had the rights to Flash Gordon and initially wanted Frederico Fellini to direct the movie but that never happened, Nicolas Roeg was then hired and spent a year in preproduction work but De Laurentiis wasn't happy with the Roeg's treatment of the material and Roeg left the project, next De Laurentiis wanted Sergio Leone to direct but Leone refused as he thought the script wasn't faithful to the original source material, so in the end Mike Hodges was hired, and the rest is history.

In the 70s George Lucas wanted to make a Flash Gordon movie but couldn't because De Laurentiis owned the rights, so he toddled off and made a little movie called Star Wars instead, I wonder how that worked out for him?!

The 1980s film took it's basic designs from the original serials, added a lot of colour and a marvellous score and soundtrack, thanks to Howard Blake and Queen.

The film stars Sam Jones (who left the movie during post production after a dispute with De Laurentiis so a substantial portion of his dialogue was redubbed by professional voice actor Peter Marinker(though his name wasn't widely know until recently), Jones found out about the dubbing at the Premiere!)

 Max von Sydow

 Melody Anderson and Topol

Timothy Dalton and  Ornella Muti

Brian (Gordon's alive!) Blessed 

Peter Wyngarde

There are a lot more famous faces to be spotted but far too numerous to mention.

Although it barely broke even initially the film went on to become a cult classic and still has a loyal fan base 40 years on, it's worth checking out Life After Flash currently on Prime.