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The old serial may seem primitive by the standards of today's technical effects wizardry, but that doesn't make it any the less enjoyable.
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You'll be thrilled! You'll be chilled! You'll be amazed at how "Independence Day" and "Star Wars: The Phantom Menace" could get away with such shabby visuals after watching "Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe"!
I wasn't around to have seen this quintessential, Saturday-morning adventure serial when it appeared in 1940, but I eagerly awaited every chapter when it was released to television many years later. In fact, as recently as a few years ago my wife and I caught all twelve episodes on a local PBS station.
Of the three complete sets of "Flash Gordon" serials made by Larry "Buster" Crabbe from 1936 to 1940, this final one in the trilogy is generally acknowledged as the smoothest and most exciting, if, perhaps, not the most inventive. Of course, it's corny and juvenile but that's the point. It's also great fun, and it's presented complete on three sides of two discs, four chapters to a side, some 237 minutes in all. What's more, this Special Collector's Edition DVD set even comes with bonus items, including interviews, commercials, and newsreel footage.
Like fellow Olympian Johnny Weissmuller, Buster Crabbe followed up a successful swimming career by going to Hollywood and starring in "Tarzan the Fearless," then a turn at Buck Rogers, a succession of B-grade Westerns, and finally a television show, "Captain Gallant of the French Foreign Legion." But it is for the Flash Gordon serials, based on the newspaper feature created by Alex Raymond, that he is best remembered today.
If you have never seen a genuine, matinee cliffhanger before, this is the place to start. "Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe" is hardly great art but it's pleasant diversion. And you don't have to watch all twelve chapters at once; watch them one at a time each week the way they were supposed to be seen. That's part of the convenience of DVD. It's also why it has taken me longer to review this issue than anything I've done before. I started to view an episode a week, but I finally fudged and watched the last five or six installments straight through.
The plot is relatively unimportant, but for the record it starts with the bombardment of Earth by a "Death Dust." Amid the rise of dictatorships and the war in Europe, the "Purple Death" plagues the world! These "electrified particles" are the work of Emperor Ming of the planet Mongo, still keenly intent upon conquering the universe. Needless to say, no one can save the world but the man who defeated Ming twice before, Flash Gordon, and his intrepid assistants Dale Arden and Dr. Zarkov. Ming the Merciless is again played by Robert Middleton, Dale by Carol Hughes, and Zarkov by Frank Shannon.
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