Flash Gordon

[Buster's Uncle]

 

I don't find it wise to over-emphasize, but I have an even more selfish motivation in the mix for various acts of online generosity than building and promoting the community for people to talk to; I get to feel better about myself.  Nothing to be ashamed of, though - I own it freely.  It doesn't end up mattering why people do good deeds to anyone but the people doing them, provided they do them.

Took a break to do my morning innerwebs browse.  The rest should be up quicker, depending somewhat on activity on the boards.

Flash Gordon 1936 Chapter 3 / 12

[Buster's Uncle]

Mylochka just kept me busy on Facebook for half an hour talking about selling masks.  Back to work:

Flash Gorden 1936 Chapter 4 / 12

[Buster's Uncle]

Ah.  I see Flesh Gordon in the yootoob sidebar.   -I understand it's pron and don't imagine the nekkidity is left in, anyway; just a lot of foul language in the character names, alone.

Flash Gordon 1936 Chapter 5 / 12

I will not be posting Flesh Gordon  here.

[Buster's Uncle]

Vultan made his appearance last time - he sucks by comparison once you've seen Brian Blessed giving it the purest Brian Blessedness imaginable, but you can't miss where Brian Blessed got every single cue as Vultan.  HE'd totally seen this...

Flash Gordon 1936 Chapter 6 / 12

[Buster's Uncle]

...The look's all wrong, but I think we HAVE to give Uno a shot at playing Ming for the personality...

Flash Gordon 1936 Chapter 7 / 12

[Buster's Uncle]

...On the other hand - wanna swap, Uno?  Vultan's more fun, Ming's a lot bigger part, and I think either of us could probably tear up either one...

Flash Gordon 1936 Chapter 8 / 12

[Buster's Uncle]

I neglected to mention, but in the parts previous where Flash Thun and Barin are shoveling in the Radium Pits?  Mylochka and I have laughed ourselves hoarse joking about the sheer size of Barin's shorts.  Richard Alexander was actually an excellent likeness for how Alex Raymond was drawing Barin at the time, pre-Robin Hood look, but the armor did a credible job of covering up that he was just fat - thus the huge shorts, which didn't work as well.  When Barin went Robin Hood in the strips before the third serial, Mr. Alexander was suddenly looking for work...

Flash Gordon 1936 Chapter 9 / 12

[Buster's Uncle]

Flash Gordon 1936 Chapter 10 / 12

[Buster's Uncle]

Flash Gordon 1936 Chapter 11 / 12

[Buster's Uncle]

Flash Gordon 1936 Chapter 12 / 12

 

[Buster's Uncle]

And now: Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (The middle serial Flash Gordon's trip to Mars, starts on p.2 of the thread):

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe - Ch 1: The Purple Death (1940)

This is (obviously) the biggest-budget of the three Buster Crabbe Flashes, and the clothes are, hands-down, the most fabulous.  -Again, the serials were astonishingly faithful to the strips in at least the character designs and costumes.  The tights served the 'space' look on the men equally well, and don't look nearly as stupid...

-Which is not to say that the cruder first serial didn't have something almost better - sometimes slickness loses something a cruder effort has for energy, almost  sincerity, you might say, and I do think that's the case with the serials.  They got slicker and slicker, but not necessarily better...

[Buster's Uncle]

I left this one running while I was doing something else - and notice a rather ridiculous amount of guards and such every few minutes giving it the girlish Homer Simpson scream as they get killed...

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe - Ch 2: Freezing Torture (1940)

[Buster's Uncle]

I read somewhere, around the time I started this thread a couple of years ago, the observation that in the first serial Ming was the Yellow Peril, a Fu Manchu figure (obviously) if played by a white guy.  In Trip to Mars, he Satan.  In this, he's more of a military dictator in a skullcap.

It's true.

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This installment sees a blink-and-you'll-miss-it cameo return of the Great God Tao and the writhing dancers...

[Buster's Uncle]

That's a surprise - I thought I stumbled over and changed the embed limit sometime this summer, and I would have sworn it used to be 10 to a page.  Huh.

Now I have to spam a couple to start a new page.

[Buster's Uncle]

Good news, though - I don't remember ever knowing about any Flash Gordon between 1940 and 1980 besides the Saturday cartoon that lasted a season (not bad), but there's something on the toob starring not-Buster-Crabbe.

Probably sucks super-hard, but now I have to run down all I can and post.  I've never seen those.  Old enough to be black and white, and I don't know if TV show or another serial or what.