Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe

4/10/2016

I love and have a great affinity for serials from the golden age of cinema, and this was definitely one of the better ones I have seen. Previously, I had really enjoyed Buster Crabbe's presence in the post-Weissmuller era of Tarzan, and I have had the DVD of Hodges' 1980 'Flash Gordon' for eons, but wanted to first get to the root of the phenomenon by checking out the serials. Fortunately, in purchasing a 50-film pack, 'Nightmare Worlds' from Mill Creek, it was included. The 12 episodes of the 220-minute serial were well-edited into the fine flow that this version I saw had, and the special effects and production values were quite decent--you could tell it had been made both by a high-quality studio, in Universal, and by directors quite used to the serial format, in Ford Beebe and Ray T