Directed by F.W. Murnau

Written by Henrik Galeen

Run Time: 81 min

“Is this your wife? What a lovely throat.”
- Count Orlok

Nosferatu certainly stands as one of the greatest films from the silent movie era, and indeed, a classic horror film that viewers still find entertaining to this day. German director F.W. Murnau wanted to make a movie based on Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel "Dracula", but was denied permission by Stoker’s estate. (Bram Stoker had passed away 10 years before the film’s making, in 1912. I can’t seem to find out exactly why his estate did not want to give permission, since it would have only brought more attention to the book…could be interesting to know if anybody else wants to share this info.) Despite the fact that he was not given the authority to do so, Murnau went ahead and made the film anyway, merely changing Dracula’s name to "Orlok" and renaming the story to "Nosferatu, a Symphony of Horrors". Not surprisingly, Stoker’s estate sued Murnau and as a result of the final court settlement, all the film’s prints and negatives were destroyed. Fortunately, copies of the movie survived.

Max Schreck plays the ghastly vampire Count Orlok. His deep set eyes, inhumanly long fingers, and deathly white skin have helped define "vampire" in the minds of modern movie go-ers. Granted, Bela Lugosi’s portrayal of Dracula 9 years later in 1931 in the film of the same name, Dracula, is certainly one more widely seen and thus remembered. Bela, however, lacks the loathsome, inhuman manifestation of evil that Max Shreck brought to the same character. In a nutshell: Lugosi is Hollywood, Shreck is just damn creepy!

This dark tale opens in the town of Wisborg, where we watch the daily life of a happy couple, Mr. Hutter and his wife, Ellen. Yes, life is good for this couple: The sun shines, Hutter picks flowers for his wife from the garden, Ellen plays with a kitten. Good times indeed.

Moving along now, we meet a "house agent", which I believe to be what we now refer to as a realtor. This agent has the fitting name of Mr. Knock. We are informed via "cue cards" that Knock is a strange man surrounded by gossip. Cut to see Knock’s hunched figure pouring over an old scroll filled with strange symbols and text.

Knock discovers that a certain"Count Orlok" from Transylvania wants to buy a house in the unsuspecting town of Wisborg. Knock tells Hutter, his apprentice agent, that he is to travel to Transylvania and meet with Orlok using the not-too-encouraging words, "You will have a marvelous journey…What matter if it costs you a bit of pain…or even a little blood?"

To Hutter’s surprise, Knock insists that Hutter offer the house right across the street from his own. (Gee, thanks boss!) Yup, it looks like Orlok and Hutter are going be neighbors! Anyway, Knock mentions that both he and Hutter stand to gain a good deal of money from the deal, so Hutter heads of to Transylvania.

Back home, Ellen is far from happy seeing her husband burst into the room and say, "I may be away for several months, in a land of ghosts and robbers!" Hutter gives Ellen a kiss on the forehead, grabs his top hat, and starts packing his bags. (Wow!) Well, he at least put Ellen in the car of a rich friend of his named Harding, and Harding’s sister, Ruth.

Upon reaching the Carpathian mountains, Hutter takes a quick dinner in a local tavern. He makes an offhand remark that he must hurry to Count Orlok’s castle, and everybody in the bar stops talking and the locale goes completely quiet. (Well, it is a silent film, but you know what I mean.) The tavern-keeper insists that Hutter delay his journey until the morning, and Hutter agrees to spend the night. Outside, the wolves begin to howl (they actually look like hyenas to me), and the locals cower in their hovels and cross themselves.

Meanwhile, Hutter makes himself at home in his room and notices a small book beside the bed. Picking it up he reads the title: "The Book of Vampires". (How charming.) The book tells the tale of the vampire Nosferatu, who lives in "horrible darkness, on the cursed earth from the graveyards of the Black Death." Hutter yawns, and smiles at the quaint book before tossing it aside and going to sleep.

The next morning, Hutter wakes up rested and alert, and hops on the first coach that will take him to Orlok’s castle. As the day gets late and the sun nears the Western horizon, the stage coach driver stops the vehicle and refuses to go any further, noting that "Here begins the land of the phantoms!" (Fair enough.) Hutter, oblivious to everybody’s warnings, hops off the coach and sets out on foot. (!) Well, he doesn’t have to walk too far before a black carriage, pulled by a team of midnight-black horses, storms up the road and stops in front of him. The driver, shrouded in a dark cloak and hat, motions for Hutter to get into the carriage. Hutter reluctantly steps into the coach and is carried quickly back to Orlok’s castle.

At the crumbling fortress, Hutter enters the gates which lock themselves behind him. (Doh!) As Hutter makes his way towards the main keep, he spots the tall, thin figure of Count Orlok waiting for him in the middle of the walkway. "It is late, young man," Orlok says, "It is almost midnight. My servants have all retired." Without another word, Orlok turns and makes his way into the dark castle interior. Hutter follows silently behind.

Inside, Hutter eats a previously prepared meal while Orlok silently reads some papers at the head of the table. The young realtor accidentally cuts his finger while slicing a piece of bread. "Blood! Your precious blood!" shouts Orlok as he rises from his chair to get a closer look. Hutter finally begins to get the picture as Orlok eagerly reaches for his hand. Not having none of this, Hutter jerks back and scurries back from the table. Orlok approaches Hutter, cringing against the wall, and asks if he would like to stay up for awhile…

The next morning Hutter awakes to discover that he had fallen asleep next to the fireplace. The large hall in which Hutter finds himself appears to be deserted, but he does see that an extravagant meal has been laid out on the dining room table for his convenience. After eating, Hutter heads outside into the sunlight to write a letter to his wife. He mentions that he is doing fine…except for the irritating mosquitoes. In fact, he writes that 2 mosquitoes have bitten him on the neck, very close together…(mwah…hah…hah..!)

Later that evening, Orlok and Hutter continue with their paperwork. By chance, a locket with Ellen’s picture falls from Hutter’s pocket onto the table. Orlok sweeps it up in his bony fingers and remarks, "Your wife has a beautiful neck…" Seeing the picture of Ellen seems to have cemented the deal, and Orlok eagerly signs the papers, thus purchasing the house directly across the street from Ellen back in Wisborg. Lucky him.

Anyway, that night Hutter finally realizes Orlok’s true identity, but it’s too late. Hutter can only watch in terror as Orlok enters his room and corners him. Orlok comes closer and closer, his talon-like fingers reaching for Hutter’s throat…

Cut to Wisborg. Ellen falls into a trance at that same moment and begins to "sleep walk". Harding, Hutter’s friend who agreed to take care of Ellen during his absence, notices Ellen’s bizarre antics and catches her just as she collapses to the floor.

Back in bed, Ellen cries out for her husband in a trance-like state, desperately trying to warn him across the vast distances that separate them. As if hearing Ellen’s warnings to her husband, Orlok stops in mid stride, pulls away from the motionless Hutter, and leaves the room.

The next day Hutter awakens and runs from his room, desperately trying to flee the castle. By a stroke of luck, he stumbled across a moldering coffin in one of the antechambers. Hutter leans over and peeks through the shattered lid and onto the contents: Orlok lies slumbering on his bed of corrupted earth. Reeling with disgust and horror, Hutter runs back to his room.

Later that evening, Hutter hears a commotion outside his room. Pulling back the shutters, he looks down upon the courtyard to see Orlok loading several earth-filled coffins onto a horse-drawn cart. The last coffin, empty, serves as Orlok’s resting place on his journey journey to Wisborg. Realizing that he has just sold the house across the street from his wife to this monster, Hutter desperately tries once again to flee his crumbling confines. This time he succeeds in tying a length of bed sheets to his window and scrambling down the steep walls, but falls at the end and is knocked unconscious. Local peasants find Hutter’s broken body and bring him to a hospital, where he lies delirious with fever.

As Nosferatu, packed aboard a cargo ship, gets closer and closer to Wisborg, Knock quickly falls under the vampire’s power and goes insane. Locked up in an asylum, Knock spends his time catching and eating insects…trying to absorb their life ‘essence’ in foul imitation of his master’s own evil doings. "Blood is life! Blood is life!" Knock rants.

Meanwhile, Hutter has regained his strength in the remote Transylvanian hospital and takes his leave, making his way back to Wisborg with all haste in an effort to warn the others of Nosferatu nefarious intentions.

Aboard the ill-fated vessel that was unfortunate enough to unknowingly take aboard the vampire, the crew is "falling ill" and dying one by one. It turns out that Nosferatu regards the crew as his private larder during the journey, awaking at night to feed on the unwary crew. Eventually only the captain and his first mate remain.

The first mate realizes that something inhuman has found its way aboard, and taking an axe, tells the captain that he is going below decks to destroy it. In a truly creepy scene, the first mate chops away at the coffins and earth-filled boxes, which spill out waves of rats. Awakened by the commotion, Nosferatu rises up from his coffee and the mate flees in panic and jumps into the sea.

The captain, alone and without hope, vainly ties himself to the wheel and awaits his fate. Nosferatu clambers up out of the dark hold below and makes his way towards the captain, who can only cower and await his fate.

Eventually, the seemingly deserted boats floats into the harbor at Wisborg. Knock, imprisoned in the insane asylum peers out of his barred window and gleefully shouts "The master is here!" Aboard the ship, Nosferatu frees himself from his coffin and makes his way into the city…a swarm of rats follow in his wake…

Meanwhile, the custom officials and police have read the ship’s log and come to the erroneous conclusion that a "plague" has struck down the crew. Fearing that the so called "plague" will spread to the townspeople, a general alert is raised in the town and everybody is ordered to stay indoors. In fact, despite their efforts to contain the "plague", the death toll rises as townspeople continue to fall victim to this mysterious "illness".

Against all odds, Hutter manages the difficult journey back home to Wisborg. His wife complains of the horrible nightmares she has had recently. Hutter looks upon the crumbled ruins across the street with a look of despair and fear.

As Nosferatu continues his rampage against the helpless citizens, Ellen happens to glance in "The Book of Vampires" (that Hutter brought back with him from Transylvania). One passage in particular catches her eye:

"Wherefore there is no salvation therefrom except that a woman pure in heart were to make the vampire forget the cock’s first crowing. Of her own free will would she have to give her own blood."

Back at the asylum, Knock has overpowered his guard and escaped. The news spreads like wildfire and poor Knock is quickly suspected of being the "vampire". A lynch mob quickly forms and Knock is chased through the cobblestone streets. Fortunately for Knock, he has a decent head start and manages escape the mob and hide in the wilderness surrounding the town.

That night, Nosferatu stares from his dank hideaway, and mentally commands Ellen to open her bedroom window. Hutter, sound asleep in a chair at the foot of her bed, notices nothing.

Ellen manages to partially break the trance and manages to awaken Hutter before collapsing. Her husband catches her in his arms and gently lays her back in bed. Hutter, in the excitement, fails to realize that the window is open, and runs from the run to fetch a doctor.

Nosferatu, meanwhile, makes his way up to the bedroom and into Ellen’s room. (I might add that these shots are very well executed.) Ellen, helpless against Nosferatu powers, falls into her bed as the vampire creeps into her bedroom and begins to feed on her blood. Unfortunately for the vampire, in his lust for Ellen, he forgets the time, and looks up from Ellen’s neck in horror: Dawn has come!

Nosferatu rises from the bed and tries to flee the room. Alas, the sunlight streams into the room and he is struck by the rays. After a brief moment, the horrible vampire is reduced to a smoldering foul spot on the floor.

Ellen struggles to rise from the bed, stretches her arms out and cries for her husband. Hutter arrives returns with the doctors just in time to see his wife expire. Devastated, he bundles up her lifeless body in his arms and weeps.

The final card informs us that Ellen’s sacrifice was not in vain:

"And the miracle shall be told in truth. At that very hour the Great Death ceased and the shadow of the vampire vanished as if overcome by the victorious rays of the living sun."

The End.

Dennis Grisbeck (October 2005)

Read more about Nosferatu at

Written by Merian C. Cooper and Ernest Schoedsack

Directed by Merian C. Cooper

Tagline: "The most awesome thriller of all time!"

Run Time: 100 min

Summary:

Adventurer and film maker Carl Denham leads an expedition to an uncharted island in search of a legendary beast: Kong. The giant ape is captured and returned to New York for exhibition…with disastrous results.

Recap:

"King Kong" is without doubt one of the greatest film classics of all time. Created at a time when an American public, weary from 4 years of the Great Depression, desperately needed an escape, a small movie studio on the brink of bankruptcy, RKO Pictures, took a chance on Cooper’s story of a giant ape ravaging New York, and a legend was born. Through Willis O’Brien’s unparalleled special effects talents, an 18-inch doll is brought to life, evoking fear, and in the end, compassion and pity.

The film opens with Denham (Robert Armstrong) talking to a ship’s captain, trying to buy some time so he can find a female lead for his newest adventure picture. Time is short, for if the harbor master should find out that the ship is laden with (undeclared) ammunition and the new "gas bombs", Denham and the Captain will land in a world of trouble. The casting agent comes aboard the ship and states that he will not send along one of his actresses unless Denham tells him what the project is all about. Denham refuses to disclose the project’s details, decides to take matters into his own hands, and storms out into the city streets to find a woman to fill the role.

After searching the streets of New York for a while, he notices a beautiful woman desperately trying to steal an apple to eat. Denham offers her warm food and drink if she’ll listen to his proposition. The woman introduces herself as Ann Darrow (Fay Wray) and eagerly accepts Denham’s offer of fame and fortune. (As opposed to starving on the streets, good idea.)

Once the ship is safely in the middle of the ocean, Denham reveals his plans: He has gotten ahold of a map showing the location of an uncharted island. On said island is a legendary creature (and the future star of Denham’s film): Kong. He further explains that he wants to film the beast along with Ann in order to create his greatest picture ever. Skeptical to say the least, the Captain agrees to continue to voyage.

As they approach the island, the Captain stares in awe at the massive wall and jagged cliffs of Skull Mountain. (Many people mistakenly believe that the island is called "Skull Island", but the name of the island is never mentioned…only the name of the mountain: Skull Mountain.) As Denham and the crew unload the landing boats, the sound of drums becomes louder and louder. The crew discovers that the source of the drums is an elaborate ceremony performed by the island’s natives. The center of attention appears to be a virgin bride; being prepared for a symbolic wedding to Kong . (In other words: dinner time!)

When the natives spot Denham and his party, the ceremony is abruptly halted and the village chief approaches the invaders. The chief spots Ann , "…the Golden Woman", and offers to exchange 6 of his women for Ann. The deal is refused, and the belligerent natives begin approaching Denham and the others with warlike intentions. Denham, realizing that events are turning against him and the others, wisely decides to retreat back to the boat.

Later that night, Ann and the ship’s first mate, Jack Driscoll, exchange sweet words and finally a kiss. Ah, young love. The romantic interlude is interrupted when Jack is called to the bridge, leaving Ann alone to dream of her new beau. Unfortunately, a group of native warriors has canoes out to the ship, abducts Ann from the ship, and takes her back to the island to be Kong’s new bride.

The ship’s cook, Charlie, happens to spot a beaded necklace that one of the warriors lost in the scuffle while kidnapping Ann and raises the alarm. Once the others realize what has happened, a rescue party is quickly formed and they race off to the island to liberate Ann from her abductor’s clutches.

Alas, they are too late to save Ann from being bound to an altar on the other side of the massive gates leading into Kong’s realm. The villagers close the gates and strike an enormousgong on the top of the wall to signal Kong that his latest bride awaits him. As the gong is sounded, Kong pushes his way through the trees, and with a terrible roar, bursts forth from the forest and carries away the screaming Ann.

When Jack and Denham reach the island, they force open the gates and see that Ann has already been carried away. Denham and Jack quickly form a rescue party and follow Kong’s tracks through the danger-filled wilderness.

While tracking Kong through the jungle, the rescue party is forced to battle several dinosaurs before getting their first glimpse of Kong himself. Unfortunately, they get this first view while they are scrambling over a fallen tree that spans a deep chasm. Kong picks up one end of the tree and shakes the men off one by one.

An interesting bit of history here: The original King Kong release showed the men begin eaten by giant spiders and scorpions at the bottom of the chasm. The scenes were so graphic and horrifying, that people in the audience fled the theater! Those that remained continued to talk about the scenes throughout the rest of the film, paying little or no attention to the rest of the film. When the film’s director saw the audience’s reactions, he quickly cut out these scenes for the films re-release later that year. Unfortunately, these scenes were lost and have never been recovered.

As Kong violently shakes the men from the tree, Jack manages to scramble down a vine and into a hole in the cliff’s face. Kong tries to get ahold of him, but Jack jabs at his fingers with his knife until Kong hears Ann’s screams of fear (she’s about to be eaten by a tyrannosaurus rex…dangerous place, this island!). After Kong leaves, Jack shouts to Denham on the other side (he was the only person who managed to make it off the tree) that he’ll continue looking for Ann and that Denham should head back and await him.

I just want to mention the battle between Kong and the tyrannosaurus is a pleasure to behold. The stop-motion animation of the two beasts is beautiful, and the action is fast paced and exciting. In fact, the battle scene was choreographed by an ex-wrestler whose input gives an amazing sense of realism to the viscous melee. This battle is undoubtedly one of my favorite scenes in the entire film.

Kong eventually makes it back to his mountainous lair where he fights off a giant snake-like creature that tries to devour Ann. (In yet another wonderfully executed stop-motion sequence.) While Kong is distracted by the serpent, Jack manages to sneak into the cave and get a fix on Ann’s whereabouts. After dispatching the snake-thing, Kong takes Ann out on a ledge for a little quality time with his bride, peeling off a bit of her skirt with his finger and toying with her hair. (This shot was also removed from one of the re-releases as being too ‘risque’. It was returned to the film in 1971.)

While Kong and Ann get to know each other better, Jack is stealthily making his way through the cave in an effort to get closer to Ann. He is nearly discovered when he accidentally topples a loose boulder, causing Kong to leave Ann and come into the cave to investigate. While Kong is looking around for the source of the disturbance, a pterodactyl tries to fly away with Ann, but Kong returns to rescue her yet again. This time however, Jack manages to whisk Ann away while Kong is preoccupied with the dinosaur, and they plunge off the ledge and down into a swift moving river.

Now Kong is pissed. He roars in frustration and storms out of his cave to find his runaway-bride and her rescuer. Fortunately, Jack and Ann have a big enough head start to make it to the massive gates just ahead of Kong. Denham and the crew, awaiting their return, open the gates and let them through. Ann’s angry suitor is unfortunately in hot pursuit and storms the gates. The outraged Kong forces his way through and lays waste to the native’s village (with some good stomping and smashing scenes). Just as he is about to nab Denham and the others, Kong is gassed by one of the "gas bombs" and rendered unconscious.

Denham returns with Kong to New York and is to reveal him to the world via an extravagant Broadway show billed as: "KING KONG – Eighth Wonder of the World – Carl Denham’s Giant Monster". (It’s funny to hear the audience complain that the show better be worth it because the tickets cost $20!)

Once the crowd is seated, Denham brings out Ann and Jack, now engaged to be married. With appropriate fanfare, Denham has the curtains pulled back revealing the captive Kong bound to a draconian steel structure for all to behold. The crowd gasps and fidgets in their seats but Denham reassures them that the chains holding Kong will not break. (Doh!)

A group of eager photographers rush the stage and begin taking pictures of Ann and Kong. Unfortunately for New York, Kong believes that their flash bulbs are somehow hurting Ann causing Kong to roar and strain against his restraints, quickly breaking free. Jack sweeps up the terrified Ann and they flee the stage as a furious Kong bursts through the walls in hot pursuit.

Frantically searching for Ann, Kong storms around New York, stomping on people, crushing trains, and generally being a pain in the ass. He eventually spots Ann in an apartment building and pulls her out of the window. With his bride in his possession once again, Kong heads for safety on the highest point he can find: The Empire State Building.

After reaching the buildings apex, Kong sets Ann down on the roof and prepares to battle a squadron of fighter planes. In a fantastic scene, the planes take run after run at Kong, firing madly with their machine guns until the mighty Kong is overcome by his injuries. Mortally wounded, Kong totters on his perch, picks up Ann for one last loving caress, and then plunges to his death on the streets below. (An interesting bit of trivia: The squadron commander and gunner are cameo appearances of the film’s directors: Cooper and Schoedsack.)

Down on the street, Denham forces his way through the crowd of gawkers, walks up to Kong’s bloodied remains and recites the film’s famous closing line: "It wasn’t the planes…It was beauty killed the beast."

Dennis Grisbeck (May 2005)

Read more about King Kong at

Directed by Ford Beebe and Ray Taylor

Tagline: "Zooming Off the Earth!"

Run Time: 12 episodes for a total of c. 195 min

A movie walk-through for the Rogue Reviewers “Hunky Heart-throbs” Round Table, Feburary, 2005

Character Round Up:

Larry “Buster” Crabbe as “Flash Gordon”

Carol Hughes as “Dale Arden”

Charles Middleton as “Emperor Ming”

Anne Gwynne and Frank Shannon as “Sonja” and “Dr. Zarkov”

Introductory Thoughts:

Ok, I’ll say it: This movie was fun to see. Broken down into 12 “chapters”, one chapter was shown each week, ending of course in a cliff-hanger, so as to draw the crowd back again the following week. Keep in mind while watching this movie, that these “serial films” were not the main attraction, but rather shown before the main film, along with the news-reels and other odds and ends. The creators of the serial films were not out to win any Oscars. They had one clear goal in mind: Keep ‘em coming back for more! This goal was achieved by the aforementioned “cliff-hanger” endings, and lots, lots, lots of action: fist fights (sometimes 3 per episode!), monsters, ray-guns, space ships, and so on. Who cared about plot development? Just get to the next action sequence!

I must also admit that the episodes have a definite charm to them, and you learn to accept the massive, horse-choking wads of exposition as a matter of course, for each chapter had about 20 minutes to advance the plot to the next cliff-hanging ending. The characters themselves, mostly one-dimensional of course, began to grow on me, mostly because of their predictability, rather then despite it: The constantly clueless Emperor Ming and his inept Captain Torch, the exposition spouting Dr. Zarkov, and all the others. This particular Flash Gordon film was the third and last serial movie to feature Flash. By this time, the plots had gotten pretty thin, but all in all, things flow together pretty well in this story if you use your imagination and don’t examine the plot too closely.

The special effects were certainly on par with the technology of the time (this film was made 65 years ago!). After a while, I actually developed a strange affection for the spark-shooting, phallic space ships, the goofy pseudo-Oriental palace sets, the strange Peter Pan-esque uniforms of the Arborian soldiers. The sole monster in this series, the, *ahem*, “iguanathon”, is so patently bogus looking that I had to laugh out loud, yet back in 1940, there probably weren’t a lot of kids who had seen an iguana before (they didn’t have Discovery channel back then), so the effects were probably more effective than we give them credit for being. An interesting side note is the fact that the movie producers were able to loan a load of electrical equipment from the “Frankenstein” movie set and use pieces of it in Ming’s laboratory scenes.

It’s funny to note the huge plot holes which are glossed over from chapter to chapter. Remember that these serials came out before anybody had VCR’s, DVD’s or any other way to “go back” and see what happened in the previous chapter, so the producers used the scrolling summary at the beginning of each episode to remind the audience of what happened the week before (these “summaries” were also a golden opportunity for the script writers to mention the exciting plot elements and at the same time draw attention away from the plot holes).

The film’s star, Larry “Buster” Crabbe, was born Clarence Linden Crabbe in 1907. Buster grew up in Hawaii where he learned to be a skilled swimmer. Buster went on to graduate from the University of Southern California, before winning a gold medal in the 400-meter freestyle swimming event in the 1932 Olympics. He was also the only actor to play all 3 big action-hero roles of the 1930s: Flash Gordon, Buck Rogers, and Tarzan. After World War 2, Buster’s career petered out and he went into business instead, forming his own swimming pool company. (In fact, a “Buster Crabbe Swimming Pool” was occasionally given away as a prize on “The Price Is Right” game show during the 1950’s and early 1960’s)

Later in his life, Buster made a few small appearances in low-budget films (“Alien Dead” for example), but he spent the majority of his time with his swimming pool business and running a boy’s camp. He also kept at his swimming and broke the 400 meter free-style swimming world record for the over-60 age group. In 1983, at the age of 76, Buster died of a heart attack in Scottsdale, Arizona.

Chapter 1 – “The Purple Death”

We open our universe-conquering journey by seeing our small planet in a state of chaos. People are dropping like flies from a mysterious plague called “The Purple Death”: called such due to the telltale purple spot on the deceased’s forehead. Nobody can find a cause or a cure! What are the world leaders to do? Does this mystery plague spell the end of the world? Not so fast! A message from Flash and Dr. Zarkov, high up in the sky in Zarkov’s space ship, informs the world that they have penetrated the stratosphere and will soon find the source of the “electrified dust” that is causing the plague.

In the ship, Flash, Zarkov, and Dale scan the skies for clues to the dust’s origin. Sure enough, they spot one of Emperor Ming’s ships sprinkling dust down upon the helpless denizens of Earth. I think Zarkov sums up everybody’s thoughts when he grumbles, “Only Ming could think of such a devilish scheme!” Ming’s soldiers spot Flash’s ship and try to destroy it with their heat ray, resulting in a space-ship dog-fight (complete with spark-and-smoke spewing space ships wobbling back and forth across the screen).

Zarkov’s space ship. Go, Flash! Go!

Flash’s “Rocket Gun” is destroyed, so he makes a fake crash landing on the planet Mongo in an effort to fool Ming’s patrols into thinking that he and his crew are dead. This deception will lead Ming’s warriors to report to the Emperor that Flash and his crew have been destroyed (or something…), thereby making it easier for Flash to stage an attack against him. (You’ll get used to this type of logic…just wait until chapter 12!) Flash realizes that Earth’s only chance of survival against the “fiendish dust” is to get to Emperor Ming’s kingdom, and acquire the help of Prince Barin and his rebel army in order to defeat Ming.

Flash makes a landing in Prince Barin’s forest kingdom, Arboria, and is warmly greeted by the bow-and-arrow wielding soldiers (who all look a lot like Peter Pan). They retire to Prince Barin’s palace in order to discuss their plans.

Back in Ming’s palace, the Emperor is enjoying an extravagant dance number…a huge idol, complete with moving arms, is surrounded by writhing women for his pleasure (and this was 1940!) (I also love the IMDB credit to Vivian Mason (who rings the gong in Ming’s chambers) as “Ming’s Gong Girl”)

Now that’s entertainment!

Ming’s pilots report that Flash’s ship was destroyed. Thinking that Flash is dead, Ming believes that the source of the dust is still a secret. One of Ming’s scientists reports the good news that he has perfected the “Death Dust”: It will now kill only those with intelligence enough to oppose Ming, and spare his slaves. (Wow!) This perfected dust is to be tested on one of Prince Barin’s captured generals, General Lupi, that very night!

Back in Arboria, Flash, Queen Fria (of the ice-bound country of Frigia), and Ming’s rebel daughter, Princess Aura, who has run away to Arboria to fight against him, are discussing a plan to rescue General Lupi from Ming’s clutches. (A lot of characters here, just go with the flow and enjoy!) The plan is to dress up as Frigians, attack Ming’s palace, and free Lupi (life was much simpler back then…). However, one of Barin’s spies inside Ming’s palace, reports that General Lupi is to be executed that night, so they no longer have the luxury of time!

Flash and his group of 5 men, dressed as Frigians, land next to the abandoned drain tunnels by Ming’s palace while Ming and his scientist perform various “Death Dust” tests on the prisoners. Spies inside the palace open the tunnel gates for Flash. Ming finds out that they let Flash in, and are placed in the “Dust Chamber”, but Flash breaks into the room before they can kill them. With a mad hand-to-hand combat scene, Ming’s laboratory is destroyed, General Lupi is rescued (and a swarm of guards get beat up). Flash however, gets into a struggle with one of Ming’s personal body guards and they both fall down into the “Energy Pit”, plunging into the unknown…Will they survive? Stay tuned for episode 2!

Chapter 2 – “Freezing Torture”

We open chapter 2 with a summary of the previous chapter (remember that these serials usually had a week or so between each chapter):

“Following the wake of dictators, war, and the rumors of war – a ravaging plague, the “Purple Death”, strikes the Earth. Flash Gordon and professor Zarkov, believing Ming The Merciless is behind the “Purple Death”, start with Dale Arden in Zarkov’s rocket ship for Mongo. Arriving in Arboria to enlist aid of Prince Barin, they meet Fria, Queen of the Ice Kingdom, also seeking Barin’s aid against Ming. Joining forces they break into Ming’s laboratory in time to halt a fiendish laboratory test. But Flash pitted against a giant of tremendous strength….”

(Wow! That’s a pretty good review! I should have just used that for this article…)

As you remember, we closed the last chapter with Flash falling down a pit into the “Energy Pit” (not a good place to fall, let me tell you). Flash manages to grab onto an outcrop of rock (or something) and is pulled back up to safety by Zarkov. Ming, seeing that they have escaped, sends out word to the planet Mongo’s populace that there is a reward of 100,000 Mingos (I’m smiling while I type this!) for the capture of Flash and Dr. Zarkov.

Through a helpful wad of exposition (hey, they only had about 25 minutes per episode back then, so they couldn’t waste a lot of time…the plot had to keep moving!), Ming figures Flash made a deal with Queen Fria to help her rescue General Lupi in return for the mining rights of Polarite, the only cure for the “Purple Death”! Prince Barin’s trusted friend, Captain Ronal, overhears Ming mentioning that Polarite is a cure for the “Purple Death” and takes this crucial information back to Arboria.

Back in Arboria, Captain Ronal tells the others what he overheard Ming saying about Polarite, and after another brief council, the forces of good head off into the frozen wastelands of Frigia to find the Polarite deposits (easy to do, since Polarite melts the snow above it!). However, the Lady Sonja, Princess Aura’s lady-in-waiting, is a Ming spy who sneaks off to inform the Emperor of their plans.

Lady Sonja, Ming’s spy…

On the flight to Frigia, Flash engages the “Transparency Screen” in order to hide his ship from Ming’s ever-present air patrols. Ming’s Captain of the Guard, Captain Torch, reports back to Ming that Zarkov cannot be found, but Ming insists that he and Flash be brought back alive and “..the others can be destroyed” (ouch!). Despite the stepped-up efforts of the patrols, Flash and the mining expedition manage to land near a Polarite deposit. Spraying their faces with Calaroid, and wearing Calaroid treated clothes to avoid freezing, Flash, Dale, Barin, Captain Roka, and a miner (hmmm, wonder if he survives…) head of into the frozen lands of Frigia in order to find the Polarite (while Zarkov waits in the nice, cozy, warm ship!)

Calaroid Fashion Design, 1940

Luck is not with them on this day, for they discover that they must scale a huge wall of ice which stands between them and the Polarite. Well, as expected in these things, Dale slips and falls off an ice ledge. Flash and the others manage to pull her up using the ropes tied to their waists. On their way again, Flash and the others are spotted by a Ming patrol ship. The ship bombs the face of the mountain, causing a massive avalanche to rumble down. The hapless climbers can only try to hang on as the wall of snow and ice engulfs them…find out what happens next week!

Chapter 3 – “Walking Bombs”

A recap of Chapter 2 greets us:

“Flash is rescued from the energy pit and escapes with Zarkov from Ming’s palace. Ronal, Barin’s captain, learns there is an antidote for the “Purple Death”, a mineral known as “Polarite”, found only in frozen unlivable [sic] Frigia. Flash and Zarkov promptly lead an expedition into Frigia, protected from the unlivable cold by a discovery of Zarkov’s. A Ming ship, sent to destroy them, sees Flash, Dale, Barin, Roka, and one of the miners climbing a huge mountain searching for the Polarite. They drop a bomb. It misses but starts an avalanche which…. “

Things looked pretty bad for Flash and the gang last time. Zarkov, back at the ship, sees the avalanche sweep Flash and the others away (How exactly do this tele-monitors work? They see everything!). Zarkov and the rest of the crew assume they are dead and head off to “..blast Ming’s men from the skies!” (Make them pay!!!). Luckily, if not unsurprisingly, Flash and the others are ok, except for Barin who was critically injured (or at least knocked out), and the “miner” who tagged along from the ship who has been conveniently swept away.

The USS Phallus lands in the frozen kingdom of Frigia

Back at the landing site, Zarkov and the others is forced to take to the air by an attacking Ming patrol. Zarkov, showing his superior piloting skills, fights off the Ming patrol, which limps back to the Emperor’s palace to report what happened. Zarkov (now forgetting that he gave Flash up for dead, I guess) turns the ship around and begins a search of the avalanche for any signs of survivors. Flash manages to radio Zarkov and, er, pinpoints his location as being at “..the bottom of the deep chasm by the Polarite peak”. Hearing Flash’s pleas for help, Zarkov sends a rescue party to find them.

Inspiring music, coupled with stock footage of mountain climbers, accompany the rescue of Flash and the others. Safely back at the ship, Zarkov insists that Flash and his crew be checked for signs of exposure before they are allowed to start mining the Polarite. The next scene shows Flash and Zarkov on the surface of Frigia, where Zarkov says that they’ve mined enough Polarite for him to begin working on an antidote to the “Purple Death”. (Wow! These serials move fast! Don’t blink your eyes! You’ll miss something!)

Meanwhile, Captain Torch is trying to figure out how they could have possibly survived on the “unlivable” surface of Frigia. Figuring that it is probably some invention of “…that genius, Zarkov”, they continue their search of the area. Unfortunately for Flash, Torch spots them from the air while they are mining the Polarite. The patrol ship lands, but since they can’t survive on the surface, they use robotic soldiers to attack Flash and the miners (make sure to see the cool way the robots march around! This is great stuff!).

“Atteennnn-hut!”

Flash sees the approaching robots and warns the others “..They’re not human! They’re mechanical! Probably operated by someone we can’t see!” He zaps them with a ray gun to no effect. Seeing that a ray-gun had no effect, the miners take the next logical action and attack them with their shovels (!). It turns out that the robots can be detonated from Torch’s patrol ship, blowing up everybody in the vicinity. Overpowered and outnumbered, Flash and the miners try to flee, but Dale slips and falls again (*sigh*). Flash jumps down to help her and is attacked by a robot which explodes right next to him. Does Flash survive?…

Chapter 4 – “The Destroying Ray”

Recap of chapter 3, thoughtfully provided for us:

“Emperor Ming, rejoicing in the belief that Flash and his party have been destroyed, intercepts a radio message from Flash to his father, saying he has discovered Polarite, an antidote for the “Death Dust” with which Ming is bombarding the Earth. Ming, enraged, and knowing his soldiers cannot survive the intense cold of Frigia, sends Torch against the expedition with an army of mechanical men charged with explosives, which Torch can control and explode from his ship. Deep in the frozen wastes, the “Walking Bombs” attack the expedition and….”

As usual, things aren’t looking so hot for Flash. Instead of killing him, however, the explosion sends Flash reeling back against the rocks. With Flash unconscious, the robots walk over and kidnap Dale (who was knocked out by her fall while trying to escape the robots in chapter 3). Zarkov tries to save Dale, but is unsurprisingly knocked out too, and he himself is also taken hostage.

Dale and Zarkov, Torch’s newest prisoners…

Instead of destroying Zarkov’s ship before returning to Ming’s palace, Captain Torch insists that since he is the only pilot capable of flying it (??), they can just leave it behind and retrieve it later (Hmmm…. I wonder if Flash is going to use it to get to Ming’s palace…). Flash sees Ming’s patrol ship fly off with Dale and Zarkov and charitably decides to take the Polarite to Earth first, then come back to Mongo to “settle the score” with Ming later.

Back on Earth, Flash’s father announces to the world that the “Purple Death” fatality rate has dropped due to the efforts of Flash and Zarkov. Behind closed doors however, he admits that he is simply trying to “keep up moral”. The other world leaders in the conference room berate Flash’s father for misleading the public, but his paternal faith in his son is rewarded when Flash calls to confirm that they have in fact found massive deposits of Polarite, which will cure the “Purple Death”.

Flash delivers the good news about the Polarite

Flash informs them that he will drop the Polarite on top of Mt. McKinley (!?) where it will “…attract all the Death Dust to that particular spot and destroy it.” (!!) (Too bad for anybody living in the Mount McKinley area I suppose….) Flash flies circles around the mountain while Roka sprinkles the Polarite over the mountain, using a hand-scooper, one scoop-full at a time (this is going to take awhile…)

After successfully neutralizing the “Death Dust” (and probably killing everybody in the Mt. McKinley metropolitan area), Flash informs his father that he is going back to Mongo where Dale and Zarkov are being held prisoner. (Wow, things move fast!)

Back on the planet Mongo, Flash is spotted and attacked by Captain Torches patrol ship yet again. (Where exactly is Mongo? They travel back and forth to this planet like it was the corner grocery store…) Flash needs the patrol ship in order to sneak into Ming’s palace, so he turns on the “Smoke Screen” in order to make the patrol think his ship has been hit. (For some reason the smoke also fills the cockpit…but anyhoo…)

By use of the smoke screen, Flash feigns damage to the ship, and lands back on the frozen wastes of Frigia. Torch lands his ship next to Flash’s and runs over to investigate. Meanwhile, Flash and Roka hide behind some lockers and jump Torch when he enters the ship, taking him prisoner. Torch is forced to give the password to the palace ‘flight control’ so they can land and enter the palace grounds.

When they land at Ming’s space port, guards approach the ship to welcome Captain Torch’s return. However, it is not Captain Torch who comes out of the ship: it is Flash in disguise (Torch and his XO are tied up in the ship, stripped of their uniforms). Flash and Roka knock the guards unconscious and make their way into the palace.

In the palace, a gloating Ming informs Dale that Zarkov has refuse “his terms” and must now face the consequences (this can’t be good…)

Zarkov about to face the consequences…

Zarkov is told that he still has a few moments to reconsider, before the “automatic clock” releases Ming’s Destroying Ray upon him. Zarkov refuses (…I’m still not sure what Ming’s “terms” are, but can they be that bad?)…and Dale insists that she wants to die along side Zarkov. Ming refuses her request, saying that he will not lose “…the bride he has waited for so long…”. (yech!)

While this magnificent drama is playing out in Ming’s death chamber, Flash and Roka, disguised in guard uniforms, are making their way through the palace…

Shhhh….they’re in disguise!

Flash and Roka hide behind some stone columns as a couple passing guards helpfully exposit that Ming is about to kill Zarkov with the “Destroying Ray”. Flash and Roka jump the guards as they walk by, just as the “automatic clock” strikes the hour, thus starting the ray. As is typical in these movies, the ray does not instantly strike Zarkov and kill him, rather it hits the floor on the other side of the room and slowly makes its way towards the bound Zarkov, inch by inch….accompanied by a strange buzz-saw sound.

Flash jumps into the room from a convenient alcove and attempts to free Zarkov. Ming laughs as Flash struggles with Zarkov’s bounds…the death ray approaches and strikes Flash right in the chest…is this the end?!!!

Chapter 5 – “The Palace of Terror”

Chapter 4 summary:

“Flash and Roka capture a Ming ship and force its crew to fly them to Ming’s palace, hoping to rescue Dale and Zarkov. Disguised as Ming guards, they make their way to the palace corridors. Overhearing a guard saying Zarkov is about to meet death in the arena, Flash races up the stairs leading to the arena, and through a window sees Zarkov standing manacled between two pillars. As Ming’s voice sentences Zarkov and the “Death Ray” starts toward the helpless victim, Flash leaps through the window and….”

The Destroying Ray focuses on Flash’s heaving chest while Roka runs up the stairs and into the same alcove that Flash jumped through (Hmmm…maybe Ming should seal that one up?). Roka fires a ray gun into the “Automatic Clock”, thus destroying the death ray. (I have to admit that I’m not too impressed with the potency of the death ray…it has been burning right into Flash’s face for several seconds now with no effect, despite Flash’s grimacing to convince us of the contrary.)

Ming’s, *ahem*, Death Ray

Unable to free Zarkov before Ming’s guards can seize them, Zarkov tells Flash and Roka to head for the palace caverns and leave him behind. Taking Zarkov’s advice, Flash and Roka rush out of the arena and into the caverns. Dale is ushered out of the viewing area by a gaggle of Ming’s handmaidens, while Ming commands that Zarkov is to be brought to him at once (Huh? Why has he suddenly decided not to kill him?)

Dale is brought to her cell, and upon being released, turns around and smacks the guard right in the face! Great stuff! This cat-fight is unfortunately broken up by a male guard (*sigh*) and Dale is left to await her fate.

Ming, in the meanwhile, offers Zarkov his life if he meets certain conditions (Didn’t he already turn down this offer? Isn’t this why he was put in front of the “Destroying Ray” in the first place?) The deal is this: Zarkov will use his scientific knowledge to develop inventions for Ming. Zarkov agrees as long as “…it will benefit humanity..” (Doesn’t this seem in direct contradiction with working for Ming? I mean, he is the source of all the “Death Dust” isn’t he? How can developing other weapons for Ming to be used against humanity, be to the benefit of humanity? This ethical paradox is not explored…) Zarkov is taken to Ming’s laboratories where he will work with “…great scientists from other planets… “, where they will all work for Ming’s conquest of the universe. (Once again, Zarkov, I can’t see how you can justify taking this job by saying it’s for the benefit of humanity…)

Flash and Roka find their way to the cavern entrance, of course beating up a couple of guards on the way and taking their uniforms. While this is happening, Zarkov is accustoming himself to his new surroundings in Ming’s laboratories, chatting with the other “great scientists”, and recruiting them to help him fight against Ming’s power

Tricking a guard (…what is the IQ requirements for working as one of Ming’s Imperial Guards anyway…?), Flash and Roka rescue Dale and her unnamed cellmate from their rather luxurious prison cell. Dale successfully rescued, release papers in hand (huh?), Flash and Roka, still in disguise, now head to the laboratories in order to save Zarkov. (Why do the guard uniforms have face coverings so that Flash won’t be recognized? Just a little thought for you, Ming, get rid of those masks so you can recognize intruders right away.)

Flash, Dale, Roka, and Zarkov in Ming’s laboratory

Instead of leaving with Flash, Zarkov considers it wiser that he remain as a prisoner in the labs where he can work to “counter-act Ming’s defenses…”, thus leaving Ming open to attack. (How Zarkov will accomplish this feat with a bunch of test tubes and beakers is not explored.) Flash agrees and gives Zarkov a “radiophone” so that they can stay in contact.

Before they can leave, a guard comes in and discovers Flash’s identity. Thinking that the disguised Roka is one of Ming’s soldiers, he leaves Flash under Roka’s “guard” and heads of to get Captain Torch. As soon as they leave, Roka and Flash leave the lab along with Dale, with Zarkov remaining behind. Understandably, Torch is a little confused when he arrives in the lab and sees that Flash is gone. With a round of discussion between Torch and Zarkov that sounds a lot like Abbot and Costello’s “Who’s on First” routine, Torch gets fed up and runs off to report to Ming that he thinks a conspiracy is afoot (Gee, Torch, you really think so?!).

Ming doubles the reward for Dale’s capture (now it’s 200,000 Mingos!), and notes that Flash should be taken too, “…but not necessarily alive!” (?) With the threat of death if he should fail again (a rather empty threat at this point, since he has failed so many times already), Torch stomps off to find the fugitives.

Back at the lab, Zarkov uses a Television-thingee to see a fleet of Prince Barin’s ships approaching Ming’s palace. Zarkov escapes the laborotry-prison with the use of an escape “device” (?) that his fellow prisoner, Professor Karm, gives him. Zarkov radios Flash and tells him that he will meet them in the “space court” where they can all escape from Ming’s palace using the ship that Flash parked there when they arrived. (Whew! Did you get all that?).

Torch, assuming that they will try to use that same ship, sabotages the ship with a “Fire Chemical” bomb. Flash and Roka beat up some more useless guards who try to stop them getting onto the ship. Roka is knocked out trying to get into the ship and falls onto the ‘launch’ lever. The ship takes off automatically with only the unconscious Roka on board. After a few seconds, the hidden bomb explodes and sets the ship on fire. Flash, Dale, and Zarkov (who has just showed up) take another ship and try to catch up with the helpless Roka. (What they plan to do once they catch up with his ship…I’m pretty eager to find out…).

In a most incredible rescue (even for this movie), Flash ties a rope to his ship and rappels down to Roka’s burning rocket ship while they are both flying through the sky! Flash lowers the unconscious Roka down to his ship (which Dale has maneuvered underneath the burning ship) and then climbs down himself just as the rocket ship explodes.

Mistaking Flash’s stolen ship as a Ming patrol, Prince Barin’s ships engage him with their “Destructo Rays” (the radio is unfortunately out of order, so Flash can’t tell them to hold their fire). Outgunned, Flash’s ship takes a direct hit and plummets towards the ground…

Chapter 6 – “Flaming Death”

Greeted with the chapter 5 summary:

“Flash and Roka, after escaping from the arena, and while frantic search was being made for them, ambush two guards and, disguised in their uniforms, return to Ming’s palace to rescue Dale and Zarkov. After a further encounter with guards, and a hazardous mid-air rescue of Roka from a burning ship, Flash and his party are congratulating themselves on escaping in one of Ming’s ships, when suddenly an approaching Barin ship opens fire on them. Flash, realizing Barin is mistaking them for his enemy Ming, tries desperately to signal Barin’s ship but…..”

We see that the shot to Flash’s ship was not fatal, but merely severely damages the craft. Flash uses the ship’s guns to shoot rockets in a “dot-dash” signal that he and Barin had previously worked out! Barin recognizes the signal and tells his ships to hold their fire. (It’s pretty funny to see Barin interpret the “code”…He looks out the window and for each “bang” of a rocket going off, he translates one word of the message…so it’s like:

<Bang!> Barin: “This”

<Bang!> Barin: “is”

<Bang!> Barin: “Flash”

<Bang!> Barin: “Gordon”

(That’s a pretty concise code!)

Using the “Grapple and Transfer” method (I’m not making that up), Flash and his crew, well, grapple and transfer over to Barin’s ship just as the crippled ship explodes. They head back to Barin’s palace in order to discuss a way to combat Ming’s new weapon of destruction that Zarkov learned about while being held prisoner.

Back at the palace, we learn through good-old-exposition, that Ming’s new weapon is “Ultranilium”, a metal that explodes upon contact with air. Before attacking the Earth, Ming wants to test the weapon on the Prince Barin’s kingdom of Arboria. Captain Torch objects, noting that the forests of Arboria are the source of “…all the fine timber in Mongo” (!) Ming consoles him by saying that they will only fire warning shots into barren sections of the forest to serve as a warning to Barin. (Boy, Captain Torch is environmentalist!) Despite the fact that Princess Aura, Ming’s daughter has fled to Arboria, the cruel Ming insists on continuing the test firing. Ming reconsiders and sends a secret message to his spy, Lady Sonja, commanding her to contrive a way to get his daughter out of the palace and thus out of danger.

We cut to a scene with Sonja and Aura out riding unicorns (?) in the Arborian forests, so we can only assume that Sonja has managed to get Aura out of the castle, as per Ming’s instructions. The treacherous Sonja, leads them into a unicorn-ambush and Princess Aura is taken prisoner again.

Meanwhile, back in Barin’s labs (which look suspiciously like Ming’s labs…), he reads aloud a message he has received, warning him of the upcoming display of Ultranilium’s destructive power. Zarkov will have a machine ready to defend against the missiles in a couple of days (good old Zarkov!). Barin insists that Ming is bluffing because he would never fire at Arboria as long as his daughter was there. At that second, a survivor of the ambush, limps in and reports that Aura has been abducted and taken back to Ming’s palace. (Doh!). With Princess Aura out of Arboria, Ming is now free to release his attack.

Chateau d’ Ming

Back at the palace, Ming finds out that Zarkov has developed a defense against his “fiery projectiles”. This defense requires Zarkov to radio to Flash the locations where the missiles hit. Angry at being stymied yet again, Ming orders his feisty daughter to be taken to the “women’s quarters”. (Oo-la-la!) In a flash of brilliant inspiration, Ming commands Torch and Sonja to go back to Arboria, find Barin’s radio transmitter and destroy it, thus preventing Barin from being able to send the missile-hit coordinates to Flash.

In the meantime, Zarkov explains to Flash how he can use a new device to cloak his ship in “contra-thermal waves”, rendering it immune to heat, thus Flash can fly up to the conflagrations causes by missiles and emplace the devices that will render them inert (or something…you get the idea).

Ming fires the first projectile, and it lands in the Arborian wastelands as planned. Zarkov has to calculate the coordinates and radio them to Flash (which seem odd since Flash watched it land from his space ship…). Coordinates received, the ship lands and Flash dons a silver anti- flame suit, jumps out of the ship, and proceeds to set in place one of the anti-conflagration devices. However, the “contra-thermal wave” generator doo-hickey fails, and Flash is exposed to the full brunt of the heat….he faints….something-or-other explodes…and we fade to black.

Chapter 7 – “The Land of the Dead”

Chapter 6 recap:

“Ming has his daughter, Princess Aura, removed from Barin’s kingdom, which he is going to destroy with a fiery projectile. Flash, to defeat Ming’s purpose, takes off with Dale and Ronal in a ship equipped with Zarkov’s untested Thermal Control, constructed to combat the effects of Ming’s fiendish invention. Dale and Ronal, operating the Control from the ship, watch Flash, in a fireproof uniform, fighting his way into the blazing inferno as the first projectile falls. The Thermal Control resists the terrific temperature, but suddenly the intense heat melts a connection, the Control fails and ….”

Somehow, amazingly, the Thermal Control seems to fix itself (indicated by a big light that turns back on), and Flash struggles back to the ship. Flash radios back to Zarkov to inform him that the anti-fire devices (or whatever) work perfectly and they will be waiting for the next set of coordinates. Just as Zarkov is about to tell Flash the coordinates to where the other projectiles have fallen, a Ming bomber flies over Barin’s palace, drops a bomb, and blows up the radio transmitter (hasn’t Prince Barin heard of anti-aircraft defense?)

Barin’s ships scramble to face the threat (umm…a little to late for that, isn’t it?) of the single bomber. They drive off the bomber and Zarkov fixes the radio (Zarkov! You go boy!) and transmits the next set of coordinates to Flash. The Ming bomber, piloted by Captain Torch, makes a fake crash landing (hey, it seems like everybody uses that trick around here…), tricking Barin’s fighters into thinking that the bomber was destroyed.

After the simulated crash, the wily Captain Torch radios to Ming that they were forced down. Ming, quick on his feet as usual, tells Torch and Sonja to infiltrate Barin’s palace and find what Zarkov is planning to do next…

In Barin’s lab, Zarkov is showing off his new weapon to use against Ming. It’s a gun that shoots a “neutralizing cartridge” (?) that will disable all of Ming’s guns and ships. However, due to a minor design flaw, when the gun fires it destroys itself and releases a poisonous gas in the resulting explosion (!) (Sorry, Zarkov, I’m not too impressed with that design…). To overcome these, um, ‘shortcomings’, they will place the gun in a desolate area called “The Land of the Dead”, and fire it at Ming’s castle via remote control.

Zarkov dons a Peter Pan hat and convinces the others that a self-destructing, poison-gas spewing gun is a useful weapon.

Meanwhile, Sonja and Torch, still wearing the uniform of Ming’s forces (ever heard of a ‘disguise’?) overcome the single guard watching the entrance to Barin’s castle. Ahh, nevermind, Torch has taken the uniform of the unconscious guard and made his way into the laboratory. He takes Roka and another scientist prisoner and tries to destroy the gun. Roka manages to throw some sort of exploding powder in Torch’s face and drives him from the room.

Back in Ming’s palace, the Emperor is talking with his daughter, Princess Aura, and dutifully exposits that Flash and the others are heading into a trap in The Land of the Dead. (cue evil laughter).

On the way to the Land of the Dead (LOTD), Flash finds out that this area was once inhabited by a race of “Rock Men”, but they passed into “oblivion” a long time ago, so no need to worry (yeah, sure!). Flash and his crew are spotted by a Ming ship, but decide to evade it by turning on the “Disappearing Screen”, so as not to endanger the one-of-a-kind weapon that they have on board. (Why haven’t they use these defensive mechanisms before?)

Torch reports to Ming that they have disappeared, but Ming is sure of their destination. He commands Torch to use his “Speed Ship” to get to the LOTD before Flash, and plant his blasting mines by “Giant Dome Rock”. After landing, Sonja volunteers to keep watch on a ledge as Torch sets the mine in place. Unfortunately, the Roc Men (one of the more bogus looking special effects so far, and that says a lot!) attack and capture the treacherous Sonja.

Out of nowhere, comes a giant lizard, of the rare species that looks like a normal iguana with extra dorsal fins glued onto it. (This rare species of giant lizards also has a roar that sounds like somebody screeching into an empty tin can.)

The horrible "Iguanathon"

The rock men avoid this terrible beast by clumping together and standing still, thus appearing as rocks, until the ‘monster’ walks past them. (I’m not trying to pick on this film here, I realize that this was made in 1940, but these last effects where so hokey, they deserved special mention!) The rock men take Sonja deep into their underground lair where the Rock King dismisses them. (Can’t help but notice that rock-man language sounds incredibly like a recording of somebody talking being played backwards…)

Torch, oblivious to the fact that Sonja has been captured (not to mention that they didn’t even see the giant lizard walk by), dutifully continues implanting the mines. He also fails to notice the group of Rock Men sneaking up to attack them. Well, needless to say, Torch and his men are also captured by the Rock Men (maybe if Torch’s men would have fought back with their ray guns instead of shovels, they would have stood a better chance of escape…).

Flash lands his ship in the LOTD, and they decide to scout around before getting the gun into position. They too come under attack by the Rock Men, and in the struggle fail to see Torch’s mine which detonates with ear-shattering explosion. Does Flash come out of this alive…we’ll see in chapter 8!

Chapter 8 – “The Fiery Abyss”

Recapping as usual:

“Ming’s attack on Barin’s kingdom prompts Zarkov to perfect an “N”-Ray, to be discharged from a powerful Nullitrion, to neutralize and render useless Ming’s power plant. Barin tells Flash the Nullitrion can best be directed against Ming’s palace from the Devil’s Dome, in the Land of The Dead. Ming leasrns of their plans, and his soldiers plant a powerful time bomb on the Devil’s Dome, but are promptly captured by Rock Men. Flash and his party land, unaware of the bomb and the Rock Men who are watching and….”

The time bomb’s (yes, I know I refer erred to it as a ‘land mine’ before, but that’s what Captain Torch called it) explosion somehow knocks everybody unconscious without killing them, making Flash and the rest easy pickings for the Rock Men that rush over and take them captive. Flash and his unconscious companions are carried over to a wall of rock, while Torch and his soldiers watch from under guard. A Rock Man bangs on the rock with a stone, and a gas comes out of a crack, wafting over the motionless forms of Flash, Dale, Zarkov and Roka. We learn from Torch’s never ending exposition, that this is how the Rock Men find out if somebody is dead or not. (!). As imagined, Flash and the rest revive and Zorkav begins talking with the Rock Men (you see, Zarkov is fluent in the Rock Man language, which Zarkov informs us is “…an ancient language, spoken by the Lost Tribes, that once inhabited the Gobi desert on Earth” (!!!))

With the help of Zarkov’s translation, Flash and the others find out they are being taken to the Rock King. Flash asks why they have been taken prisoner, to which Zarkov replies that they Rock Men blame them for the explosion. (But didn’t the Rock Men attack them first, before the bomb went off, with no provocation?)

On the way to the Rock Men’s lair, they encounter the giant lizard from chapter 7 (How do I know it’s the same one? Because they show the exact same footage!). Zarkov, master of biology, tells them they are safe if they stand still, but the breath is deadly poison (huh?). In a scene of utter horror, one of Torch’s guards breaks free, runs off and gets eaten by a lizard. (Duh!) This scene over, the Rock Men take their prisoners under ground to meet the king.

Sonja and Dale, prisoners of the Rock Men!

The king’s son, the Rock Prince (I’m not making this up!), has not come back since the explosion, and the king is laying the blame at the feet of Flash Gordon. Furthermore, their lives will be forfeit if his son does not soon return. Despite Zarkov’s attempts to blame the whole mess on Torch, the group is marched off to their stony cells to wait while a search party looks for the Rock Prince. (Dale and Sonja are of course sent to a women’s cell!)

To kill some time, Zarkov and Flash exchange some silly dialog regarding the origins of the Rock Men, then retire to the bunks to try to come up with an escape plan. While this is going on, Dale and Sonja, are sharing a cell together (I wonder if there is going to be cat fight!). Dale thinking that Sonja is asleep, pulls out a hidden radio and radios Zarkov’s friend, Professor Karm, who is still being help prisoner in Ming’s laboratory. Karm has to call her back because Ming is coming, and hangs up. Sonja, overhearing the whole thing, demands that Dale hand over her radio. A cat fight ensues (yes!), and the Rock Man guards are compelled to enter the cell and break it up. However, during the struggle, Sonja has somehow taken the radio, and knowing that Ming is in the room with Karm, transmits a fake message thanking him for all of his assistance to Flash.

Ming overhears this, and becomes upset to say the least. Instead of killing him on the spot, he commands the guards to lock Karm in a cell until he can think of a good way to execute him (and to provide time for him to be rescued).

Flash, Roka, and Zarkov have come up with an ingenious plan. Roka pretends to be poisoned (!), and when the guards come in to investigate, Flash and Zarkov run out. (Hey, this is a serial film, just go with the flow, ok?). They escape from the lair of the Rock Men (should have called them Rock Heads, I mean, despite the cool way they talk, they really aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer, if you get my drift…).

Back on the surface, Flash and Zarkov run around looking for their ship, when Zarkov notices a “..strong gravity pull from the left…”. Well, as Zarkov expected, this part of Mongo is composed of “..highly magnetic particles!” Flash notices a Rock Man trapped in the magnetic field, high up on a ledge (I wonder if that’s the Rock Prince…whoops! I hope I didn’t give anything away!) They realize that the explosive has uncovered an “lode stone” which has created a massive magnetic field. (Which also effects flesh, rocks, and Styrofoam boulders that roll towards the lode stone, nearly crushing Flash.) Zarkov hurries to tell the Rock King that his son has been found, while Flash attempts to rescue the Rock Prince.

Things are heating up back in the Rock Men’s lair, as Dale and Roka are taken to the execution chamber along with Torch and his guards. The Rock Men toss a guard into a flaming pit for good measure, while Dale screams, cowering in Roka’s arms. They choose Dale as the next to be tossed into the flames, pick her up and…and…we’ll see what happens next!

Chapter 9 – “The Pool of Peril”

A friendly summary of last week proceeds as normal:

“The Land of The Dead, inhabited by Rock Men, becomes the battleground of a scientific war against Ming. Flash and his party are captured by the Rock Men, who also capture Ming’s soldiers. The Rock King condemns all to death, blaming them for the disappearance of his son. Flash and Zarkov escape by a clever ruse and discover the Rock Prince helpless in the grip of a powerful lodestone. Flash attempts his rescue while Zarkov hurries to the Rock King but…..”

Flash pushes a boulder onto the loadstone causing it to explode (!), thus negating the magnetic field. In the execution chamber, Roka picks up a rock and throws it into the head of one of the Rock Men who is pushing Dale towards the flaming pit. The guard is stunned by the blow, thus allowing Dale and Roka to run from the room, with Rock Men in hot pursuit. This time the Rock Men manage to save some face and capture them after a short trot through the caverns. Taking Dale and Roka back to the chamber, they proceed to shove Dale towards the ledge again. Zorkav, runs in and halts the execution, explaining that the Rock Prince has been found! The Rock Prince, being rescued by Flash, pledges his lifelong service in return. (Nobody can accuse the Rock Men of being ungrateful!)

Taking advantage of this joyful reunion, Torch, Sonja and his only remaining guard, Lt. Thong (!) break free and escape back to the surface (but not without the mandatory fist-fight with the rock guards). Torch discovers that his ship was destroyed when the mine exploded, so they decide to hijack Flash’s ship instead (which is still being guarded by Prince Barin. As they are sneaking up on the ship, Sonja sees some stock footage of the same lizard from a couple chapters ago, and screams (brother!). Barin, hearing Sonja screaming, looks out the porthole and spots Torch . (Torch chides Sonja for screaming to which she defends herself by saying, “I couldn’t help it! That iguanathon scared me!”)

Sonja, Torch and Lt. Thong

Inside the ship, Barin sounds some sort of alarm in order to warn Flash that Torch is near. Heeding the alarm, Flash and the Rock Men split up in order to surround Torch (or something). Torch and the others make a stand and start tossing improbably large boulders down on Flash and Roka who are making their way up the mountain side. Having successfully outflanked Torch, a Rock Man attacks from behind, Flash and Roka join the fray while Sonja stands to the side and makes worried faces. As you can probably guess, the bad guys get knocked out and Sonja is recaptured. Flash thanks the Rock Prince and tells them that they are now “square” (so much for a lifetime of service!).

Together again, Dale suggests that Ming might exchange Princess Aura for Sonja, Torch, and Thong, so they all pile into the ship and take off back to Arboria. On the way back, Barin exposits his plan to free Princess Aura. He warns Flash that the plan is “…a risky one at best, and may not succeed…”, (Gee, is that different from any other plan in this movie?!). In a nutshell, they will enter the dungeon caverns under the palace where Barin still has a guard loyal to him, Captain Sudan, and with his aid, they will find Aura and rescue her. Wow! That sure is a hell of a plan!

Flash radios Professor Karm, under Ming’s arrest for his treachery, and informs him of their plans (Why does Karm still have a radio?). Captain Sudan, agrees that the plan is a good one (I’m seriously doubting his judgement…) and promises to open the gates at midnight, when he will be on duty in the control room. (Don’t ask what Sudan is doing in the prison cell with Karm, who knows…).

Landing at the gates, at midnight I guess, Flash and the others make their way to the cavern entrance (Dale has to help Ronal guard the prisoners in the ship, “Good Girl!”, says Flash in appreciation of her duties.). Captain Sudan comes through, and opens the gates. Entering the caverns, Flash, Roka, Barin, and Zarkov (I’m getting pretty good with these names, I must say!) see a group of four guards coming their way. In the ensuing fist fight, an alarm is raised, and Ming comes to the control room to investigate. Seeing Flash and his party on some sort of TV-thingee, he tells Sudan to open the flood gates and fill the caverns with water. Sudan, having no choice, is forced to comply. The water roars into the caverns, and washes everybody away….can this finally be the end of Flash?

Chapter 10 – “The Death Mist”

Summary of chapter 9 ensues:

“Emperor is holding his daughter, Princess Aura, as a hostage in his war against Prince Barin, Flash Gordon and Doctor Zarkov. Leaving the Land of the Dead, and with Torch, Sonja and Thong prisoners, Flash and his friends accompany Barin in his ship to Ming’s palace in a daring attempt to rescue the Princess. Through the co-operation of Captain Sudan, of Ming’s guards, they enter the tunnels beneathe the palace, but they are attacked by a party of Ming’s guards who sound an alarm and ……”

Things were looking pretty grim last time, the water rising, threatening to drown everybody in the tunnels. Ming, satisfied that Flash is as good as dead, leaves the control room, allowing Sudan the opportunity to rush back over open a door leading into a side tunnel, thus preventing Flash and the others from being washed into “…the bottomless pit…”

Captain Sudan in the palace Fun House, er, Control Room

Swept out into a side tunnel, the soggy band of heroes run back to their ship in defeat and take off from the wastelands (using a scene from an earlier chapter where they take off from the space port!).

In the palace, Ming gloats about the deaths of Flash and his party to Princess Aura and Karm. (Why would he care what Karm thinks about the whole thing? Wasn’t he locked up with a death sentence for treachery?) Upon hearing the news of his friends supposed deaths, Karm loses his temper and starts choking Ming (not without saying a “…Why you..!” before charging the throne). Karm is, predictably, knocked unconscious and carried back to his cell by some guards, (once again…just kill him!!!) At that very moment, Barin calls on Karm’s radio, which Ming has confiscated and carries around with him now.

Barin is unaware, of course, that Ming has the radio and hears everything. Ming has one of his guards imitates Karm’s voice over the radio in order to feed Barin false information. The guard, pretending to be Karm, tells Barin that Ming has no plans to attack Arboria at the moment. Lulled into a sense of security, Barin decides to pull in his patrols and go on the offensive: To mass his forces and attack Ming in an effort to finally free Princess Aura once and for all.

Down in Barin’s prison cells, Flash and Dale ask Torch about the size of Ming’s forces, to which Torch understandly refuses to give out any information.

Flash exposits that it’s too bad Lt. Thong escaped (What?!! When?!!), because he certainly would have rolled over on Ming. Since Thong has escaped, they decide to ask Sonja some questions. The cunning Sonja will talk only if she can talk to Flash alone. Dale reluctantly leaves, allowing Sonja to take Flash’s hand through the cell door, trying to woo her way out of the cell. She even goes on to say that if Flash will release her, she will show him how to overthrow both Barin and Ming, then they could rule the universe together. Flash wisely declines, and goes off to talk to Zarkov.

As soon as Flash leaves, Sonja and Torch begin communicating by some sort of code, tapping on the bars and cell walls (which the prison guard amazingly manages not to hear). Through a series of about 12 taps, they arrange a plan (this code must be based on the incredibly concise Gordon-Barin Rocket-Boom code used in chapter 6…). Sonja pretends to hang herself, letting off a scream, which the (only) guard reacts to by running into her cell, untying her, and getting shot by his own gun (sigh). Sonja frees Torch and they run off into the palace to raise havoc.

In the lab, Flash confers with Zarkov, asking about Karm’s exact words (remember that it wasn’t actually Karm, but one of Ming’s guards ‘imitating’ his voice…)

When Flash hears the exact words, he tells the others that it was in fact NOT Karm that had radioed in the information about Ming’s plans. He goes on to tell them that he and Karm had worked out code words to avoid a situation like that. (Well, Flash, maybe you should have told the others about these code words, eh?). They deduce that Ming is actually planning an immediate attack! (Once again, Flash, thanks for sharing those code words with us, so we could know that it was a fake message!)

We next see Sonja and Torch running through the halls of Barin’s palace. They hear some of Barin’s guards coming so they duck into a side passage until they pass. In a highly amusing shot, Torch pulls down his face mask when the guards walk by, then puts it back up after they have passed. Why does he bother to do that? So they don’t recognize him? Well, he is still in his full Ming’s Army uniform. For protection in case he has to fight? Maybe, but judging by the way everybody knocks everybody else out pretty regularly, I haven’t seen any evidence that this face shield does any good at all.

Flash, in the mean time, goes to the palace radio room and tells the radio operator to warn all the patrols that an attack from Ming is on the way. Little does he know, Sonja and Torch are hiding in the radio room too (how many back doors and little hiding spots do these rooms have?!!). When Flash leaves, Torch runs over and, you guessed it, knocks out the radio operator. With Sonja watching the door, Torch radios Ming’s palace. Ming tells Torch that he is sending gas bombers to bomb Barin’s palace. Ming commands Torch to use the radio to broadcast a bogus recall order to Barin’s ships so that the gas bombers can attack without resistance. Torch complies and starts to call in Barin’s patrols (Hey, Torch, you realize that Ming is going to gas bomb the very palace that you are sitting in, don’t you?) Receiving the orders to return to base for repairs (!!), the patrols turn back and leave the way open for Ming’s gas bombers.

Dale and Roka finally see that Sonja and Torch have escaped. Dale tells Roka to warn the guards, while she will sound the alarm from the radio room. (Why on Earth the alarm is in the radio room and not the cell block is not discussed.) As expected, a showdown ensues in the radio room, resulting in Torch taking Dale hostage and running off with her. (Not before a nice little cat-fight between Dale and Sonja). Not only that, but Torch has disabled the radio so the Barin can’t countermand the bogus orders to return to base! Fiends!

Trying to flee the palace but cut off from the main exit, Torch and Sonja take Dale and head up to the roof, with Flash and the others in hot pursuit. Just as Torch and Sonja reach the palace roof, Ming’s gas bombers begin dropping their deadly payload. Torch tries to signal the bombers by waving his jacket, so that they won’t bomb him too (didn’t he think of this before?!!), but to no avail. As the bombs fall, Flash climbs up over the top of the wall and starts beating up Torch. This of course allows Dale the chance to start clawing and punching Sonja (ahhh..wonderful to watch those two fight, I must say). The gas bombs continue to fall, and finally Dale and Sonja are overwhelmed by the poison and fall unconscious to the ground. Flash and Torch, however, somehow manage to scramble up and over the edge of the tower and plummet over the side…This must be the end of Flash this time…How can he survive this terrible turn events? Tune in next time and find out!

Chapter 11 – “Stark Treachery”

Here we go! Chapter 10 summary:

“Torch and Sonja, Ming’s agents, confined in prison cells in Barin’s palace, escape to the radio room, overpower the operator, and communicate with Ming. Ming instructs Torch to send out a false order grounding Barin’s space ships, in order to clear the way for the Ming bombers, and to then destroy the radio to prevent Barin countermanding the order. Dale overhears the order and is captured by Torch and Sonja, who flee with her to the roof of the palace. Flash pursues and corners them, and is battling with Torch when Ming’s bombers…”

Flash and Torch fall from the tower and into the palace moat (which, sigh, knocks Torch unconscious (!)). Flash grabs the motionless Torch and swims with him to the edge of the moat. Meanwhile, Roka, seeing the gas, tells the others to “…cover their noses…” (?), then they head of to the “gas control valves” (??).

Mission completed, one of the Ming’s gas bombers lands beside the palace to, uh, investigate I guess. The crew dons their, *ahem*, gas masks, and leave the ship to see the results of the attack. Somehow, the reach the palace roof, and take the unconscious Sonja, Dale, and Ronal back to their ship and take off back to Ming’s palace.

Back in Barin’s radio room, with the aid of some exposition, we learn that Ming’s bombers were driven away and the attack was a failure. Through some incredibly illogical dialog, Torch himself suggests that Flash keep him hostage in an effort to get Dale back. (How do they know Dale is hostage? Because Torch says he saw a ship fly away with her, (while he was unconscious in the moat?))

Back in Ming’s palace, Thong and Sonja report what has happened. Ming, wanting to speak to Thong and Sonja in private, dismissed his entire court (about 20 or 30 people!). This should be pretty good…

Lt. Thong reporting to Ming

Alone at last, Ming starts chewing out Thong and Sonja for the failure of the mission, pointing out that his ablest captain and adviser, Torch (he is his ablest?) is taken prisoner, and that he has lost 2 ships in the attack. (It would appear to me, that if a loss of 2 ships is a heavy blow to your military forces, maybe you aren’t quite in the position to try and conquer the universe…but what do I know?) Ming initiates a hostage exchange with Prince Barin and the excitement builds.

The exchange takes place, Torch in return for both Dale and Ronal. However, Dale has been poisoned before she left the palace and quickly lapses into, yes, unconsciousness…With a note tucked into Ronal’s belt before he was exchanged, they learn that in order to save Dale, Zarkov must personally take her back to Ming’s palace.

Zarkov complies and flies to Ming’s palace with the ailing Dale, with Flash, Barin, and Ronal tagging along, discussing various plans as to how to best rescue them once they turn themselves over to Ming. Roka suggests that they can gain entrance to the palace via the “Abandoned Tunnel”. Ok, really now. How many friggin’ tunnels are under this palace? Hasn’t he ever heard of concrete? You know, block them up? Sheesh!

Ming, true to his word, revives Dale once Zarkov shows up, and escorts her back to her cell that she shares with Princess Aura. Zarkov is left to labor in the labs again. (That doesn’t seem like such a great idea, considering what happened last time.) Back in Ming’s chambers, we find out that Sonja is to prepare Dale for her wedding with Ming in the morning! Yeah, there’s a match made in Heaven!

At the entrance to the so-called “abandoned tunnels”, Flash and Barin start beating up a couple of Ming’s guards who happened to be at the entrance. As luck would have it, the guards are in fact Captain Sudan’s men, who cheerfully give them one of their uniforms (I say cheerfully, because Barin just beat the crap out of him and barely apologized). Prince Barin, dressed in the uniform, will pretend to be an “official escort” in case they are stopped on the way to where Dale and Princess Aura are being kept.

Flash, Barin, and Roka begin winding their way through the tunnels, stumbling across dusty skeletons and the like, just so we remember that the tunnels are in fact abandoned. After what appears to be quite a short trip through the tunnels, they blast open a locked door and, voila, they are in the North wing, just a few feet from the door to Dale’s chambers.

In the room, Flash sees Dale and Princess Aura sleeping. Flash suspects a trap and goes in alone (funny how he senses a trap now, when he has fallen into every other trap for the last 10 episodes…), leaving Roka and Barin in the hallway. (He takes Barin’s sword with him, why not the ray-gun that Barin just used to blast open the tunnel door?) As he approaches the slumbering Dale, she awakes and warns him to stop, but it’s too late. A flash, an explosion, and fade to black. Are you ready for the final chapter in this saga?

Chapter 12 – “Doom of the Dictator”

Our final summary begins:

“Ming’s air attack on Barin’s palace is beaten off and Torch recaptured by Flash Gordon, but the escaping enemy ships carry off Dale Arden. Zarkov is tricked into Ming’s power and, with Dale and Princess Aura already his prisoners, Ming now holds the whip hand over Flash and Barin. Flash leads a rescue party into Ming’s palace, by means of an abandoned tunnel, and locates the room where Dale and Aura are held. Unaware that the room is protected by a death-dealing electrical trap, Flash, sword in hand….”

Flash is merely stunned by the trap (maybe they should have called it a “stun-dealing electrical trap” in the introduction…), and Barin begins to rush into the same trap before Aura warns him that the rug is electrified. Barin finds the switch to turn off the current and the happy pair are finally reunited.

The Women’s Prison Quarters (…looks pretty damn swank to me!)

Ming finds out yet again that Flash has broken into his palace and rescued his prisoners (about time for a review of your Royal Security Measures, I would say, eh Ming?). A full search is begun, with a special guard put on the laboratory where Zarkov is being kept. Good idea. Just at that moment, Flash and the others reach the lab and a fist fight ensues with the guards watching over the entrance to the lab. As usual, the guards are knocked out and the uniforms stolen. Unfortunately, an alarm has been sounded and Flash, Roka, Barin, Dale, and Aura (whew!) barricade themselves in the lab along with Zarkov and another of Ming’s cadre of imprisoned interplanetary professors: Professor Druk. Captain Torch reaches the lab, tries unsuccessfully to open the locked door, and leaves a guard to watch the lab while he goes back to report to Ming.

Inside the lab, Zarkov says that Karm discovered the source of Ming’s power and exposits a dubious explanation for the source:

“The power is derived from a strong beam of light, reflected from pure Thilinium, a new element, which gives the light great properties, and permits it to be transformed into other forms of energy……and it is this Thilinium that energizes the Purple Death dust, the Great Fire Projectile, and all of Ming’s weapons of death and destruction.”

Back in Ming’s chambers, or something, Torch reports that the escapees are barricaded in the lab, and that he is prepared to attack them. Ming explicitly orders him not to attack, saying that “…with Dr. Zarkov in possession of my laboratory, he is more powerful than I am in my own kingdom!” (?). I must ask you this, oh great Emperor Ming: Why the hell did you imprison him there in the first place!!! Ming decides that Zarkov must be lured out of the laboratory with some sort of ruse; a ruse which he of course will come up with.

Ming contacts Zarkov via the Imperial intercom system and says that he has loaded a spaceship with enough Solarite to destroy “…the principle cities of the Earth” if Zarkov does not surrender. (Could this be the same legendary “Solarbenite” that Eros mentioned in “Plan 9 from Outer Space”??!!) Zarkov says that this is “…a serious matter…” (Gee, you think?) and must consult his “associates” (?) before taking a course of action. Ming generously gives them 5 minutes to decide.

With a quick discussion laden with exposition, Zarkov and Flash come to the conclusion that Ming is not bluffing about the ships, but will launch the ships even if they do surrender, so they might as well try to break out. The only solution, in Flash’s opinion, is to somehow take control of the Solarite laden ship and destroy Ming withit. This plan can only be realized if Zarkov can control the Space Port defenses from the laboratory. Zarkov says it can be done (What the hell?! Ming imprisoned Zarkov in a lab that offers him complete control of the palace defenses? That’s like the FBI capturing a terrorist cell and keeping them prisoner in an ICBM silo!). Flash volunteers to hijack the Solarite ship, set it on a crash course with Ming, and jump out at the last moment. The others will take Zarkov’s ship (presumably easily accessible in the Imperial Impound Lot) and escape.

Whew!

Well, the plan starts of reasonably problem free. Zarkov and Flash make it to the Solarite ship, and the others make it back to Zarkov’s ship by the abandoned tunnels. Professor Druk, still back in the lab, turns off the death rays surrounding the ship that Flash is to hijack. Flash mentions that he “…hopes there’s a parachute on board…”. (Duh!) Zarkov comforts him by saying, “I’m sure there is…it’s an essential part of the equipment…well, good luck, Flash!”, and runs back to his own ship.

As usual, Ming finds out what has happened and becomes outraged, but he knows that Gordon won’t destroy the palace as long as Zarkov and the others are still being held prisoner. Doh! A message comes in at that very moment informing Ming that the prisoners have escaped. Sensing that his goose is about to be cooked, Ming heads to his control tower where he can control the Solarite ship via “auxiliary control”, but first Captain Sudan must enable the controls from the guard room. (Captain Sudan is loyal to Flash remember? Remember? Can you see this all coming together now?)

A be-feathered Ming discusses plans with the ever-incompetent Captain Torch

Up in the control tower, we have what appears to be a Ming family reunion: Ming, Sonja, Torch, Thong, and a host of guards (I can’t see how their presence is required…oh, wait a minute…maybe it’s so they can all be killed at the same time in one gigantic explosion…oops! Hope I didn’t give anything away!). Torch tries to raise Sudan on the intercom to tell him to enable the auxiliary controls. Sudan, of course, ignores these orders and instead radios Zarkov to inform him that Ming “…has taken refuge in his tower control room.” (Ming, buddy, during an air attack, maybe an underground bunker would make a better shelter than the top floor of a giant tower …just a thought).

Flash steers the Solarite ship at the tower, parachuting out at the absolute last moment. He floats down and incredibly (yet predictably) is picked up mid-air by Zarkov’s ship.

Seeing the Solarite ship speeding towards him, Ming suddenly realizes that he better haul ass out of there and get down to the caverns. Captain Sudan, however, has locked the doors by pulling a lever in the control room (who the hell designed this palace?). Trapped like the rat he is, Ming can only stare in helpless frustration as the ship crashes into the tower, killing him and his evil entourage.

Zarkov declares that by defeating Ming, Flash Gordon has saved the Earth, and by some inexplicable jump in logic, saved the universe. The triumphant trio, Flash, Dale, and Zarkov, head home to Earth, conquerors of the universe.

Dennis Grisbeck (Feb 2005)

Read more about Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe at

Directed by Erich von Stroheim

Run Time: 92 minutes

A guest review by Nathan Decker

This is a bit of a new challenge for me. I’m used to reviewing trashy sci-fi and monster movies, which are normally full of busty girls and exploding helicopters, films that you can pretty much turn your brain off and enjoy with a nice beverage. This one, however, is a musical (yes, yes, I know, I suffered a head injury recently…) from the golden age of talking pictures. 1929 was a tough year for America, the stock market was about to collapse in spectacular fashion, the Great Depression was looming over the horizon, and Pitt got crushed by USC in the Rose Bowl, but Hollywood was still cranking out legions of musicals, like Nero fiddling as the embers sparked to life in Rome. The Great Gabbo is one of those mass-produced musicals, a pretty pedestrian movie, and an even worse musical, but it does have a certain charm to it.

“The Great Gabbo” is the stage name for Gabbo Storch, played by 44-year old Erich von Stroheim, a legend in the early days of talking pictures, who most strangely I just saw as Rommel in Five Graves to Cairo (an outstanding movie, btw). He’s a ventriloquist, and by all accounts a pretty good one. Though not so good as to justify his enormous megalomania and mercurial personality. Gabbo is the quintessential egotistical actor, so wrapped up in his own self-importance that he fails to see how others perceive him. He’s John Travolta, he’s Klaus Kinski, he’s Marlon Brando, he’s Russell Crowe, he’s Justin Timberlake, and he’s Roger Clemmons. If he was a woman he’d be Madonna, he’d be Paris Hilton, and he’d be Lindsay Lohan.

The Great Gabbo!

Gabbo is a short, balding Teutonic man, certainly not attractive but possessing an imposing forceful personality. His voice is loud and strong and tinted with a German accent, and when he gets mad he sounds like Colonel Klink yelling at Sergeant Schultz. He even wears a monocle! Awesome! Efficiency is his main focus it seems, demanding perfection from everyone and everything, obsessing about every little detail like Alfred Krupp at his forge.

Gabbo’s only real friend is Otto, his hand-carved basswood ventriloquist dummy, and even he can’t stand him half the time. Otto looks a bit like Opie Taylor and is always well-dressed in suit and tails. His voice, provided by an off-screen actor, is like a lilting singsong little boy and quite annoying.

The Just-As-Great Otto!

In the beginning, during the early years of Gabbo’s rise to fame, he was in love with a beautiful young dancer named Mary, who was also his stage assistant. She loved him also, but someone with Gabbo’s caustic and temperamental personality is excruciatingly difficult to live with. It didn’t help any that for his part Gabbo kept his love for Mary unspoken, perhaps out of fear of the unknown or perhaps out of a lack of self-confidence in the one area he couldn’t control. Whatever the reason, Gabbo loved Mary secretly, but visibly showed her nothing but scorn and contempt.

And yet, Mary stayed with him for a long time, perhaps magnetically drawn to his forceful and commanding personality, but hoping that deeper inside was a man she could cuddle and read Jane Austin with. All women love the “bad boy” because they think they can change him, and they all get hurt in the end.

Mary is played by 32-year old Betty Compton, who would go on to rack up a zillion movie roles in a length career, including being nominated for an Oscar in 1930, just a year after our movie was released. She was also married to our film’s director, James Cruze, though she’s a good enough actress for that not to have mattered. Mary is a very attractive woman, with a slim body and sexy athletic dancer’s legs. She makes the 1920s flapper style look good, even those head-hugging slouchy hats. She could surely do much better than the frumpy ageing Gabbo, but that speaks more to her tastes in men than anything.

Mary

For the last two years, Gabbo and Mary have been working in a smalltime off-Broadway venue in Patterson, New Jersey, which is about as close to a fetid swamp as you can come. The show is pretty barebones, with Gabbo and Otto sitting in a simple chair on a mostly empty stage. Mary assists him, bringing drinks and props to him on stage. In one of the racier bits, Mary is dressed in a demure French maid outfit (!), the forerunner of all those glitzy skin-tight dresses that the magicians’ assistants wear nowadays (just go to Vegas and see any show on the Strip for examples).

Eventually, Mary can’t take the abuse any more and she leaves after a final fight. Gathering up all her courage, she walks out on Gabbo, vowing never to return. Gabbo is flustered, but his ego won’t allow him to do anything than yell and demand she leave faster. This is an extremely difficult thing for Mary, as she loves Gabbo very much, and several times she almost changes her mind, but in the end she departs.

After she is gone, Otto and Gabbo have a man-to-man “talk”. Otto basically tells him what a dumbass he is for letting Mary walk out, but Gabbo won’t listen. Throughout the length of this film, Otto the dummy functions almost as an independent sentient being. In private and in public appearances, Otto speaks on his own, even while Gabbo is eating or smoking. Other people consider this to the be sign of a master ventriloquist, but we get the impression that something almost supernatural is going on. Why the filmmakers chose method this is not known, but the vagueness of it leaves it open for discussion. Is Otto acting as Gabbo’s conscious? Is Otto a substitute for a son that Gabbo lost? Is Otto possessed by Satan? Is the CIA involved? Gabbo has a visible scar across his forehead, did he suffer some sort of injury during The Great War that has made him insane enough to talk to wooden dummies?

There’s also an interesting little ten-second shot here, where Gabbo, in his sorrow, goes to take a drink of whiskey. To do so, however, he dips down almost out of sight behind an open steamer trunk lid, with only a glimpse of the bottle seen. This was the days of Prohibition, remember, and there were laws against drinking on screen. Imagine if we still had that law today, half the movies would never be made!

Drinking from the bottle.

Several years now pass as seconds on screen. After leaving Gabbo, Mary parlays her talents into a nice job as a singer and dancer on Broadway. She also finds a man to marry, a fellow singer named Frank. Frank is borderline Gabbo-like in his ego and arrogance, though he loves Mary openly, and they seem to have a fairly healthy relationship. Mary likes the strong, domineering type, remember.

For his part, Gabbo also finally hits it big. He too now has his own Broadway show, and has done so well that he’s known as the “world’s greatest ventriloquist”. His shows sell out every night, foreign heads of state request his presence, and everyone in New York City knows his name. For an egomaniac like Gabbo this should be nirvana. Sadly, however, Gabbo is one of those people who can never truly be happy (or is only happy when he’s miserable) so all this success has done very little to improve his grumpy moodiness. He still rants and rages about the smallest things, pushing his stage assistants around like Bismarck driving the Prussian cavalry into France.

We go now to a glitzy Manhattan restaurant, a large open place, with a full band entertaining the diners. The walls and doorways are in that beautiful art deco style that was so popular in the 1920s (I love art deco and am eagerly awaiting its comeback). The schtick is that Gabbo and Otto come here almost nightly as a publicity stunt (organized by his theater managers) to give a little free preview show to the diners so they will want to come to Broadway for the full act. This is another example of the spooky Jedi mind tricks that Gabbo uses to make Otto talk while he stuffs his face with truffles and lobster.

The restaurant.

This puppet is freaking me out! Puppets unnerve me anyway, but this one speaking on its own in that annoying little German boy voice makes my skin crawl. I keep expecting him to either jump up and start slashing everyone like Chucky or announce the annexation of Austria.

Coincidentally, Mary is also here and watches Gabbo from across the room with some wistfully longing looks. She’s never given up her love for him, despite the years, and still misses him. Gabbo spies her eventually and calls her over to his table. Well, he has Otto tell the waiter to send her a flower.

Gabbo is also clearly nervous and excited to see Mary again, though he’s still such a grumpy cad that he can’t talk to her directly, but uses Otto. Mary and Otto have a little discussion, where the puppet tells her how much he missed her and Mary smiles in understanding.

It’s time for Gabbo to go to his theater, and he offers Mary a ride there in his lovely chauffeured Royals Royce, the kind with the driver out in front exposed to the elements. Hmm…it seems that Mary is also performing at the same theater, but in a different show. Imagine the odds.

This car is surely worth a fortune now.

Gabbo goes to his dressing room and Mary to hers. Mary’s husband Frank spied them coming in together and angrily confronts her. He doesn’t like old flames popping up again and he accuses her of still caring for the old man. Mary just laughs off his worries and disarms him with her wit and charm. I’m impressed with Mary’s spunkiness and independence. She doesn’t need this man, or any man for that matter, and will visit and talk to anyone she pleases. That’s refreshing, especially in a movie from this generation.

By the way, Frank is played by 24-year old Donald Douglas, who would later go on to have numerous roles in movies both great and small (though the only thing I can remember him being in was 1946′s Tokyo Rose). I’m not sure I like him, though he hasn’t really done anything wrong yet. I think it’s just his greasy floppish hair.

Frank

Backstage, we get the best scene in the movie, as Gabbo and his “dresser” have a personal moment. A dresser is one of those jobs that has disappeared with time, but it’s basically a male personal assistant. Gabbo is still giddy from meeting Mary again and he asks the dresser what he knows about love. The dresser, a middle-aged man in a butler’s uniform, has a wife and offers some advice. The two of them then lapse into German, their native tongue, as they talk. A few English words sprinkled here and there help those of us who don’t speak German, but I find the scene unique and probably indicative of the cultural identities of the movie-going public in 1929. At the end of the scene, Gabbo, being Gabbo, goes back to berating the dresser for shoddy work before storming out on stage to thunderous applause.

Gabbo and the dresser have the best moment in our movie.

And now on to Gabbo’s stage show, held in this opulent Broadway theater before throngs of cheering patrons. The simple chair and glasses from his off-Broadway days have been replaced by a gilded baroque Chesterfield chair and cut crystal Champaign goblets. The show itself is pretty good, with more of the same Otto-speaking-independently stuff and Gabbo faking charm and wit when you can tell that he really just wants to scream at everyone and send his Panzers across the Polish frontier.

Gabbo, now dressed like Napoleon III, is poised to rule the world with his stage show.

Once his act is over, he goes back to his dressing room. There, to his pleasant surprise, he finds that Mary has slipped in and arranged his things just like the old days. Gabbo is ecstatic and is determined to not let her go this time. He’ll tell her of his love the next chance he gets. Oh, I just know this isn’t going to end well for him.

Meanwhile, back on stage we have the showcase musical number of this film, the only one of the six or seven numbers worth mentioning. It has a weird insect theme, with a large spider web of rope set up behind the stage, with dancing girls dressed as bugs high-kicking in unison in the foreground. On the rope web are Mary and Frank, also dressed as spiders in skin-tight glittery costumes. I know, I know, it sounds like a gay burlesque show in South Beach, but it really is much better than it sounds. Mary and Frank come down to the stage eventually and do an extremely impressive dance routine. Mary proves herself to be as flexible as a 11-year old Korean gymnast, contorting and twisting her slim body in ways that you wouldn’t think possible for a human being. Frank, for his part, lifts, twirls and dips Mary with graceful fluidity and some ripped bicep muscles. All in all, this number is worth the price of admission.

Spider web!

That over, Mary goes to see Gabbo in his dressing room. Gabbo and her have a very honest and personal discussion about their past and their future. Gabbo is now openly fawning over her, any reservations he once felt about expressing his love have now been replaced by the liberating feeling of delirious attraction. Oddly, it’s Mary who begins to pull away the more they talk. It seems that her memories of Gabbo from years ago were better than the reality of him here in person. She just “wants to be friends”. Ouch.

Eventually, Mary leaves him and goes back to Frank. We see that they truly do love each other, despite this foolishly rekindled obsession Mary had for Gabbo. Anyone who has been married for any length of time can tell you that things like that happen from time to time, and it’s a testament to Mary’s moral character that she made the right choice.

Frank and Mary reconcile.

Gabbo is beside himself with sorrow for having lost her again. The cruel stab of fate that led Mary back to him for a brief moment has only made the aching pain he’s always had for her that much more intense. Gabbo is in full bore helpless impotent rage mode now, frothing and yelling like Guderan mired down before the gates of Moscow. Not even Otto is safe from his wrath now.

Otto feels his pain.

On stage, the finale goes on without him and Gabbo goes nuts. He storms out on stage, wading through the dancing girls to scream at the audience, “You don’t know how to laugh! You don’t know how to laugh!”. Stage hands have to haul him off as people murmur and gasp.

The manager fires him on the spot, despite all he has done for the theater. Gabbo dejectedly leaves, unceremoniously carrying Otto upside down by one foot. Mary tries to console him, but his mind is so far gone that he just looks right past her. The final scene is poor Gabbo, out in the street, looking forlornly as workmen remove his name from the marquee. Truly a sad end to a once-promising career.

Gabbo faces his uncertain future alone.

All in all not a bad movie, even for a musical. The downcast ending was surprising, but well done. I’d recommend this one, if for nothing more than that cool 1920s flapper girls.

The end.

Puppets freak me out.

Written in June 2007 by Nathan Decker

Read more about The Great Gabbo at