There are few films quite like Flash Gordon (opens in a new tab) and having re-watched it on blu-ray recently I was reminded how much of an impression it had on me when I first saw it as a child. I also listened to the excellent audio commentary with director Mike Hodges (opens in a new tab), who admits to being an unlikely choice to direct and confirms in no uncertain terms that they were making things up as they went along. It sounds like a typically chaotic Dino De Laurentiis (opens in a new tab) production with scenes being written the night before filming and huge amounts of the budget going on the costume and set designs (though these are very impressive, even today).

There are several reasons the film remains one of my favourites of the 1980s:

Acting
Topol (opens in a new tab) is insanely over the top as Dr Hans Zarkov with an accent that changes from scene to scene. It’s not hard to see why Sam J. Jones (opens in a new tab) never hit the big time, although you can’t say he doesn’t give the role his all. Max Von Sydow (opens in a new tab) is clearly having fun playing Ming and Brian Blessed (opens in a new tab) is spectacular as Vultan the Hawksman; no one else could deliver the simple line ‘pass me the remote control’ with such unbridled gusto. A pre-Bond Timothy Dalton (opens in a new tab) is also rather memorable, sporting a spectacular moustache.

The woodbeast
This infamous scene (opens in a new tab) (featuring Peter Duncan (opens in a new tab)) terrified me as a child, and not just ‘wow, that’s a bit weird’, I’m talking more like ‘I’m never going near a tree stump ever again’. Scarred. For. Life. There’s also an odd ‘black whoopee-cushion with tendrils’ creature that attacks Flash and is seared into my memory, even if it looks like a painted balloon when you watch it again today.

The costumes and set designs
As mentioned, a serious amount of budget was spent on costumes and sets by Danilo Donati (opens in a new tab) and it shows. You only have to watch this brief clip (opens in a new tab) to get an idea of the amount of work that went into them – very impressive stuff.

Ornella Muti
(opens in a new tab)Just like Jane Seymour in Live and Let Die, Ornella (playing Princess Aura) was responsible for putting more than a few hairs on my chest. Her costumes are the very definition of figure-hugging. The infamous interrogation scene has to be seen to be believed.

The music
An awesome soundtrack by Brit rockers Queen (opens in a new tab) that still sounds superb today. I almost tried to persuade my wife to walk down the aisle to the sound of Ming’s wedding march (opens in a new tab); it’s that good. The 2011 remaster is available on Spotify (opens in a new tab).

This British quad was illustrated by one of my favourite artists, Renato Casaro (opens in a new tab) (check out the incredible amount of work on his official website (opens in a new tab)), and the design can be seen on several of the film’s international posters, including the slightly different Japanese ones. Interestingly the logo on the poster is also seen throughout the film (Flash has it on his t-shirt at one point for example), which is a crossover that very rarely happens.

See more of Casaro’s posters that I’ve collected.

Watch the great original trailer on YouTube (opens in a new tab).