Flash Gordon (1936) on Netflix
NR19364h 5mActionAdventureSci-Fi
Scientists learn that Mongo is on a course toward Earth. Flash Gordon and Dale Arden fly with Dr. Zarkov to the planet, where Officer Torch arrests them and they meet Emperor Ming.
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- Netflix3.5/5
- IMDb6.9/102,954 votes
- Rotten TomatoesNot available
Trailer
Plot summary
Professor Gordon and Professor Hensley work out that the planet Mongo is hurtling toward Earth and that the collision will wipe out humanity. Flash Gordon, the professor's son, flies home from college; his plane is caught in the disturbance, and he parachutes down with a frightened fellow passenger, Dale Arden. They land beside a rocket ship belonging to Dr. Zarkov, who believes an alien intelligence is piloting Mongo and that a crew could fly there and persuade its inhabitants to turn it aside. No one else will go with him. Flash and Dale volunteer, and on Mongo they are arrested by Officer Torch and brought before Emperor Ming.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Flash Gordon (1936)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Ming's palace reuses the watchtower sets from the 1931 Frankenstein, the idol of the Great God Tao is an Egyptian statue from The Mummy (1932), and Zarkov's laboratory set and the shot of the Moon came from The Invisible Ray (1936).
- The Hays Office objected to the revealing costumes worn by Dale Arden, Princess Aura and the other female characters, so Universal designed more modest outfits for the female performers in the film's two sequels.
- Flash Gordon was the first outright science-fiction serial, though earlier serials had contained science-fiction elements such as gadgets, and six of the fourteen serials released within five years of it were science fiction.
- Buster Crabbe had his hair dyed blond to look more like the comic-strip Flash Gordon and was so self-conscious he wore a hat in public at all times; Jean Rogers also went blonde, apparently to capitalize on Jean Harlow's popularity.
- The score was recycled as well: the music was taken from other films, notably Bride of Frankenstein, Bombay Mail, The Black Cat, Werewolf of London and The Invisible Man.
- Ming the Merciless's makeup and costuming were designed to resemble Fu Manchu, the supervillain popularized in earlier Hollywood films such as The Mysterious Dr. Fu Manchu and in novels first published in England in 1913.
