Flesh Gordon (1974)

Wonderful Movie

Slow pace in the most part of the movie.

Nice effects though.

Lack of good storyline.

More or less that is. There is a disclaimer at the beginning that tells the audience, that this has nothing to do with the "real" Flash Gordon. Something I only realized when I got the DVD that I bought blindly on ebay. I thought two Gordon movies for the price of one, is excellent. But that is not the reason, I only gave it a weak rating. Nor the fact that this was actually meant to be a porn movie did influence my vote. You can still see the bad cutting away from some scenes, though it seems those explicit scenes might be "lost" forever due to cuts the director had to make, because of an impending lawsuit back when they released it.No, the movie did age badly and while some humor still works, most of it doesn't. I love the passion (no pun intended) that they showed (there is also an audio commentary), but the performances just don't cut it and the story is too paper thin to really work. I guess you can watch it once out of curiosity, but you might not have the strength to watch it through

In the early 80s, when I was a spotty adolescent with a burgeoning interest in the female form, I would secretly cast my eye over the 'special' section in my local video shop—the one which contained such 'interesting' titles as Dracula Exotica, Lemon Popsicle, and The Amorous Milkman. Amongst these tempting (but ultimately rather disappointing) titles was the legendary Flesh Gordon, a movie I had heard about from school pals (whose parents were obviously a little more lax in policing their kids' viewing than my own), but one that I found it impossible to see myself (try as I might, the shop owner wouldn't let me rent it!).Now, nearly 30 years later, I have finally caught up with this elusive soft-core sex comedy, and whilst it's hardly shocking or particularly titillating to a man of my advancing years, I found it to be a very entertaining piece of trash. Made in the sexually liberated 70s, this knowingly daft take on the cliffhanger serials of the 30s is silly, saucy fun featuring plenty of full-frontal nudity, some pretty good effects (considering the limitations of the budget), loads of smutty humour, and a shed-load of phallic imagery.In a story that bears many similarities to that of the major Flash Gordon movie of 1980, nasty dictator Emperor Wang attacks earth with a deadly sex ray that turns the population of Earth into uncontrollable nymphomaniacs. Hunky Flesh Gordon (Jason Williams), accompanied by beautiful sidekick Dale Ardor (the gorgeous Suzanne Fields) and scientist Dr. Flexi Jerkoff (Joseph Hudgins) travel to the planet Porno to try and destroy the ray and free its people from the tyranny of Wang.With such delights as one-eyed stop-motion monsters called Penisauruses (or is that Penisauri?), rapist robots, an animated bug-creature, a tribe of lesbian warriors, several orgies (which look rather racy from a distance, and lend credence to the rumour that this was originally a hardcore movie), a penis shaped spaceship, and a huge, but rather erudite beast at the end of the film, Flesh Gordon is a hoot from start to finish.6.5 out of 10, rounded up to 7 for IMDb.

Anyone who doesn't like this movie, doesn't get it. The directing is flat, the acting just plain awful, the makeup worse. yet 30 years after it was released, Flesh Gordon is still the funniest, cheesiest spoof of genre films outside The Simpsons. Where else are you going to find alien sex rays, rapist robots, matching eye and nipple patches, and a narcissistic Harryhausenesque demon who would be perfectly at home in a disco if he weren't green, 40 feet tall and covered with scales? The surprisingly good art direction (on a shoestring budget) and Hanna-Barbara sound effects finish the package. In short, unless you're some easily-offended Christian republican in search of something to complain about, this is must-see material. And come to think about it, even if you are, you need to see it.

Hey, I like good, sleazy fun, so I thought I couldn't go wrong with renting Flesh Gordon, which I have heard about for years without really knowing much about. The movie itself is mildly amusing, but what's really wonderful abut this disc is the commentary track, which is TEN TIMES more interesting than the movie itself. The Movie We open with a LONG title about how this is a tribute to the adventure serials of the 20s and 30s… we find out on the commentary that this was added to avoid a lawsuit, because they were unaware that their writer had taken an episode from Flash Gordon and reproduced it nearly exactly. Anyway, so it seems that the good citizens of Earth are suddenly bombarded by the sex ray, which makes them crazed to have sex with the first person they see (and I wonder: what would David Cronenberg make of this?). This is a big problem, so Flesh Gordon, who soon meets Dale Ardor, are going to travel to the planet Porno to find out what's going on. They meet Flesh's pal Flexi Jerkoff (one of those jokes that, the more you think about it, the more absurd and funny it gets), who has a spaceship that oddly recalls the shape of a penis, and they take off. By now you will have noticed the radical differences in quality and apparent budget from scene to scene. For example, later in the film we have some very nice, nearly-academy award nominated stop-motion animation, and yet when Flesh and co. are on the plane at the beginning, it's quite clear that the walls are made of stapled-on packing material.So Flesh and pals travel through the moronosphere to the planet Porno, where they crash land. Meanwhile, the evil Emperor Wang has noticed their presence, and sent out guards, who obsequiously refer to him as "Your Protuberance," "Your Sickness," and "Degenerate One." The guards go after our trio who are having their own problems with the Penisauruses, which are giant stop-motion animated uncut penises with horns and one vertically-blinking eye. This affords viewers the sight of the comely Dale being rubbed all over by a dickhead the size of a hippo. They escape, and are soon awarded the power pasties by someone or other, which will give them the decisive edge. Anyway, so it goes on, even going so far as to include an intermission and cliffhanger as tribute to the original series. Later our heroes are menaced by giant robots with spinning drills where their dicks would normally be, and finally Dale (whose bush is the size of Nebraska, by the way) is taken by this giant monster to the top of a tower, in an unlikely tribute to King Kong. Things go on and soon they end.This movie is clearly part of the mix that resulted in the Austin Powers movies, and it has a similar effect as so many of the jokes are so juvenile and moronic that eventually they become kind of funny. I was especially laughing at the guards saying things like "Right away, degenerate one" to Emperor Wang. The problem is that NO ONE in the movie is attractive, so although there's lots of randiness and softcore excitement going on, there was no one I was really interested in.The Commentary I popped in the commentary while I was assembling some furniture, really just wanting to know WHAT the director could possibly have to say about this piece of work. What I got was a totally fascinating tale of low-budget grindhouse film-making in all its glory. The producers made porn films, and that was all. But at this time, some porn films were getting shown in legitimate theaters, so they decided to make a porn film that had more to it than sex, and hired various people and got started. One of the interesting aspects of the whole story is that the producers have no idea what the screenwriter or special effects people are doing while they all work separately. These were people with absolutely no experience in making a film, suddenly trying to do it. They face associates baldly trying to cheat them, police harassment, a few rounds through the judicial system… it's an incredible story. For a while the director is followed by the police until they locate the set, then the police confiscate the film, and then the director has to prove in court that the film is NOT pornographic, which helped determine why this movie came out as a softcore comedy "tribute" to the old serials, instead of a real porn film as was originally intended. Remember how I said that some of the special effects are very good? Well, turns out that a then-unknown Dennis Muren, who would later become the lead man at ILM and win academy awards for Star Wars, E.T., Terminator 2, Jurassic Park, you name it, worked on this film (and had such a bad experience he didn't want his name on it). Since there were only two other films that year that HAD special effects, this one was almost nominated for an Oscar—but the Academy decided not to have the category that year instead of even considering this film. The film itself I worth seeing, at least for a quick fast-forward, but if you're interested in the behind-the-scenes of low-budget and porn film-making, but the commentary here is one of the most interesting stories of low-budget film-making you'll ever hear.--- Hey, check out Cinema de Merde, my website devoted to bad and cheesy movies. You can get the url from my email address above...