Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars
Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars | |
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Universal Pictures | |
Release date |
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Running time | 15 chapters (299 min) |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars is a 1938
Plot
When a mysterious beam of light starts disrupting and destroying the Earth's atmosphere, Flash Gordon (Buster Crabbe), Dr. Zarkov (Frank Shannon), and Dale Arden (Jean Rogers) - accidentally accompanied by wisecracking reporter Happy Hapgood (Donald Kerr) - swing into action in Zarkov's rocketship, believing that it could be coming from the planet Mongo. Once in space, they discover that the ray originates from Mars.
Journeying to the fourth planet, they discover their old enemy from Mongo, Ming the Merciless (Charles B. Middleton), is alive and allied with Azura (Beatrice Roberts), the Witch Queen of Mars. From there, under her protection, he is operating a Nitron ray destroying Earth's atmosphere. Azura can transmute people into living clay, condemned to live and die in darkened caves, and she is hated and feared by most of the population. Conversely, the Clay People, led by their King (Montague Shaw), know how to eliminate Azura's power, but lack the means of escaping the caves to which their ruined bodies restrict them.
Gordon and his party seem to hold the answer to their problem, except that the Clay People do not trust them at first, and end up holding Dale Arden hostage. Ultimately, the Earth visitors and the Clay People become allies in the tandem quest to defeat Azura and stop Ming from destroying the Earth. Flash, Dale, Zarkov, and Hapgood do battle against Azura's magic and her Martian space force, Ming's super-scientific weaponry, the treacherous Forest People, and other dangers on the Red Planet. Finally, they win by the classic strategy of divide-and-conquer, showing Azura that Ming has been plotting behind her back to take power from her.
Azura's alliance with Ming is broken, at the cost of the Queen's own life, but the Clay People are freed from their curse. The evil emperor of Mongo, his Nitron ray destroyed and his escape cut off on all sides by the now hostile Martian forces, is seemingly vanquished by the accidental result of his own machinations and treachery.
Cast
- Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon
- Jean Rogers as Dale Arden
- Charles B. Middleton as Ming the Merciless
- Frank Shannon as Dr. Alexis Zarkov
- Beatrice Roberts as Queen Azura
- Donald Kerr as Happy Hapgood
- Richard Alexander as Prince Barin
- C. Montague Shaw as Clay King
- Wheeler Oakman as Tarnak
- Kenne Duncan as Airdrome captain
- Warner Richmond as Zandar
Cast notes:
- Charles Middleton's portrayal of Ming is devilish in this serial, as opposed his Fu Manchu-like performance in the first serial.[2]
Production
This serial, the first sequel to the Flash Gordon serial, was based on the 1936 "
Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars was less expensive to make than the first Flash Gordon serial.[3]
Mars Attacks the World
Critical reception
Television broadcasting
In the 1950s, the three serials were broadcast on American television. To avoid confusion with a made-for-TV Flash Gordon series airing at the same time, they were retitled, becoming respectively Space Soldiers, Space Soldiers' Trip to Mars, and Space Soldiers Conquer the Universe.[citation needed] They were shown by PBS U.S. stations, and by the BBC in the United Kingdom – where they aired as Flash Gordon serials, under their original titles.
Chapters
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Source:[5]
References
- ISBN 978-0786437450.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-7130-0097-9.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-8061-0927-5.
- ^ Staff (March 28, 1938). "Also Showing". Time. Archived from the original on August 26, 2010. Retrieved 2009-03-23.
- ISBN 0-7864-0471-X.
External links
- Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars at IMDb
- Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars at AllMovie
- Roy Kinnard, Tony Crnkovich, and R. J. Vitone. The Flash Gordon Serials, 1936-1940: A Heavily Illustrated Guide. McFarland & Co., Inc. 2008. ISBN 978-0-7864-3470-1[1]
- ^ https://www.worldcat.org/title/173241102?oclcNum=173241102 Retrieved 21 September 2023.