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Flesh Gordon
USA 1974
produced by Howard Ziehm, Bill Osco for Graffiti Productions
directed by Howard Ziehm, Michael Benveniste
starring Jason Williams, Suzanne Fields (= Cindy Hopkins), Joseph Hudgins, William Dennis Hunt, Candy Samples, Mycle Brandy, John Hoyt, Steve Grumette, Nora Wieternik, Lance Larsen, Ludy Ziehm, Leonard Goodman, Donald Lee Harris, Howard Alexander, Jack Rowe, Alan Sinclair, Mark Fore, Annettte Anderson, Maria Aronoff, Shannon West, Ric Lutze, Sally Alt, Nancy Ayres, Kathryn Foster
written by Michael Benveniste, music by Ralph Ferraro, special effects by Walter R. Cichy, Howard Ziehm, Tom Sherman, Dave Allen, Jim Danforth, Ray Mercer, cinematography by Howard Ziehm
Flesh Gordon, Flash Gordon
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Because the earth is hit by sex rays from planet Porno, all-American
hero Flesh Gordon (Jason Williams), scientist Doctor Jerkoff (Joseph
Hudgins) and daqmsel-in-distress Dale (Suzanne Fields) go up to Porno to
check out what's going on ... but once there, they are immediately
captured by mad Emperor Wang (William Dennis Hunt), who wants to conquer
the earth with his sex ray (though I haven't yet figured out how that is
supposed to work. He immediately takes a liking in dale and wants to make
her his new wife while he employs Jerkoff as scientist ... but Flesh he
wants killed, until Queen Amore (Mycle Brandy) claims him as her new mate.
Wang though has long conspired agains Amora and now sees the perfect
opportunity to shoot her ship out of the skies when she and Flesh, who
shags her under an hypnotic spell, are leaving. Flesh though somehow
survives the crash and is soon saved by Jerkoff, who has since found a way
to escape Wang, and his new friends, the Forest People, led by (gay)
Prince Precious (Lance Larsen), the rightful ruler of Porno.
Of course they manage to free Dale, but on their way to destroy the sex
ray and free planet Porno from its evil Emperor, they run into all kinds
of dangers, like the Royal Flush (a giant toilet that leads them
straight to the sewers), penisaurs (yes, it is what you get when you cross
a penis and a dinosaur), Queen Nellie (Candy Samples) and her gang of
amazons, robots with penis-drills, and so on and so forth, until Emperor
Wang, finding himself cornered, releases his ultimate weapon, a giant
monster ... which soon enough develops a liking for Dale, snatches her
and, Dale in hand, climbs the highest tower on the planet to face his
adversaries, just like in King Kong.
But, almost like in Kong, our heroes simply take a spaceship and shoot the
monster off the tower. And when it's falling the monster exactly hits the
balcony from which Wang is just operating his sex ray ...
Legend has it that Flesh Gordon in the planning stages was
supposed to be a cheapo hardcore porn parody of the Flash Gordon
serials from the 1930's. But somehow, the project developed a life of its
own, and eventually more and more special effects talent got involved in
the film, which on one hand raised the costs of the film, but on the other
also granted it better marketability. And legend further has it that
ultimately censors demanded the hardcorse sex scenes to be cut. How much
of this is true one will never know, but it's a nice tale.
As a film ... Flesh Gordon is quite good actually, a loving
hommage and over-the-top parody of 1930's serials at the same time, a film
that perfectly blends love for and knowledge of the genre with whacky
humour and (elaborate) toilet jokes. And then there's of course the
special effects, which are nothing short of impressive, great, inventive
and colourful miniature work, stop motion animation and matte paintings
that can easily compete with special effects from any serious sci-fi-flick
from that era - and are most certainly far better than the effects from
Dino De Laurentiis' production of Flash Gordon from 1980.
Highest recommendation.
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