Baytekin - Fezada Carpisanlar

Flash Gordon's Battle in Space
Turkish Flash Gordon

Turkey 1967
produced by
Sinasi Özonuk for Onuk Film
directed by Sinasi Özonuk
starring Hasan Demirtag, Derya Tanyeli, Sevgi Can, Güner Celme, Nuhbe Isil, Muzaffer Mozayik, Ilhan Hemseri, Fatin Sakarya, Tandogan, Tuncer Sevi, Muzaffer Yener, Asim Nipton, Erbil Celme, Ceyhan Arat, Hakki Kivanc, Yasar Sener
written by Sinasi Özonuk

Flash Gordon

review by
Mike Haberfelner

Flash Gordon's/Baytekin's (Hasan Demirtag) world is shattered when he wants to visit the home where he grew up and finds it gone - and everybody he asks says there was never even a house where he claims to have lived. Also all the neighbours he remembers seem to never have existed, there's no birth certificate of him at the townhall, and ultimately he's arrested because the authorities think his papers are forged ... oh yeah, and the fact that he has gone berserk in the townhall most certainly hasn't helped his cause either - and then he's saved by Taranta, who claims to be a man from outer space, and the UFO he travels in seems to prove just that. And suddenly Baytekin learns that he's not Baytekin at all but one of the princes of the galaxy who has been brainwashed and sent to earth by evil Ming. But before Taranta can explain much more, he's killed and Baytekin is captured by evil Ming - but his wife falls in love with Baytekin and helps him escape, and ultimately he ends up with good prince Ather and his sister Muci - who halso falls in love with him (as do a few other women in this movie by the way). Ming then plans a direct attack on Ather's part of the galaxy, and even though Ather's pilots are much better than Ming's, Ming's space fleet outnumbers his about ten to one. But Ather has an ace up his sleeve: Baytekin! And it's not only that Baytekin makes up a strategy to conquer Ming's palace while Ming's spacefleet is busy conquering Ather's realm, he also has a shirt made out of a fabric that's immune to gamma rays, and Ather's scientists develop this into a paint for Ather's spaceships that will give them a clear advantage over Ming's ... and thus it all ends happily - apart from the fact that Muci heroically gives her life to save Baytekin, upon which he wants nothing more than return to earth ...

A rather simplistic and a tad silly space opera quite clearly inspired by American serials of the 1930s and 40s in structure and of course especially the Flash Gordon cliffhangers when it comes to story and style ... but in all, Baytekin - Fezada Carpisanlar is just too cheaply made to really compete with these on a quality level: The miniatures have at best toy quality, the sets are much too obviously cardboard to convince, and are even very limited at that, e.g. the same re-arranges sets serve as more than one location, and the effects are in fact not so special. Now I feel I have to emphasize here I love cheap movies and inventiveness, but here the budget is quite obviously not even close to sufficient, and the simple solutions for big issues (effects- and set-wise) just demand too big a suspension of disbelief to work. Add to this a silly, too simplistic and also too episodic story, wooden acting and a very static directorial effort, and you're left with ... well, there sure is something to laugh at in this movie, but there are better so-bad-it's-good movies out there!

review © by Mike Haberfelner

 

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