The defunct Dumont television network offered up the first original TV adaptation of Alex Raymond's classic space opera comic strip Flash Gordon. The strip of course had wide success in the papers for King Features and on film with serial heavyweight Buster Crabbe in the lead role for Universal, but for the budding medium of television it took Dumont and an oddball foreign production to get the blonde giant to the little screen.
I've just finished watching a pile of these vintage TV shows and despite some small budgets, peculiar casting, and some definitely odd fashion sense, the show comes across as forthright, interesting, and even at times compelling.
Steve Holland, the guy soon to be Doc Savage on a gaggle of Bantam paperback covers thanks to Bama, held down the Flash role with gusto and verve. He's slender but cut and they don't miss many chances to get his shirt off. Irene Champlin is Dale Arden and this time she's a scientist. Some of the things they have her wear are pretty dreadful, but some of it is neat and she looks pretty dang good. Hans Zarkov is played by Joe Nash, and he looks the part pretty neatly, though frankly he is given little to do in the fifteen or so episodes I saw. They don't get this classic trio together as much as you'd think.
The stories are fairly varied with space pirates, mutated lion men, underworld despots, otherworldly witches, and whatnot showing up to offer conflict for the heroes.
Not unlike Gerry Anderson's productions a few decades later, this show seems to have a fascination with clothes. Holland as Flash will typically change his shirt at least once an episode, showing off those pecs and getting that classic lightning bolt on display in various designs. Some of the villains wear things that look like they've just gotten off stage at a German expressionism revival, and more than a few costumes have a slight S&M flavor to them.
My favorite episode has the team go back in time to 1953 and race around the streets of Berlin looking desperately for a bomb which will destroy the Earth thousands of years in the future. The site of VW Beetles full of cops chasing Flash, Zarkov, and Dale in a van around the streets of a still war-ravaged Berlin are fascinating.
This is diverting television and can be had for very cheap, with some copies I've seen going for a buck for half a dozen episodes. I watched the shows on the monster 150 episode package from Mill Creek. It's a powerhouse collection and I'm currently working on Rocky Jones.
Flash Gordon TV is recommended for sure.
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