Flash Gordon (1980)

Ever so slightly mad scientist Dr Hans Zarkoff (Topol, who like Prince and Madonna only needs one damn name, thank you very much) is convinced that the series of seemingly natural catastrophes hitting earth is caused by alien forces. As your do, he has built a rocket in his own, large, shed, to prove it and save Earth, too, but it turns out to find co-pilots willing and able to push down one foot pedal lest one’s rocket explodes is rather more difficult than you’d expect. Fortunately, said (un)natural catastrophes do lead to a plane crash right into Zarkoff’s rocket barn. On board the plane are football star Flash Gordon (Sam Jones) and his instant love interest Dale Arden (Melody Anderson), and they are easily convinced to help out with the Earth saving when threatened with a gun.

Once the trio is in space, Zarkoff turns out to have been perfectly right. Evil space Emperor Ming (Max von Sydow) of the planet Mongo is trying to destroy Earth for his entertainment. Fortunately, Flash turns out to be a proper, pure-hearted hero in the Captain America-mold, so Project: Save Earth just might proceed eventually.

As anyone who knows me or has been reading this blog for a bit will probably know, I’m not a fan of camp at all, nor of that most horrible of all sins a movie fan can commit – liking things ironically. So my deep and abiding love for Mike Hodges’s certainly very campy Flash Gordon doesn’t really fit my usual viewing habits. But then, I don’t love this film ironically but with all of my heart; and the film’s camp sensibilities seem mostly to consist of allowing itself to become as artificial and strange as possible, the people involved finding the point where even the strangest shit becomes joyful.

Mike Hodges (much beloved around here for Get Carter, Croupier and I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead) seems like a strange choice of director for an adaptation of a classic movie serial/comic strip, and you’d certainly not approach making a science fiction adventure movie as he does today, but he clearly brought a wild visual imagination and a sense for goofy joy to the proceedings his other films (you might exclude Pulp) weren’t the place to demonstrate. Hodges also turns out to be a master of how to pace this sort of crazy space adventure, which is breathlessly and with something exciting happening every single second.

Aesthetically, in design and and stylistic approach, the film has something of the fever dream of a pubescent boy (that’s a compliment) mixed with a bit of LSD, as realized via special effects that often seem to consciously point back in the direction of the Flash Gordon serial, and others that have their basis more in stage special effects than what you’d expect any typical effects crew of a 1980s film to come up with. If you can get rid of that pesky idea of realism, the things the film has to show, its series of increasingly bizarre costumes, its multi-coloured liquid skies, the pantomime style creatures, are true wonders to behold, and look like nothing you’ll see in any other SF movie. Well, I suspect some of the SF films of Alfredo Brescia would have loved to look like Flash does, yet never had the money or the craftsmen, but that’s about it. If you always imagined your space operas to look like a dream of adventure and space rather than an attempt to mimic reality, this is the film for you.

Adding to this very special sense of wonder is a soundtrack by Queen I am contractually obliged to describe as “ass-kicking”. It also happens to be true. Queen, much like Flash Gordon, were of course masters at being absolutely sincere in their campiness, overblown in a way that’s meant to build an exciting dream world simply bigger and more interesting than reality, and therefore the perfect fit for the things their guitars, synths and Mercurys accompany.

But that’s not all what I love about the film. It also doubles down on the kinky aspects of the material it adapts to a nearly ridiculous degree, so much so that I have not the faintest idea how a film featuring Ming mindwhammying Dale to a public orgasm or Ornella Muti’s Princess Aura sticking her tongue into whatever male mouth available, and which clearly thinks that slightly (or very) weird sex stuff is simply fun did get a PG rating at the time. Sure, there’s a deplorable lack of nudity, but much of the film seems so sexually overheated in various kinky manners that undressing anyone just seems like overkill. I would be very surprised if Hodges and the scriptwriters hadn’t studied Flesh Gordon quite extensively, is what I’m saying.

Because that’s still not enough, Hodges also manages to often turn a film made of the stuff of dreams, plain weird shit and basically anti-realistic special effects into a thing of great excitement, turning out big “fuck yeah” moments again and again, even if his hawk men carry the most un-flightworthy wings imaginable and his hero happens to ride an improbable silver air/space scooter. The film’s just shamelessly going with it all, and you’d be a sad old coot not to enjoy it.


The actors sure seem to enjoy themselves, too. Sam Jones – probably fortuitously – is the eternal heart on his sleeve straight man to a whole horde of scenery chewers doing their spirited best, with Brian Blessed doing his Brian Blessed thing to a blessed degree, while von Sydow, sporting some of the most gloriously absurd costumes imaginable, achieves astonishing feats of BIG GOOFY YET SERIOUS EVIL BORN FROM BOREDOM. And that’s only the most obvious two in a horde of actors all tuning into exactly the same frequency. Even better – nobody, and I mean absolutely nobody, in the cast seems to come to the material from a position of superiority. Instead, everyone digs into the absurdity of much of what’s going on and treats it like it was Shakespeare, treating the often wonderfully bizarre dialogue to the most incredible line readings. It’s glorious and wondrous to behold (and hear), but then, so is everything else about this film.

Firewalker (1986)

Bad-ass idiot Max Donigan (Chuck Norris) and his also pretty stupid but not quite as bad-ass buddy Leo Porter (Louis Gossett Jr.), trot the globe as graverobbers (not that the film would ever use the term) and adventurers, the kind of guys nobody informed that the whole Indiana Jones thing happened decades before (and that guy at least worked for a museum when robbing non-white cultures dry), yet who (sort of) get by being pretty (kind of) decent guys.

Things become really exciting for the two when one Patricia Goodwin (Melody Anderson) hires them to help her find an Aztec/Mayan/Spanish treasure she isn’t outright telling them she’s seen in a vision. Of course, they aren’t the only ones looking – evil shaman El Coyote (Sonny Landham) has put his single eye on the treasure too, so our heroes will have to fight low level magic, random Native Americans, Central American military and their own stupidity on a globe trotting adventure before they just might end up at the treasure of their dreams. On the way, John Rhys-Davies pops in for a few scenes, there’s the obligatory romance between Norris and Anderson, and many a corny joke is made.

One of the traditional rules of my people is “Beware of Chuck Norris trying to be funny”, and I have found that in general, it makes one’s life happier and longer to keep to it. Yet there are exceptions to every rule, and I’d actually call J. Lee Thompson’s mid-80s adventure comedy (of course produced for Cannon) one.

Now, this is not a film that subverts its genre via humour all that deeply - in fact, its treatment of everyone non-white – well, actually everyone non-Norris is as problematic as anything you’ll find in the 80s adventure movie trend though certainly presented without any actual rancour – yet it still manages to come over as so friendly in its ways, and so clearly working for the entertainment of its audience without having a single original (or good idea) it’s difficult for me to avoid simply liking it.

It does help its case that the film’s jokes may not be clever but still had me snorting a bit from time to time, the characters aren’t deep but also not without interest, and the plot merrily jumps from one cheap yet nice old-fashioned adventure set-piece to the next without shame and without ever threatening to become boring. Veteran director J. Lee Thompson doesn’t generally doesn’t get much auteur credit, but he was actually involved in quite a few interesting films, and was never less than a really dependable hired hand that could take your silly, vaguely competent script and turn it into a silly, competent, and usually entertaining film. Which is exactly what he does here, with his usual eye for pacing and a certain dry wit that keeps the film’s humour from becoming annoying instead of funny.

But what about Chuck Norris, butt of many of my jokes? Well, in the company of a charming pro like Louis Gossett, and a rather more competent and charming than I had expected actress like Melody Anderson (whose character also turns out to be rather more spunky than I had feared, a real surprise in this conservative environment), he’s actually giving an okay performance and even seems – which really is a first when it comes to me and Norris – somewhat likeable and funny enough for the film’s goals.

So, Firewalker actually turns out to be a really fun adventure comedy, and exceeds all my expectations mightily by being quite enjoyable.

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