Flesh Gordon (1974) Reviews

• An unusual and surprisingly successful blending of low budget genres

  roarshock2002-05-13

  The filmmakers of Flesh Gordon spent so much effort lovingly recreating the look and feel of the original Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s that they actually created a soft porn movie with real (if very modest) cinematic worth. In fact, it's in some ways superior to the original Gordon flicks - particularly its special effects - with an extensive and surprisingly good use of stop-action animation. Fortunately, sub-par acting is common in both porn and the old serials and this adds to the authentic feel of this parody. But there is also some genuine acting going on too. The best actors in the movie deliberately over-play their roles to wonderful effect. Emperor Wang and Dr. Flexi Jerkoff brilliantly recreate the essence of Emperor Ming and Dr. Zarkov. Craig T. Nelson gives the voice of the monster a kind of laid back (yet lewd) sophistication. It's a voice that reminds me of Bing Crosby, which makes the scene just plain weird. What makes this film work is that instead following the usual porn formula of using the plot as a mere device to show sex, Flesh Gordon uses sex as the fundamental source its humor, enthusiastically blending the rather banal soft-core porn of the seventies with the hackneyed storylines of the thirties. The sex takes the hackney out of the story, and the story takes the banality out of the sex scenes. Is this movie a masterpiece? Clearly... OBVIOUSLY... not. But it is distinctive and original. Flesh Gordon is an unusual case where the quite good and the very bad somehow manage to complement each other and average out to make a very entertaining movie.

• Fun Parody of The Original

  moonman-62003-10-25

  This is a wonderful parody of the original serial version from the mid 1930s. The quality of acting, writing, directing, budget, costuming, and effects is dead on, almost a one-for-one match. Lots of great dialog, very quotable ("Good, there's Oxygen on this planet."). There are two versions of this film floating around, the unrated version and a cut "R" version. The unrated version is the one to see! Most films can have "X" material edited out of them with no consequence, but not here. Whole sections of the plot (as thin as it is) are missing without the deleted footage. This film features early work from Greg Jein, David Allen, Rick Baker, and Jim Danforth (who is listed with his name spelled backwards "Mij Htrofnad"). All went on to greater things in their careers. Avoid the sequal from 1989, it tried too hard and fell flat on all fronts.

• Sex, camp and good fun!

  Teach-71999-04-12

  This is truly a camp classic, ripe for discovery by those who love and cherish hysterical over-acting, horrid sex-jokes and flagrant innuendo. The plot is, well,....quite basic: Sex-rays from the planet Porno (presumably somewhere near the Porn-star..) hits Earth and threatens to destroy the morals of mankind. Flesh Gordon, after almost succumbing to those very same rays teams up with the lightly clad Dale Ardor and dr. Flexi Jerkoff. Together they fly off to Porno in a penile spaceship to destroy the evil Wang and his sex-ray machine. OK? Here they meet Penisauruses, the gay (in every sense) men of Sherwood forest, a surly monster (close cousin to King Kong) and an army of perverts, cavorting on the floors of Wang's palace. Wang himself seems somewhat miffed when Flesh complains about the sex-rays destroying morality :"Why, you should THANK me!" The pantomime plot has side-splitting moments and good fun, but at the end of the day it all bubbles down to one word: Sex. This is, effectively, a porn movie, with most of the porn removed (at least in this version), and a mixture of ludicrously funny sight gags and some elaborate special effects thrown into the mix. I enjoyed "Flesh Gordon", because it never stops moving and is always funny. In fact, it's a real treat, and the intended satire on the mores of American science-fiction is spot-on. (including the priceless sight-gag of Dr.Jerkoff starting his rocket-engine with a car-ignition key!) There is also a shot of a stranded spaceship which looks ominously like that one at the start of ALIEN. In fact, it looks like H.R.Giger must have been HEAVILY influenced by it! See this movie!

• The first film for 2002!

  BlackJack_B2002-01-14

  The very first film I saw this year was this one. Bravo (in Canada) aired this one New Year's Day. Flesh Gordon is an ingenious spoof of "Flash Gordon" which set the standard for the porno industry to spoof just about everything. The story is pretty simple. Emperor Wang of the Planet Porno has unleashed a sex ray on Earth that needs to be stopped. Flesh Gordon and his crew have to stop it. This film (BTW, the extended DVD version) has some pretty good stopmotion effects, which represent the beasts that Flesh and company have to battle. One of them, the final monster, was actually voiced by Craig T. Nelson. The film isn't hardcore, but there's a lot of nudity (male and female). The DVD version includes the orgy that goes on in Emperor Wang's throne room. Also, there is a sex scene with Flesh and Amora which wasn't in the original cut. The movie is very cheap looking and made on a low budget. The acting is hit or miss. Some characters, like Dale, who spends most of the film screaming annoyingly are awful, but there are some hilarious lines here, too. One of the servants calls Emperor Wang "Your Assholiness". And wait until the guy with one of the all-time monikers (Dr. Flexi Jerkoff) describes one stopmotion monster as a "penisauraus". This is a crazy film that has to be seen once. It reminds me of the good old days of cinema, when it was fun to go because you never knew what outrageousness could happen in movies.

• Superb

  Bruce_the_Brilliant2004-06-21

  The beauty of Flesh Gordon is that it has no pretensions to seriousness. Much soft porn of the 70's was so mind-bogglingly asinine that lots of us nearly gave up sex. Flesh is so totally different, being funny, that it remains in my memory from the time I saw it in the Mid-70's. I still remember Dr Jerkoff unveiling his spaceship shaped like a giant erect phallus with the words "Fortunately I was able to complete the design before the Sex-ray took effect". The word 'Penisaurus' has passed into the vocabulary of Britain now, as an insult, obviously. The rapist robots with their little spring willys still linger in my memory. If I had seen it alone I would probably have walked out, but as a teenage miscreant with a friend it was hysterical. If you are not offended by the sight of breasts and enjoy a laugh watch it with some friends and a beer or two. Excellent fun.