Trivia

As with many Universal serials of the era, every episode after the first begins with a slanted opening crawl to catch up the audience on the story so far. These inspired the iconic opening crawl of Star Wars: Episode IV - A New Hope (1977) and the subsequent Star Wars films.

Chapter Titles:

• 1. The Purple Death
• 2. Freezing Torture
• 3. Walking Bombs
• 4. The Destroying Ray
• 5. The Palace of Peril
• 6. Flaming Death
• 7. Land of the Dead
• 8. The Fiery Abyss
• 9. The Pool of Peril
• 10. The Death Mist
• 11. Stark Treachery
• 12. Doom of the Dictator

In the final chapter before his demise, Ming is looking to escape. In the endings of most serial episodes, the hero is is the one trying to escape (then thought to be killed - until the next week). This might suggest another sequel or fourth Flash Gordon serial. However, after 7 December 1941 and the attack on Pearl Harbor, just 3 years after Orson Welles' infamous 'War of the Worlds' radio broadcast simulating an attack from from outer space, the production of "space travel" films was put on hold.

Buster Crabbe (Flash Gordon), Charles Middleton (Ming the Merciless), and Frank Shannon (Dr. Alexis Zarkov) are the only actors to appear in all three "Flash Gordon" serials.

Buster Crabbe (Flash Gordon) and Shirley Deane (Princess Aura) died only three days apart: Crabbe on April 23, 1983 and Deane on April 26, 1983.