Flesh Gordon

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.

This unique film breaks the barriers on porn by bringing us semi-high-tech special effects (okay...they were bad), dialogue (that was bad also), interesting costumes, and (oh my gosh!) a plot!...(okay it was bad also). The main plot is a mysterious sexbeam is striking the earth, from the distant Planet Porno. Flesh, Dale(his helpless girl sidekick), and Dr. Flexi Jerkoff join forces to over-throw the evil plot made by the Evil Emperor Wang. They encounter "peni-sourauses", a ferocious lesbian tribe, and an all-out orgy in the lairs of Wang. I would also like to commend this movie on its "liberalism", due to the fact that the original owners of Planet Porno are all gay, and the writers aviod the temptation of gay bashing...there was even a very brief scene with Flesh and one of the "merry men of the forest." So, as an overview, I would say that this is a MUST SEE for anyone who loves campy and cult classics, or anyone who still believes that porn can be more than just sex-If you do not fall one of these two catogories...stay away from it! Through all of this, the movie stands as a real gem in the vast universe of cult and pornographic movies.

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.

Which is worse: A cheesy porno flick or one of those old off the wall sci-fi swordfight potboilers?

Answer: How about a crossbreed? A sci-fi swordfight porno flick!

This is an interesting parody of two awful genres, played not against each other, but played INTO each other, dreadful writing and acting parodied by deft writing and clever acting.

Not a family flick (of course, not everything needs to be family fare) but an interesting play on the line of "can we make it so bad it is good?"

There is so much to see in this movie (besides the nekkid people), Great special effects, weird sight gags, penisaurs, robots... Many images are indelible, The black swan spaceship of the lesbian queen, the great claymation monster saying "My AAAsss!", robin hood seducing flash gordon (those aren't the character names but you get the idea...), oh yeah, and emperor Wang's cheerleaders.

Not a great movie by any means, but really odd. And so much better than the Dino DeLaurentiis version that came later.