Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars

This direct sequel to the now classic "Flash Gordon" is quite good. Polished look helps. Acting is better. But it does drag a bit once you get to Chapter 9. The tracked musical score is great. Charles Middleton made a great Ming the Merciless. All in all, fun film but not as good as the first serial. Many believe this one to be the best.

This is perhaps the best of the three Flash Gordon serials due to the fact that it not only was action packed, but that it also included some humorous moments provided by the character of "Happy" Hapgood. The first one was exciting, but really wasn't as action packed as this one. The third serial was good, but they had different characters playing the characters of Dale, Barin and Aura (give me Jean Rogers as Dale anytime). Also, this is the first one in which Dale takes part in the action, especially in the scene where she bombs the Forest People's temple. If you want thrills, just look at this serial.

The Clay People! Who can forget that sequence in Chapter 2 when they first appear. And all to that great Waxman music. Still a good serial to watch, even in these days. Good photography, OK acting, polished script but somehow the original 1936 serial was superior. And kudos again to that great tracked musical score.

One of my sci-fi/horror/fantasy reviews written 50 years ago: Directed by Ford Beebe and Robert Hill; Produced by Barney Sarecky, for Universal Pictures. Screenplay by Norman Hall, Ray Trampe, Wyndham Gittens and Herbert Dalmas; Photography by Jerry Ash; Edited by Joseph Gluck, Louis Sackin, Saul Goodkind and Alvin Todd. Starring: Buster Crabbe, Jean Rogers, Charles Middleton, Frank Shannon, Beatrice Roberts, Donald Kerr, C. Montague Shaw and RIchard Alexander.

Entertaining sci-fi serial, as crude as its predecessor, but distinguished by the cute flying city and the fine clay-people special effects.

The degree to which these episodes require of the viewer a super-human suspension of belief makes them, I believe, beyond all criticism and places them in a category that defies definition--"kitsch" and "camp" do not begin to do this cinematic production justice. I do have one criticism, however, of King Entertainment's editing of the DVD. They should have left in the original breaks in the story line which corresponded to the actual viewing experience of the original audiences in the movie houses of the 30s & 40s and TV of the 60s & 70s: namely those dramatic moments at the end of a chapter when Flash & company appeared to be finished for certain. The beginning of the next sequel revealed how they managed their astonishing, breath-taking escape from the gaping jaws of death.