Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938)

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

While it doesn't offer any answers, it both thrills and makes you think.

The best films of this genre always show a path and provide a takeaway for being a better person.

This is the sequel to the 1936 Flash Gordon serial. Flash and company go from the planet Mongo to the planet Mars. The same cast return with the addition of Frank Shannon as comic relief. Beatrice Roberts plays Queen Azura, "Queen Of Magic". I personally missed seeing Priscilla Lawson as Princess Aura. Charles Middleton is and always will be "Ming The Merciless" This serial is also Jean Rogers last portrayal of Dale Arden. This is a fun serial to watch. 15 thrilling episodes with clay people, forest people, Flash, Dale, Dr. Zarkof and, i do so love her, Beatrice Roberts. Well, girls and boys, buckle up have you're popcorn at the ready and enjoy. John R. Tracy.

The overwhelming success of the 1936 Flash Gordon Serial demanded that a sequel be made. With out any change in the main cast of characters, the New Universal plunged head first int the second film, retaining Buster Crabbe,Jean Rogers,Charles Middleton and Richard Alexander from the cast of the original.What they came up with was FLASH GORDON's TRIP TO MARS (1938). In many ways, this may have been the overall best of the Trilogy. We open up with "the Stratosphere Party" returning to Planet Earth, and landing in some farmer's vegetable patch. Ironically in the conversation leading up to re-entry, Flash states that the'll be okay as long as wherever they land, it should be "anywhere but the ocean!", which is directly opposite to what NASA projects have always desired.Well, they no sooner get back and Dr. 'Alexis' Zarkov* addresses the scientific community, then a mysterious beam of a light ray coming to earth from space sends them off to Mongo again. A now brunette** Dale quips, "I'm getting to feel like a regular commuter!" Obsevation from space leads Zarkov to discover that the culprit planet is Mars, not Mongo. After course correction, and being shot down by martian ray, they are off to a great number of encounters with several different races of Martians. The Clay People, the Forest People and those reg'lar Martians at the Court of the Great Azura (Beatrice Roberts),Queen of Magic all seem to have it in for the 4 of them.Yes, 4 (four) people were now in the party, as they were joined by one 'Happy' Hapgood, star reporter of The Dispatch,who had stowed away. Hapgood (played by Donald Kerr) is there to provide a comic relief,the one element that the first serial lacked.Well needless to say after all is said and done, Flash and company are victorious in winning the any for Earth and destroying the Nitron Lamp that was causing the problem.This film had a much brighter look to it, overall. I mean the actual daylight, not the mood. There was plenty of peril and the action was superbly maintained through out.Great special effects,with the Clay Peoples' transformation scenes being at the top of the list! So, where is my criticism? It may seem trivial to say, but once again, alas, Hollywood took some really unnecessary liberties with the story. Basing their screenplay on the continuity in the Sunday Newspaper Comic Strip by Mr. Alex Raymond, it was truly a subject matter that was already familiar to most of the movie going audience. This adventure in the original comic strip form, was entitled THE WITCH QUEEN of MONGO. That's right the whole adventure was set on the fictional Mongo, not Mars.One can only speculate as to the why of this change, so I will.Mars has long been hot copy in the sci-fi world. People like Edgar Rice Burroughs, H.P.Lovecraft and H.G. Wells have used its mysterious, cloudy reddish appearance as a springboard to exciting, fantastic adventures in the still unknown space. Mars was still a good venue to have such a story to take place-even in the late 1930's.But perhaps it was Welles, Orson not H.G. who caused the moving decision. Remember this was the year of the famous and infamous War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast. It was done by Mr. Orson Welles' Mercury Theatre of the Air, broadcast right around Halloween. One could reason that this was an attempt by Universal to cash in on the Mars Craze. But, that could only be true if it was released very late that year. However, there was a Feature version of this F.G. adventure, entitled MARS ATTACKS, that was definitely marketed in this manner.One should mention a few other elements, lest we sound too critical. FLASH GORDON's TRIP to MARS had an opening to each chapter showing a uniformed Martian viewing a telescreen, which capsulized the previous chapters' action, leading up to this weeks 'cliff hanger'. The images on the screen are like the illustrations from the comic strip, with summarizing written text. They are still, not animated. This same gimmick was used in at least 2 other of Universal's comic strip adaptations, JUNGLE JIM (also by Alex Raymond) and for RADIO PATROL. It was a very effective and interesting way of story telling.The film was loaded with a lot of pseudo scientific gadgetry. The great Nitron Lamp, the Martian aircraft (dubbed 'Strato-sleds'), a Jet Rail Car (through a tunnel of poison gas, no less) and a Paralyzer Ray Gun (another gadget cooked up by Zarkov). My favourite gimmick was the Light Bridge.A beam of light becomes to a solid state,allowing pedestrian crossing on it. (Whata ya wanna bet there were kids all over the country mimicking the Light Bridge at the painted lines in the crossings. I know, we did.The music in any Flash Gordon always should get a mention. This was certainly no different, what with a previously used opening theme, name unknown to me. The sound track features incidental music culled from previous Universal features such as THE INVISIBLE MAN, THE WEREWOLF OF London and BRIDE OF FRANKENSTEIN, all expertly woven into what we all knew as 'Flash Gordon Music.' NOTE * Zarkov's given name was Hans. Was there already some anti German sentiment in Hollywood? It was 1938, World War II was on the horizon and the 1st World War hardly forgotten.NOTE** Dale was always a Brunette in the Newspaper Strip.There has been some speculation that she was made Blonde in the earlier adventure because of Jean Harlow's popularity on the screen.

This sequel to the first serial is overlong; it's got a twelve chapter story stretched to fifteen, and Mars lacks the cultural diversity of Mongo, so you don't have Lionmen in one chapter, Sharkmen in the next, etc. However, I think Buster Crabbe's hairdo is more appropriate and he also avoids the knickers for a costume more faithful to Alex Raymond's comic strip art. Those clay people are memorable; so is the lightray bridge and the Martian wings used for parachuting from rockets. One wishes that Universal had spent more money and brought in the kind of monsters they had created in the first Flash Gordon. One can go on wishing for other changes as well, but if you liked the first one and like serials, you'll like this one.

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.