Flash Gordon (1936)
The music cue information is provided for the 13-chapter movie serial, inclusive for every chapter in the film. The film source the music was recorded from, along with the name and time of the music cues and composers is listed. In some cases, if the music was public domain, the arranger is listed after the composer name. Example; Liszt/Roemheld. It is not clear if some of the classical music used in the films was actually recorded for them, so "classical" denotes these cues instead a film source name.
Chapter 1: The Planet of Peril
Chapter 2: The Tunnel of Terror
Chapter 3: Captured by Shark Men
Chapter 4: Battling the Sea Beast
Chapter 5: The Destroying Ray
Chapter 6: Flaming Torture
Chapter 7: Shattering Doom
Chapter 8: Tournament of Death
Chapter 9: Fighting the Fire Dragon
Chapter 10: The Unseen Peril
Chapter 11: In the Claws of the Tigron
Chapter 12: Trapped in the Turret
Chapter 13: Rocketing to Earth
Author's Notes:
Flash Gordon (1936)
Alex Raymond's comic strip, Flash Gordon
first appeared in newspapers in 1934. His unique and sophisticated drawings of the characters were considered the best for their time. The strip also served as a way for King Features Syndicate to compete against the popular Buck Rogers comic strip.
Universal Pictures had previously released two successful serials, Tailspin Tommy in 1934 and Tailspin Tommy in the Great Air Mystery in 1935, both based on a popular newspaper strip. Seeking to repeat the success of a comic strip pre-sold to millions of readers across the country, Universal bought the rights to make Flash Gordon in 1935.
Veteran serial producer Henry MacRae was in charge of producing the film version at Universal, with screenwriter Frederick Stephani assigned to direct the film, making his directorial debut. The initial cost of $1 million dollars to produce Flash Gordon shocked Hollywood, although by the time the serial was being filmed, the costs went down to $350,000 dollars, which set the track record as the most expensive movie serial to ever be produced in the history of Hollywood film.
Olympic Medal swimming champion turned actor, Larry "Buster" Crabbe portrays Flash Gordon, a Yale graduate and internationally famous polo player, returning home on a transcontinental flight to be with his family and prepare for the worst; a distant planet has broken its orbit and is going to collide with the Earth. Flash meets fellow traveler Dale Arden, portrayed by Jean Rogers.
Jean was a beauty queen from Belmont, Massachusetts, who booked her passage to Hollywood by the early 30's, after winning a beauty contest. She had been working at Universal and was the leading lady in the Tailspin Tommy serials made prior to Flash Gordon. She was only 19 when the serial was filmed.
An atmospheric storm is destroying their plane and they are forced to bail out to safety. They land where Dr. Zarkov (Frank Shannon) is building his rocketship. The great scientist enlists their aid to join him on his quest to save the Earth. The heroic trio blast off into space to rendezvous with the runaway planet, Mongo.
The trio land on Mongo and are captured by Officer Torch and brought to the palace of Emperor Ming, the evil tyrant of Mongo, who hates Flash, but takes a lustful liking to Dale. At Ming's side is Princess Aura (Priscilla Lawson) his daughter who is hopelessly enamored with Flash.
Seen today, the serial holds up remarkably well. Buster Crabbe made the perfect hero as being intelligent, virile and courageous. In contrast to the idealized heroics of Flash, there's virginal Jean Rogers as Dale Arden, with her slightly-attributed body giving more than a hint of implied sexuality. In direct contrast is Charles Middleton, a veteran stage actor and "heavy", as the greatest of the arch-villains as the slick, culpable, ruthless Ming the Merciless, the ruler of the wandering planet, Mongo.
In Raymond's comic strip, Dale was a brunette, just like Jean Rogers was in real life. For the 36' serial film, Jean's hair would be bleached and dyed platinum blonde. Studio executives reasoned the movie audience at the time would associate the good hero as the one with blonde hair and the brunette as the villain with dark hair. They also had reasoned blonde would be a good color to use, as movie actress Jean Harlowe was a big star at the time.
Flash Gordon had blonde hair in the strip and Buster Crabbe was a brunette, so they ordered for his hair to get bleached and dyed the same as Jean Rogers did. Once done, he looked virtually identical to the character in the strip. The new experience wasn't good for Crabbe, as he felt uneasy on the set and donned a cap in between scenes and complained the crewmen were whistling when he removed it. He'd wear a hat when he was out in public. To affix the balding cap on Charles Middleton, he had his hair cut shorter, so they could fit it on. Spirit gum was used to affix the cap and it produced fumes that irritated his eyes and gave him dizzy spells on the set.
Though more lavish than the average serial with a record budget of $350,000 dollars, the scripting and directing by Stephani was rather commonplace, the individual thrills in each chapter kept audiences coming back week after week. Not only were futuristic rocket ships, ray guns, melting rays, ancient armour, but the hero would come across such terrors as dinosaurs, monkey-men, a spaceograph TV device, lionmen, sharkmen, the floating sky city, the torture of the atom furnace, a tournament of death with Flash pitted against assorted monsters, a memory-restroring ray, and the horrible creatures that Ming had guarding his tunnels, the sacred fire-dragon, the Gocko which had lobster claws and other unpleasant assets.
Despite the big budget, the studio went out of its way to save money during the production. Existing sets from The Hunchback of Notre Dame (1923), The Phantom of the Opera (1925), Frankenstein (1931), and were used, so long as they were appropriately integrated in the storyline, otherwise the budget would have exceeded a million dollars. The deity which is seen in The Mummy (1932), was used as The Great God of Tao, appears early on in the serial. It's the statue that stands before Ming and Dale at the wedding ceremony.
To save further costs, music was recycled from Universal films such as The Midnight Sun (1931), The Invisible Man (1933), Destination Unknown (1933), Bombay Mail (1934), The Black Cat (1934), The Raven (1935), and The Werewolf of London (1935). However, the only music that was originally composed for the film was by Clifford Vaughan. It's heard at the opening titles with the music extending through the narrative of every chapter. It was also edited and would be heard at the end titles of every chapter of the film, with the exemption of the final chapter's cadence.
Rocket ships were borrowed from Fox's Just Imagine (1930) and stock footage of newsreel footage depicting crowds and massive destruction was edited in, reducing costs for Universal. Additional stock footage was culled from Just Imagine, of the erotically-attributed female dancers, with its inclusion in the second chapter of Flash Gordon. The use of other stock footage, featuring Laura La Plante, was culled from The Midnight Sun (1926). It was seen at the sky-city banquet for King Vultan, in the sixth chapter of the 1936 serial.
Frederick Stephani's direction of the script has much to do with the serial's departure from the stereotyped serials that were common in that era of 1930's Hollywood. There's a sexual tension between the characters with the underlying eroticism that no other serial dared to produce in Hollywood. Both Jean Rogers and Priscilla Lawson wore long skirts and attractive bras, revealing bare midriff in most of the serial, with their physique showing well above the navel, which is a forbidden part of anatomy in this era of filmmaking. Just as Buster Crabbe did several scenes in clad shorts, was meant to have a similar effect on women.
Location scenes were kept to a minimum at nearby Bronson Canyon in Griffith Park. The inside of the caves were filmed with the cast for certain scenes in the serial and often reused of Officer Torch and his men patrolling them.
Filming began in November of 1935 and wrapped on December 24th. Flash Gordon opened on April 6, 1936 and became an overnight sensation across America. It concluded its run by that summer in the movie houses. In November of 1936, Universal released a condensed version of he serial to capitalize on the new franchise. Titled "Flash Gordon", with a running time of only 72-minutes, turned out to be one of the most successful serial condensations ever made.
His popularity now established, Universal planned for Flash Gordon's imminent return.
In an interview published in Filmfax #79, Buster Crabbe revealed the 1936 serial was filmed in six weeks:
"We were on the set at seven each morning, broke for a half an hour at lunchtime, then went back to work until five or six. We'd break for an hour to have dinner at the studio commissary or a nearby restaurant, depending on how we were costumed, and then report back to the set for more shooting until ten at night or so, or whenever it was convenient to quit. We did this day in and day out, week in and week out, only taking Sundays off if we were on schedule. I usually got home at eleven at night, went right to bed, and arose the next morning at six or earlier. Those of us who had home lives during that time almost became strangers to our families."
Crabbe spoke of the many stunts involved in the filming of Flash Gordon. He gives the examples of the fight sequences with the Fire Dragon and Orangupoid:
"We didn't use many stuntmen in the filming of Flash Gordon. Most actors who were involved in the dialog did their own fight scenes, unless something especially dangerous came up. Every stunt was calculated to offer the maximum in safety. There was a scene that featured Flash in combat with a Gocko: a fire-breathing dragon, eleven feet long, with a horse's head, the body of a dinosaur, and the tail of a dragon. Operating the bulky monster was a horrendous job, since we were in an age without automation. One man did the whole job from inside by pushing the wire-framed structure about the set, turning its head and swishing its tail by hand crank, and firing a flame-thrower through an opening in its mouth. It didn't even look remotely real, but it was the best thing we had at the time. Glenn Strange was the actor who dragged the Gocko around.
Flash was trapped in a [cavern] on Mongo, with
the Gocko closing in for the kill, spurting fire at me as
it approached. Surrounded on three sides by sheer
[rock], there was no way out and, as usual, I was
weaponless. It moved closer and closer as I pressed
back against the rock, the fire raging toward me. With
a final zoom of the telephoto lens into the jet of flames,
the chapter ended with the audience supposedly unnerved
by my impending destruction. Obviously, on
the set, we didn't stop our action at the place where
each chapter was to end. We continued on with the
scene to its logical
(or illogical) conclusion,
and stopped
only when we were
finished with either
the scene
or the set-up. Time was at a
premium because we had only six weeks to do the
entire 13 chapters of the serial. So long as the
Gocko and I were in position, the camera man
zoomed back, and the action continued.
My face was moistened to make me look sweaty
from the heat, and I flinched and grimaced in response
to the implied pain. The closest Glenn got in this contraption
was about 30 feet but, by utilizing different
camera angles, it looked like I was being scorched.
As the succeeding chapter began, I was saved by
Prince Thun in the nick of time. He blasted the dragon
with his ray gun, from a ledge above me, and we
got back into the business of trying to stop Ming's
conquest of Earth.
Ray "Crash" Corrigan, a stuntman in our Flash
Gordon serial, became a class-B cowboy hero of the
1940s as part of the Three Mesquiteers (with Max Terhune
and John Wayne, before the Duke was replaced
by Robert Livingston). Crash was somewhat of an inventor,
as well as an actor and stuntman. He spent
years hand-making a gorilla costume, complete from
head to foot, sewn horsehair by horsehair until the suit
was completed. The entire costume ended up costing
him $5,000, so whenever Crash wasn't working in the
suit, he had some other man work it for him.
Ray sold his services to
our producer for the part of the
Orangupoid—a gorilla with a
huge horn on its forehead.
The ape and I had a fight
scene that lasted all of a
minute and a half on the
screen, but the gorilla costume
was so heavy that every
time Ray would take one
or two swipes at me, he'd
have to go sit down, remove
the gorilla head, and rest. A
few minutes later, we'd start
roiling again. Ray would grunt,
lumber toward me, then sit
down to rest again. The director
thought the short battle
would take only a half hour to
film, but Ray managed to stretch it to a day and a
half! After about the fifth time we stopped, I couldn't
help laughing at Crash's exhaustion.
"How much does that thing weigh?"
"About 100 pounds too much. The biggest problem
is I didn't ventilate it properly. It's hotter than hell
in this get-up."
Director Frederick Stephani
ranted endlessly throughout
the wasted afternoon.
"Who hired that stupid
ape? Why the hell couldn't we
have hired a real gorilla?" None of
this did Crash's ego any good,
but once we were committed to
the scene, there was little to be
done but proceed with it as best
we could. Along with a little pride,
Crash probably lost 20 pounds
by the time we finished the scene.
When the filming began, we
were on the set at seven each
morning, broke for half an hour at
lunchtime, then went back to work
until five or six. We'd break for an
hour to have dinner at the studio
commissary or a nearby restaurant
—depending on how we were
costumed—and then reported
back to the set for more shooting
until ten at night or so, or
whenever it was convenient to
quit. We did this day in and day
out, week in and week out,
only taking Sundays off if we
were on schedule. I usually got
home at eleven at night, went
right to bed, and arose the next
morning at six or earlier. Those
of us who had home lives during
that time almost became
strangers to our families.
Flash Gordon was an ambitious
project for 1936, when
you consider the $750,000
budget we had to work with.
Even Cecil B. DeMille didn't
use much more than that for
his class-A films in the mid-1930s. But Flash required
the use of a lot of extras, and a lot of footage to make
13 chapters, plus many special effects that would help
make outer space seem realistic. A lot of the success
of the serial was owed to Eddie Keyes, the director
of special effects at Universal.
The first Flash Gordon was wrapped up in six
weeks, just before Christmas of 1935. There was no
cast party, as often is done for class-A movies. Some
of the actors went across the street to a bar, to celebrate
the end of our long ordeal. The director might pat
us on the back and say, "nice job, guys," but that was it."
"With my advance copy of the script, I went
over it page by page, marking the places
that pertained to Flash. I didn't have
to memorize the dialog, like I would for
a stage play, but I wanted to be familiar with the story-line so I could read Flash's moods and feel the
part. If I knew how the story went, I could handle my
lines when the time came. It never took me more than
a few minutes to commit my sentences to memory.
After all, Flash was an action picture; we never talked
anyone to death. Plotting out the action sequences
was usually more difficult than doing the dialog.
Just before Universal began filming the serial, I
had to report to a hair dresser on Hollywood Boulevard
to have my hair bleached. Having always looked
out at the world from under a dark brow, it was an unusual experience being a blond. It was as if someone
had lifted the roof suddenly, everything looked
brighter. I spent a lot of time staring at myself in the
parlor mirror, trying to adjust to the sudden change.
It was a little embarrassing. The bleach job didn't
appeal to me at all. I braced myself for the goodnatured
ribbing I'd have to take at the studio the
next day, as I put my hat on and left the salon for
home.
I began to place myself into the role of Flash
Gordon since I had been made-up to resemble
him. It was kind of an unavoidable method-acting,
brought about by this stranger who kept peering
out of mirrors at me.
Action scenes always require people to be
in certain places at certain times. It's like a dance
routine that can be ruined when one dancer isn't
where she's supposed to be when the music
demands it. The scene at the closing of that
chapter required timing and rehearsal on everyone's
part to make the action flow smoothly.
When only one character fights another, it's
easy; two against one starts to get a little complicated;
but three against one is like planning
an assault on a beachhead. Naturally,
whether Flash won or lost a battle depended
on the plot: if he won every fight, he'd never
get in danger, and the element of suspense
would vanish. He was always fighting
against a crowd, which could justify his being
overpowered so often, and choreographing
these fight scenes required the
actors to "line up." Reason alone demanded
that a gang not just rush onto the set
and pounce upon poor Flash, en masse.
That wouldn't be very exciting, unless it
came as a coup de grace when the chapter
was over, or the script called for him
to be captured quickly. In my battle
against the three humanoids, the actors
and I rehearsed the scene by walking
through the action and talking it out.
"I'll throw a body block on you when
you're about here, Harry, then I'll turn
like this and push you away from me,
Bill, and run over to the doors like this..."
I would say, as we stood in the cage before
shooting, "...then you grab me and toss me
over there, and I'll roll on impact. While he's
doing that, Harry and Bill are getting up, ready
to march toward me...."
We developed a sense of timing and action
through experience, and if anyone had a
good idea that would make the scene more
interesting, we'd listen. It was essential that
we all knew what was going to happen so we
could time our reactions. Had I turned and
pushed at the humanoid when he wasn't
there, I'd have fallen flat on my face. And any
action tends to look clumsy or silly when the
timing gets fouled-up."
"A lot of planning went into each scene in order to
take advantage of the make-up and sets that were
being used on any given day. We stole a lot of existing
sets from other movies otherwise, our picture
easily would have exceeded a million dollars. We
acted in front of sets that Charles Laughton used in
The Hunchback of Notre Dame (the walls of that
church were the outer walls of Ming's castle), and
we used the interior of the opera house from Lon
Chaney's Phantom of the Opera. If a set wasn't being
used on the Universal lot, our crew found some
way to fit it into the script, so long as it was appropriate.
Preparing all the extras in make-up was the
most awkward part of the scheduling.
We had Clay men, Lion men, Monkey men, Tree
men, monsters, and humanoids of every description,
running through the plot. Universal had a battery of
make-up assistants who spent hours, every morning,
preparing the cast and extras for the day's shooting.
Because of the time and expense, the director
tried to shoot every possible scene that required
actors in make-up of a particular kind within that
day. If the shooting log had Clay men scheduled, every
scene In the script that had Clay men was shot
consecutively, until all scenes featuring them
were done. Compartmentalized, chopped, and shuffled,
the 13 chapters didn't make a lot of sense while
we were shooting them, but in the editing room, it
was all pieced into proper chronology."
In 1951, Flash Gordon reverted back to King Features Syndicate. Television syndication of the serial brought a new demand for new Flash Gordon adventures, resulting in a short-lived television series (1953-54) starring Steve Holland. It was produced in Germany with an American cast. King Features renamed the 1936 serial Space Soldiers to avoid confusion.
Click the film titles on to read a comprehensive listing of the musical
contributions heard in the serials:
Flash Gordon | Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars | Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe
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