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Show The Newspaper Thursday, December 11, 1980 Page 23 by Hick Brough Flash Gordon Conquers the Theater But in kickety Outer Space Vehicle Udeel WopirM f , S. n if limmmmurt ' j 'y (, V''-' ii i i firm mm ' ) -1111111111111111 - wiiii if ' Ming the Merciless, 1930's version. A Classic Recommended Good Double feature material Time-Killer For masochists only i Flash Gordon Towards the end of "Flash Gordon," one of the Hawkmen heroes gets singed in the tail-feathers by a laser beam, and grunts bravely, "They just winged me." Parts of the movie certainly cer-tainly encourage an attitude of parody, as grown actors pretend to zip from planet to planet, climb from street clothes into outer-space disco costumes, and (for the Hawkmen ) carry on rational conversations with huge wings sprouting from their backs, and act like they're "flying," when they're really hanging by wires in front of a special-effects sky that looks like an oil puddle. Most of the film is straight adventure, however. Emperor Em-peror Ming the Merciless (Max Von Sydow) is destroying the Earth out of boredom more than malice and Dr. Hans Zarkov (Topol) sets off in his homemade spaceship to investigate in-vestigate the situation, along with a hijacked crew Dale Arden (Melody Anderson) and New York Jets quarterback quarter-back Flash ( Sam Jones ) . Ming retains his power by encouraging disputes between bet-ween the various small tribes he rules. So Flash spends most of his time on Mongo setting up an alliance between the Hawk King Vultan (Brian Blessed), the barbaric, aristocrat Prince Barin (Timothy Dalton ), and Ming's daughter. Princess Aura (Ornella Muti). The script by Lorenzo Semple and the direction by Mike Hodges rarely lets the action flag (though it lingers for a tedious amount of time on Barin and Aura's romance). And the movie is on occasion doggedly faithful to the 1930s. Von Sydow's makeup as Ming is identical to Charles Middleton, who played the part 50 years back. When you visualize the character, you don't even conceptualize Von Sydow in the part (which is probably the way he wants it.) Through all this are strong doses of kinky violence or sex. But there's no way you would call this a multi-level work. It's more like a stew. A few critics have said you can enjoy the film either as pure adventure or high-falutin' high-falutin' parody. Actually, the jokes aren't a consistent undertone un-dertone in the movie; they're thrown in when screenwriter Semple feels like it. Semple gained lame 14 years ago as a writer for the TV series "Batman," the first example of deliberate Camp. In 1976, working lor "Flash" 's producer, Dino De Laurentiis, he re-wrote "King Kong" as a fable on the venality of oil companies. com-panies. Semple must be getting tired of re-working old material, and his spoofing betrays a slight contempt. When Dale is facing marriage to Ming, and vows eternal faithfulness in order to save her friends' lives, she explains to Aura, "It's one of the things that separates us from people like you." Producer De Laurentiis has assembled what is called an "international cast," which means each character is on a different acting .wavelength from Brain Blessed, who is boisterous, to Timothy Dalton, restrained re-strained and menacing, to Sam Jones, a bland, yet believable hero. (That isn't as easy to play as it looks. ) But the costumes, monsters, mon-sters, and flying gadgets are more interesting than the characters. In the old serials, half the fun was watching wat-ching an actor like Charles Middleton, who found only bit parts in major movies, but achieved stardom in the serials. He could take the abominable dialogue written for him and transform it into pure melodramatic poetry. Blessed, in the role of Vultan, displays some of those same instincts, but the ripest performance is from Peter Wyngarde as Kytus, the head of Ming's secret police, who is a Darth Vader twin and drips cool, calculating menace. "Flash Gordon" is dripping drip-ping with imagination-costumes, imagination-costumes, lights, an in-tergalactic in-tergalactic "hand 'culi that leaps several feet in the, air and grabs you about the wrist; a brain-drain machine ma-chine that displays your past life in super-montage, even back to the womb; and space creatures that bleed different colors ! But is the overall tone supposed sup-posed to be grand adventure, or parody, or perversity? No one can tell, and "Flash Gordon" ends up a colorful mess. V, it. f I I X X V A "V , ,- 4 Si;'., Slepant litig&Ue and . . . ctuwn Aim fai, Aek Featuring Ora Feder, Odette Barsa, Christian Dior and more . . . Heritage Square 580 South West Temple Salt Lake City 532-3031 anna mm wraaw I The Public House Restaurant and Bar Now Serving Texas Ms Authentic pit-smoked Barbecue Specializing in Smoked Pork, Spare Ribs and Smoked Beef Brisket. Children's Portions Available. 11:00 a.m. to midnight, seven nights a week. 440 Main Street, 649-9997 and 649-6993 Take Out Available . Mu4 |