This may seem like an extremely long recap, and that's because it is, but this movie feels interminable so I'm just trying to keep that vibe going.

Flash Gordon: Spaceship to the Unknown - 1936

★ - do not recommend

Starring:

Buster Crabbe (Flash Gordon)

Jean Rogers (Dale Arden)

Charles Middleton (Ming the Merciless)

Jack 'Tiny' Lipson (Vultan)

I had a bit of confusion about this one. If you look up Flash Gordon movies, you'll see some from the 30s, some from the 60s, and some from the 80s. I wanted to watch the original movie from 1936, but I could only find its sequel. And some of the movies from the 60s listed the same cast as the movies from the 30s, which seemed unlikely.

Wikipedia helped me sort it out, though. There were three serialized movies (meaning they were released in episodes, I guess) starring Buster Crabbe as Gordon. The first was just called Flash Gordon (1936). The second was Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars  (1938), and the third was Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940).

However, sometime later - I'm guessing in the 60s, but Wikipedia didn't specify - the original movies were re-edited and re-released as feature length films (or as TV movies, according to IMDB) and given new titles just to make everything nice and confusing.

 Flash Gordon is now Flash Gordon: Spaceship to the Unknown

 Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars is now Flash Gordon: The Deadly Ray from Mars

 Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe is now Flash Gordon: The Purple Death from Outer Space

Man, those are some titles! By the rules of Science Fiction/Double Feature, I only have to watch the first Flash Gordon film, but I have to admit I'm really intrigued by that purple death.

Anyway, on to the film! And (spoiler alert!) you can really tell that this was chopped together from something much longer because nothing makes sense.

Recap: What the fuck am I watching?

"We are doomed, Professor Gordon!" an unnamed man laments from his seat at a big telescope. A planet is rushing toward Earth, and soon we will be smashed to atoms. Professor Zarkov might be our only hope - but he'll never get there in time!

We cut to an airplane that for some reason can't land, so the stewardess suggests people make use of the parachutes that the airplane just happens to have on board because they were informed that morning that they might come in handy(?!). Feel free to bail out if you don't want to stick around while we try to figure out this landing. Every passenger, bar one, puts on a parachute and jumps out of the plane. What the fuck am I watching?

Flash Gordon (disappointingly in normal clothes, not silver underwear) is the one who doesn't put on a parachute. Instead grabs hold of a blonde woman, shouts "SCARED?" into her face and then jumps out with her. They land on the ground and Zarkov is lurking in a bush pointing a gun at them. Oh and there just happens to be a rocket ship there too. Okay.

Zarkov and Gordon introduce themselves. They've heard of each other! Zarkov knows Flash's dad! I get the impression they're not friends. The rocket ship belongs to Zarkov. He's going to fly it to the incoming planet and use its "radioactive power" to deflect the planet.

For some reason, they bring the random blonde woman from the plane with them. Her name is Dale Arden. Did she and Gordon already know each other when he threw her out of the plane? No time for that! How will they land on the planet at this terrific speed? A counter-magnet, of course! A giant iguana runs away from the rocket as it lands. I should note that this rocket is almost as phallic as Bezos's. They climb out of the rocket and they're all wearing different clothes than they were before.

We get some extreme close-ups on two iguanas fighting to make us believe that they're giant space lizards.  Another rocket ship is arriving! It's using rays! It shoots the space lizards with its rays! It lands and some people in extremely cheap Tin Man costumes get out. They try to arrest the earthlings and take them to Emperor Ming, Ruler of the Universe, who lives in the nearby floating city. Flash Gordon tries to fight them - I get the sense that violence is his go-to - but Zarkov insists they need to talk to the emperor in order to serve earth.

Ming looks a lot like the King in The King and I.

Zarkov explains the problem, but Ming says he controls the planet and has no plans to collide with earth. He's going to destroy it in a different way! Zarkov suggests he conquer it instead and Ming thinks this is a great idea. Zarkov is taken to a lab.

Ming is very interested in Dale Arden. Flash takes exception to this and starts sword fighting everybody. Zarkov orders his henchmen to throw Flash into the arena. Ming's daughter, Aura - a brunette, so you know she's evil - requests that, if Flash survives, she gets to keep him. Daddy agrees.

Flash fights and wins easily, Ming goes back on his word, Aura jumps into the arena and shoots a guard with what looks like a water pistol. As he collapses to the ground he pulls a lever that opens the trap door that they're standing on and dumps them into the pit with the Dragons of Death!!! (by which she means the iguanas). There's a very convenient secret door so they get out immediately.

Cut to the laboratory, where Ming and Zarkov are surrounded by flashing tubes of lights and crackling sounds. “The control of radioactive energy on this planet is enough to control the universe!" Zarkov intones. Ming agrees.

Aura hides Flash inside a rocket and pretends she's going to save the "earth woman," but of course she has other plans. Flash looks through a cupboard and finds another unitard. Is it the silver underwear?! Whatever it is, he decides to put it on. Why not? He has nothing better to do.

Dale Arden refuses to marry Ming so they're going to have to use the dehumanizer on her. Then they'll perform the wedding ceremony while she's dehumanized.

Flash is in his new outfit now but, sadly, it doesn't look like silver underwear.

Some flying lion men are approaching, for some reason. (They don't look like lions. They just have beards, really.) Flash launches his rocket and goes to shoot at them (why, Flash? The enemy of your enemy is your friend, dipshit!). Flash Gordon is an ace rocket pilot and takes them all out, though the final one he accidentally impales on the nose of his rocket and crash-lands with. The lion man is okay, though! Now they're going to fight it out the old fashioned way. What does Flash Gordon have against the Lion Men?? Oh, apparently he attacked them because didn't want the Lion Men to destroy the tower while his friends are in there. He and Thun, the Prince of the Lion Men, make an alliance against Ming.

Wow, there's some kind of orgy taking place in front of a giant devil statue. Is this the wedding?? Wait, no, is that the dehumanizer?? Oh, the orgy is apparently "the oracle" that will determine the time of the wedding. Hmm okay.

Thun and Gordon burst into the lab. Zarkov is happy to see them. Gordon is very upset to hear about the dehumanized wedding. Zarkov shows him and Thun how to get to the temple to interrupt it. Zarkov is already going as Ming's guest so I guess he'll meet them there.

Dale has already been dehumanized, apparently, because she's staring into space. A gong strikes, signaling that the ceremony has begun. When the thirteenth gong sounds, they'll be married. Doesn't seem like they needed to dehumanize her for this. They could have just tied her up.

OH MY GOD a person wearing a rat-lobster costume and making hooting noises is walking around outside the temple. It's literally going "RAAAAAAA!! RAAAAA!"

I want to know who's inside the rat-lobster costume. It lifts its lobster claw and grabs Flash Gordon with it! We cut between Flash Gordon struggling with a giant claw and the rat-lobster waving a small doll in the air. The gong is still going! The rat-lobster roars! Thun comes to the rescue - somehow he got behind Flash, I don't know how - and shoots the rat-lobster with his gun.

Flash attacks the gong-striking man, stopping the wedding right before they put the marriage shackles on Dale! Then Flash and Thun pretend to make the god statue come to life and express its displeasure, then throw the statue to the ground and break it. Flash grabs Dale and they run out.

Let me spare us all and reduce the second half to this line from my notes: Just get on your fucking rocket and go home already. Part two is almost a beat-for-beat reconstruction of part one, and really we peaked with the guy in the rat-lobster costume.

In brief:

• A new king, Vultan, wants to marry Dale and tries to get rid of Flash. He’s camp as hell. He laughs maniacally and shouts everything he says. He's easily the best character in this movie. He also has a pet bear! It's really cute as long as you don't think too much about how this is a 1930s circus bear with a nose ring and stripes painted on him in what is probably lead-based paint.

• Flash fights in another arena: this time his foe Mighty Beast of Mongo, the Sacred Orangutoid; in other words, a guy in an ape suit with a unicorn horn stuck on its head. Zarkov invents a new form of energy. Emperor Ming walks into a room filled with mysterious fog, which supposedly kills him but we all know better. He’ll be back for the sequel.

• Aura finally accepts that Flash can never love her because she’s not blonde, and settles for a local nobleman who won her in a duel or something. She’s now Empress of the Universe and decides not to crash Mongo into Earth anymore.

• The earthlings FINALLY get on their fucking rocket and go home. Flash, disappointingly, never wears silver underwear.

Wow, that was the weirdest movie I ever watched. It was an hour and forty minutes but it felt like I watched three full-length movies. The re-editing of really resulted in an unwatchable mishmash. Probably having some familiarity with the comics would help, but it wouldn't change the fact that the cuts were badly made, on top of the original plot being flimsy and repetitive.

Sorry, Flash. I guess I'll never find out about the purple death.