Psychotronic Cinemavision: Flesh Gordon

The Earth is plunged into chaos when a mysterious force begins causing people to have uncontrollable urges to perform sex.  Distinguished Professor Gordon (John Hoyt) explains that the Earth is being bombarded by a “sex ray” coming from an unknown planet.  The plane carrying the professor’s son, Flesh Gordon (Jason Williams), who is on his way home to help his father, is hit by one of the “sex rays” and only Flesh and Dale Ardor (Suzanne Fields) survive.  They find themselves near the home of Dr. Flexi Jerkoff (Joseph Hudgins) who has discovered where the planet is that is attacking Earth and convinces Dale and Flesh to join him on a mission to save the Earth, traveling in a space craft he built.  The team’s ship is shot down on the planet Porno, ruled by the perverted Emperor Wang (Lance Larsen), and the trio are captured after being attacked by “Penisauruses” and taken to the throne room.  Wang is enamored with Dale and decides to marry her, but Flesh, Jerkoff and Dale escape and along their journey to save Earth meet new allies and friends.  Can the trio save their home planet before it is too late?  Watch and find out.

Flesh Gordon is a 1974 spoof of the original Flash Gordon serial films of the 1930s but in a very adult, X-rated, camp style.  The storyline so closely resembled the old serial that Universal Studios almost sued Graffiti Productions for plagiarism, so an opening text scroll was added explaining that this film is a burlesque style parody of the Depression Era superheroes of America’s past.  All advertising material also added “Not to be confused with the original Flash Gordon”.  The production also ran into some issues, as it did use hardcore gay and straight pornography in some of the scenes but shooting porn in Los Angeles was legally viewed as “pandering” at the time, so the hardcore X-rated footage was surrendered to L.A. Vice, although some shots can still be seen in the throne room sequences in the finished film.  The film was originally given an MPAA X rating but was later re-edited and reclassified with a rating of R. This film predates the NC-17 rating that is later added to avoid films receiving a rating of X. The production value is not bad for the time and the music is very reminiscent of the 1930s serials. The movie used the same low budget special effects techniques from the original serials, but some surprisingly big names worked on the film, Mike Minor, Greg Jein and Rick Baker for example.  Jim Danforth and Dave Allen also worked on the film although Jim is listed in the credits as Mij Htrofnad, his name spelled backwards. Long time Star Trek writer, Bjo Trimble was a makeup artist, George Barr designed and illustrated the poster and author Tom Reamy served as property master.  The film garnered some mixed reviews, some finding it a hilarious parody and others monotonous.  It was actually nominated for a 1975 Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation but lost to Young Frankenstein.  The film has garnered somewhat of a cult following.

I remember seeing scenes of this film in the mid-1980s at a TimeCon convention in San Jose, California.  I was somewhere around 16 and that convention is one of my fondest memories from my teenage years. I had never seen the movie in its entirety until now, and I feel I can go another 40 years without seeing it in its entirety again.  There are some humorous gags that made me guffaw a couple times and the performances aren’t terrible.  At first the sexual parody is novel, but as the movie goes on, it does get monotonous and boring.  I did find it interesting how close to both the Flash Gordon serial, both this film and the 1980s Flash Gordon movie are although each give their own style to the piece.  Flesh Gordon is mainly a soft-core straight porn, but they did include some gay characters specifically with Prince Precious (Mycle Brandy) who becomes an ally of the team and helps them save the day, and it alludes to the fact that Flesh is somewhere in the bisexual spectrum having a physical scene with Prince Precious.  I did find some of the film humorous and the idea is fun and a bit original, it just goes on for far too long.