Directors Howard Ziehm and Michael Benveniste draw from the same cliffhanging Flash Gordon serials of the 1930s as the glitzy 1980 tongue-in-cheek space opera for their soft-core spoof. Hockey hero Flesh Gordon and often-naked love interest Dale Ardor join Dr. Jerkoff in his battle against the mad Emperor Wang from the planet Porno, who has unleashed his diabolical sex ray on the Earth. Full of toilet humor, juvenile sexual innuendo, and unending naked romps and orgies, it's hardly in the same company as the Mel Brooks genre goofs Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein. But amidst the slack direction, flat performances, and grungy photography are some lovingly crafted low-tech effects, including marvelous stop-motion creatures from Jim Danforth and spaceships courtesy of future Oscar winners Greg Jein and Dennis Muren. The film's best sequence is a King Kong tribute with a giant rampaging satyr (voiced by an uncredited Craig T. Nelson, who ad-libs quips in a cultured but expletive-filled whine) kidnapping Dale as Flesh buzzes him his phallic space ship. All the restoration in the world won't make this dark, grainy, bargain-basement parody look any better, but the retro effects, inspired score, and playful attitude make this silly sex romp a kitschy cult item from the randy 1970s. --Sean Axmaker
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: Excellent Comment: Product was excellent. Forgot how stupid the video was. But, enjoyed it and it is now in my husband's collection. Customer Rating: Summary: Hot for its time Comment: I originally took my wife to see this movie when it first came out in the theaters. We were barely in our twenties and it was our first really 'naughty' movie we'd seen together, and upon entering the theater and seeing that it had an 'XXX" rating she was in fact initially hesitant. When we got into watching the movie I could see that many of her concerns were being repressed by what she was seeing on the screen, which I later found had touched some of her latent sexual tendancies. She had found it 'exciting' and had ultimately enjoyed it, and later confessed that it had in fact turned her on, her favorite scene being the lesbian initiation with Dale Ardor strapped to a table with another woman straddling her face, where though 'simulated', there are definite touches of forced oral. It ultimately proved to be a quite an erotic stimulus for her imagination. Though by today's standards it is far from being what one would call 'porn', it is a fun and campy film to watch, and the very fact that it goes back to a time in my life that was so open and uninitiated to all things sexual, it is one that will be on my shelf, if not just for the memories.. Customer Rating: Summary: Flesh Gordon Comment: Its a good show that shows what was considered risque in the
70's. I actually found this show humorous. It is adult content,
so please dont get it mixed up with Flash Gordon. Customer Rating: Summary: Even if you hate smutty movies... Comment: ...you should definitely watch Flesh Gordon. The film is ostensibly a sex- and innuendo-loaded parody of the FLASH Gordon movies I remember watching on Channel 52 back in the 1970s when I was a kid, and of course I knew they were from another era, the Depression. The makers of "Flesh Gordon" were very successful at tongue-in-cheek humor with this film.
I will state for the record that I find the average dirty movie to be boring as hell... however, this movie did not bore me, but rather, it made me laugh! I guess it just has to do with the way the actors all maintain deadpan seriousness, as they blurt out the most hilariously farcical dirty jokes.
When I was a kid, my mother had an uncle who always used to go see this film whenever some art-house theater in downtown Los Angeles would show it... and the rest of the family would know, because every time after he watched it, he'd always barge in on the rest of us, and rattle off about how he went to see "Flesh Gordon" and oh, it was always so funny. That old guy must have seen the film thirty times... after having laughed myself silly from just watching it once, I can finally understand why! Customer Rating: Summary: Worth a look Comment: Only Worth the second stop-motion sequence, when Flesh fights a robot twig. That scene is almost flawless and as good as any Harryhausen animation. The one love scene with Flesh and the hot curvy brunette is also nice. The film is worth a rent if your curious but it's really just a lame and unfunny movie. If your open to seeing a trashy sci-fi satire of Flash Gordon with some interesting special effects give it a look. Especially fans of stop-motion animation in which the film features 3 creature sequences.
