Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars: 75 Years Ago -- The Music of Flash Gordon

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Date Posted: 12:30:42 04/07/13 Sun
Author: Tim
Subject: Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars: 75 Years Ago

Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars opened on March 21, 1938, and was likely still in many theaters in early April, 75 years ago!

While it's not as good (to me) as the 1936 Flash Gordon, Trip to Mars is still loads of fun and excitement! Queen Azura, The Clay People, Tarnak, King Turan and the Forest People, Martian Bat-Wings, the Light Bridge, etc. Heck, I don't even mind Happy Hapgood, he is a happy sort of fellow.

Captain Tim

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[> Re: Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars: 75 Years Ago -- Officer Torch, 08:13:59 04/08/13 Mon [1]

Hello Capt. Tim:

FG Trip to Mars with Buster Crabbe is indeed an oldie, though as in the trilogy, still enjoyed by the fans....HEY! look at us! We're still yaking about these films.

I'm not sure, but War of the Worlds might have popularlized the FGTTM serial as time went on. I enjoy it for..well, the coherent story (Nitron Lamp), the gadgetry, sparking machines, and lab "stuff"...much from Universal horror stock (from films like Frankenstein, etc),

It's a bit long with trips into the Forest kingdom, but overall, I liked the serial. I enjoyed that sly Tarnak, a true double crosser. Thoroughly enjoyed music from this serial, a lot of Waxman's material. Lots from movies such as Frankenstein (Bride) also early Black Cat film.

I still favored original 1936 FG. Nowadays, I'd put the 1938 FGTTM and 1940 FGCTU as a tie. Interestingly, the first and last serials in the trilogy (also the BR of 1939) were also made into short movie versions, some being slightly different. But, don't recall seeing the Mars serial shortened. Perhaps Commander Rick would know.

In any case, as always, I enjoyed and still do, the Buster Crabbe FG serials with Chas. Middleton as Ming. I would hope someday an outfit such as Image eg would close caption (cc) these...fans have aged, some have lost hearing somewhat, and while I get by owing to familiarity with these serials, I would still like to see them close captioned, maybe sub titled also.

A footnote ..I thought the 1980 FG movie, though often considered a spoof, was quite colorful, fun, an adventurous movie...I liked it, in fact, too bad it ran only 2 hours. I would have enjoyed more of it. Seems additional films which were hinted about never materialized.

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[> [> Re: Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars: 75 Years Ago -- Rick, 01:30:14 04/09/13 Tue [1]

The feature version of FGTTM was "Mars Attacks the World" (The original title was "Rocketship", but it was shelved because of a studio shutdown in 1938 and later retitled for the venues as MATW). FGCTU was never condensed into a feature by Universal in 1940; but rather for TV in 1966.

Rick

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[> [> [> Re: Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars: 75 Years Ago -- Tim, 11:02:33 04/09/13 Tue [1]

The condensed version of Flash Gordon '36 (released in 1950, if I am correct?) was also titled Rocketship. I was surprised by its heavy use of the Franz Waxman-Bride of Frankenstein music also heard in Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938), but not used in the original Flash Gordon (1936) serial.

There was also an edited version of the FG '36 serial titled Spaceship to the Unknown and released as a television package in 1966. I have not seen it, but its running time is longer than that of Rocketship.

Favorite Moments in Rocketship
http://www.voy.com/202106/3/843.html

Rocketship music trivia
http://www.voy.com/202106/1/1112.html

Captain Tim

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[> [> [> Re: Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars: 75 Years Ago -- Rick, 17:39:18 04/09/13 Tue [1]

FG 36 was released in Nov 1936 as "Atom Rocketship" at 72 minutes.

-Rick

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