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Date Posted: 10:26:44 10/31/07 Wed
Author: Rick
Subject: From Mongo to Mars...the logical explanation

On April 2, 1936, Carl Laemmle was sent packing and forced out of Universal by the studio's main debtor. Four days before, post-production of "Dracula's Daughter" wrapped on March 30th, 1936. The first Flash Gordon serial was released less than two weeks later. Laemmle supervised a film that flopped early in the year and was in debt for $750,000 dollars.

Upon his exit, Charles Rogers took over supervision of Universal Pictures. A new cost-conscious management team was set up. This meant they had to cut costs on all serial and feature films until they could get back the profits in order to produce on a higher budget.

Pre-production of Mars began in summer of 1937. The original title was "Flash Gordon and the Witch Queen of Mongo." With a budget crisis, the studio could not afford to film on location. The locale would have probably been Red Rock Canyon ( used in "The Mummy" [ 1932 ] and in other studio productions ). Film production of Mars was the last 8 weeks of 1937, and they wrapped on December 24th.

The studio's budget restrictions which included reusing/redressing existing sets & props and not building new ones for the Mongo interiors, based on Raymond's strip. The Universal backlot was used as the exotic Mars locale to save on money. At some point, one of the writers thought of Mars as the locale for the 1938 serial and there's your title switch. I'd imagine the red planet could have been in another 30's film's story. Writers are always looking stories over.

Trip to Mars was the top-grossing film of 1938 and this helped Universal out of the financial crisis they were in. Mars Attacked the World, later released in November of that year also helped them out moneywise, too.


By 1939, they started the second wave of horror films and Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. They had a higher budget and things were back to normal.



Rick

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Replies:

[> Re: From Mongo to Mars...the logical explanation -- Prince Barin, 15:16:41 11/01/07 Thu [1]

I've always wondered if Universal didn't try to cash in on the nationwide excitement caused by Orson Welles' fictional attack by Martians. Even given the shooting schedule for "Mars", it would have been easy enough to simply use the word "Mars" instead of "Mongo", thereby hyping the market for Flash's second adventure.

This is just conjecture from old Prince Barin.


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[> [> Re: From Mongo to Mars...the logical explanation -- Rick, 16:12:24 11/01/07 Thu [1]

True, Barin, but wouldn't Welles be cautious not to let any other entity use this ploy until after he hit the airwaves first? This plays out with the subsequent release of Mars Attacks the World less than 2 weeks after October 31, 1938.

A good idea would be to do a search on 30's films that have stories based on the red planet.



Rick


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[> [> [> Re: From Mongo to Mars...the logical explanation -- Rick, 16:30:14 11/01/07 Thu [1]

Note: Welles didn't arrive in Hollywood until 1939.





Rick


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