Platicsco Good story, Not enough for a whole film

Beanbioca As Good As It Gets

Baseshment I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

Billy Ollie Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

MartinHafer In the 1920s up to the early 50s, a staple of Saturday movie theaters were the movie serials. Each week, you'd see a different chunk of a very long movie--usually 4-5 hours long broken into about a dozen pieces. Folks loved them and they were entertaining...provided you weren't very demanding! The acting usually was adequate at best and the films were filled with one crazy death-defying stunt after another. As for the stories, they usually involved some goofy super-villain as well as a handsome, rugged star.One of the weirdest genres within the serials were the sci-fi pictures--such as Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon. Both starred the same handsome hero (Buster Crabbe) and it was pretty easy to mix them both up...though the Flash Gordon was so popular it actually ended up being made into three series--"Flash Gordon", "Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars" and "Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe". "Purple Death from Outer Space" is actually this third series pared down to normal movie length--pared down from 220 minutes to only 88! The Purple Death from the title refers to the sudden deaths of many humans on Earth...and in each case a weird purple mark appeared on the corpse's forehead. Dr. Zarkov thinks this might be the work of the Evil Ming the Merciless, so he and Flash blast off to investigate. His hunch turns out to be true and what follows are a series of adventures and near-death experiences as well as Flash and his friends looking for an antidote for the Purple Death.If you've seen any of the old Flash Gordon serials, this is pretty much the same thing all over again--Mind trying to capture Dale to make her his bride and the Doctor to make him do his evil bidding. And, like the other serials, the trio of good folks are seemingly indestructible. Silly kids' stuff but entertaining despite the silly writing and costumes (many of which look like recycled clothes from "The Prisoner of Zenda" as well as "The Adventures of Robin Hood"--which is pretty odd considering it's sci-fi! Dopey fun.By the way, during the mountain climbing portion of the film set in Frigia, keep count of the good guys. There are four but in several of the bits of stock footage they use, there are five!

Cristi_Ciopron FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE, with Larry Crabbe, Carol Hughes (--the Dale Arden--) and Anne Gwynne (--as Sonja--), directed by Beebe and Taylor, shows the search for Polarite, the attack of the robots (mechanical men, says Zarkov), a blizzard on Frigia, Will Flash Gordon ever defeat the purple plague? This disease is caused by the death—dust, another diabolical invention used by the deluded Ming.Daddy Ming goes on with his nonsense about conquering the Universe, being perhaps the most funny involuntarily absurd movie villain.Ming's sinister soldiers are faceless masks, mindless automates, reduced to a brainless obeying. Apart from the not so strikingly original structure of the group of protagonists and the use of a few planets, this look of the imperial soldiers is the most obvious resemblance to Lucas' universe.The setting is on the famous planet Mongo, then on a deadly cold planet—in another Ruritanian state, Frigia; in Frigia's north, Gordon and his pals, wearing clothes treated with Calorite, search for the Polarite, the only known antidote to the very useful death—dust, the ultimate invention from Ming's top laboratories; Gordon makes the avoidable mistake of taking some geezers (yes, I even count Barin as one of those …) with him, which kind of slow him down, but this only enhances the quality of the suspense.My favorite scenes are those in Ming's temple—the vast hall serving as Ming's throne room, adorned with oriental decorations, with the hideous idol, the belly dancers and the Asian music.This serial has the singularity of featuring the most absurd disguise ever—see Zarkov's disguise, offered him by another geek.After 70 yrs, the Gordon serials remain interesting, a nice testimony to the imperishable interest an exciting movie can raise.

stuff_1004 According to the synopsis, this is an edited down version of FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE.That is right and wrong. It is right with the "edited down" part.If my copy on the 50-movie pack "Nightmare Worlds" is correct, It fails to note that it is only the edited down version of the first 6 chapters.You don't see what happens to Ming.In other comments on the internet it says that the title of the serial is only explained in the final chapter, which, of course is not a part of this movie.This movie doesn't solve any problems. It just....ENDS.

Paul_Jay Wonderful cornWhen good guys were good and bad guys were bad and there was never any doubt as to which was which.Imagine yourself as a kid in a time when we didn't know a great deal about space travel and were willing to suspend what little we did know for the sake of adventure.Forgive the costumes and sets that appear to be left overs from old war movies and Robin Hood films. Allow yourself to believe that there are clouds in space, rocket ships that sort of float about sounding like vacuum cleaners and ray guns that discharge lighting bolts that look like they are scratched into the film.In short, quit being a grownup for an hour or two and enjoy this grandfather of "Star Wars"