Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars
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Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars is a 1938 film serial of 15 episodes, based on the comic strip Flash Gordon. It is the second of three Flash Gordon serials made between 1936 and 1940. Like the first, it stars Buster Crabbe as Flash Gordon, Jean Rogers as Dale Arden, Frank Shannon as Dr. Zarkov and Charles Middleton as Ming the Merciless. Also in the principal cast are Beatrice Roberts as Queen Azura, Donald Kerr as Happy Hapgood, C. Montague Shaw as the Clay King, and Wheeler Oakman as Ming's chief henchman.
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[edit] Plot summary
The sequel began as did the original: another crisis is striking the Earth: a fictional chemical element called Nitron, which is vanishing from the atmosphere, causing hurricanes and other meteorological disasters. Flash and Zarkov use an airplane to take measurements only to discover that a ray-beam from Mars is the source of the nitron depletion. A comical newspaper journalist, Happy Hapgood, arrives on the scene to get the scoop, and stows away when they, together with Dale Arden, leave to investigate in Zarkov's rocket ship.
They discover that Azura, Queen of Mars, is working with Ming the Merciless, their old nemesis from Mongo, not dead as they had believed, to conquer earth. All Martians who oppose her have been turned into clay humanoids, consigned to live in a world of clay-walled caverns beneath the Martian soil. Flash, Zarkov, Dale and Happy take refuge from the Martians in one of these caverns and are captured by the Clay People, and taken to their Clay King. From him, they learn what is transpiring between Queen Azura and Ming, and anxiously agree to help.
The plot sequence becomes:
- Destroy the Nitron Lamp which is draining the Earth's atmosphere
- Restore the Clay People to their original human form
- Defeat Ming
[edit] Episode list
- 1. New Worlds to Conquer
- 2. The Living Dead
- 3. Queen of Magic
- 4. Ancient Enemies
- 5. The Boomerang
- 6. Tree-Men of Mars
- 7. The Prisoner of Mongo
- 8. The Black Sapphire of Kalu
- 9. Symbol of Death
- 10. Incense of Forgetfulness
- 11. Human Bait
- 12. Ming the Merciless
- 13. The Miracle of Magic
- 14. A Beast at Bay
- 15. An Eye for an Eye
[edit] Critique
This serial has fewer settings than the other two. Most of the action is the back and forth common in the cheaper serials of the era. Here it's between the Martian city and the land of the banished Clay People; there are also Forest People, mere primitives. The Queen of Mars has used her magic (she also teleports) to turn those subjects with whom she has been dissatisfied into clay in humanoid form, capable of melting into walls of clay and later re-emerging.
The civilization of the planet Mars has technical abilities of varying plausibility.
- With their winged helmets and long capes, and under the lower Martian gravity, its inhabitants, and also Flash and Zarkov, are shown able to glide.
- The Martians can make a "bridge of light" to cross a gap in their city walkways, but there is no lock and the guards do not stop anyone from turning the switch on from either end. Also, no one starts to cross the bridge only to have it turned off.
- The Clay People have a one-car subway that leads to the heart of the main city, with no explanation (it's not a high-volume commuter rail). This set was later used in the Buck Rogers serial, though increased in size.
The sequel to this serial, Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe, copies many of its plot points. Yet that serial has much more variety and action.
[edit] Notes
During the 1950s, the three serials were shown on television. To avoid confusion with a made-for-TV Flash Gordon series airing around the same time, they were retitled, becoming respectively Space Soldiers, Space Soldiers' Trip to Mars, and Space Soldiers Conquer the Universe.
