The Flash Gordon Serials: A Complete Guide

Universal Pictures produced three Flash Gordon serials between 1936 and 1940 — the most expensive, the most ambitious, and the most influential serials in American cinema history. Together they total 40 chapters across roughly 11 hours of viewing. All three are now in the public domain.

The 1936 original

Flash Gordon (1936) was Universal's most expensive serial production ever — budget reportedly around $360,000, which dwarfed the typical $100,000-or-less serial budget. The studio invested in elaborate sets (the throne room of Emperor Ming, the underwater city of Coralia, the rocket-ship interiors), original costume design, and sophisticated optical effects for the rocket and battle sequences.

The 13-chapter serial follows Flash Gordon (Buster Crabbe), his girlfriend Dale Arden (Jean Rogers), and scientist Dr. Hans Zarkov (Frank Shannon) as they travel to the planet Mongo to confront Emperor Ming the Merciless (Charles Middleton). The plot draws from Alex Raymond's comic strip while compressing and reorganizing material.

What it inherited from the comics

Alex Raymond had launched the Flash Gordon comic strip in 1934 as King Features Syndicate's answer to the rival Buck Rogers strip. Raymond's visual style was extraordinarily sophisticated — Art Deco architecture, fluid action, distinctive character designs. The 1936 serial faithfully reproduced Raymond's visual world. Many of the costumes were direct comic-strip translations.

The 1938 sequel

Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars (1938) ran 15 chapters. The premise: a strange ray is sucking the Earth's atmosphere away, and Flash and his team must travel to Mars to discover the source. Ming is supposedly dead from the first serial, but returns midway through this one. The Clay People — a race of humanoids cursed to live within rock — provide the serial's most memorable supporting characters.

The 1940 finale

Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe (1940) ran 12 chapters. Flash returns to Mongo, where Ming has unleashed a plague — the "Purple Death" — on Earth. The production values had declined from the 1936 original, but Crabbe's command of the role was at its peak.

The Star Wars connection

George Lucas has repeatedly credited the Flash Gordon serials as the primary visual inspiration for Star Wars (1977). Lucas originally tried to acquire the Flash Gordon film rights in the early 1970s, intending to remake the property. When King Features wouldn't license the rights at terms Lucas could afford, he created an original property that retained the serial structure (cliffhanger episodes, opening crawl, wipe transitions) and the visual language (rocket ships, evil empire, princess in distress, exotic alien planets) of the Flash Gordon serials.

The famous Star Wars opening crawl is a direct homage to the chapter-recap text that opened each Flash Gordon installment. The wipe transitions, the rocket-ship designs, the Empire-vs.-Rebels structure, the desert-planet setting — all trace back to the Universal serials.

The public-domain status

All three serials are now in the public domain. Universal failed to renew the copyrights when the 28-year marks came due in the 1960s. The result is that the most influential serials in cinema history are freely available to watch, share, and study.

The 1980 feature

Dino De Laurentiis's Flash Gordon (1980), with Sam J. Jones in the lead and a Queen soundtrack, was a deliberate attempt to capture the serials' campy visual energy in a feature-length format. The film flopped on release but has become a cult classic. It remains under copyright through De Laurentiis's successors.

Where to start

Watch Flash Gordon (1936) from Chapter 1. The 13 chapters total about 4 hours; watching one chapter per day, the serial reveals its structure (slow build, escalating threat, increasingly elaborate cliffhangers) the way the original 1936 audiences experienced it. From there, the 1938 and 1940 sequels are essential viewing for anyone interested in classical-Hollywood action cinema or the genealogy of modern space opera.