The movie Flash Gordon, as conceived by cinemogul Dino de Laurentiis, is pure comic strip (see Bruce Williamson's review elsewhere in this issue). Many of the durable characters from Alex Raymond's classic strip, created in 1934 and still read by an estimated 40,000,000 people daily, appear in the movie version, a Christmas-season release from Universal. "Barbarella, which I did in 1965, was in some ways the first space movie," De Laurentiis told Playboy. "I've wanted to do Flash ever since, and I finally bought the rights in 1976. My idea was to do Flash exactly like Raymond's strip: less real than Star Wars and the other space epics, more pure fantasy in the old cartoon style." In that, he has succeeded.
Don't kill him yet, father. I want him. Give him to me.
Fools!
Did you think mere rocket bombs could destroy my empire? prepare to pay for your arrogance-with fiery death!
See Interstellar Directive #1 overleaf.
Move this panel up and down slowly
Interstellar directive #1 heed well or survive not!
1.
Wretched infidels have temporarily blinded your supreme ruler. You are commanded to separate the page along the perforationor suffer the terror of the vasecto ray!
2.
Wise choice, pitiful earthling! now insert the removed section through the slots as shown. Careful, the palace guards are watching your every move!
3.
Well done, insignificant terran! simple up-and-down movement will now reveal the menacing visage of his lowliness-and seal your fate!
A few words with max the merciless
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In Dino De Laurentiis' new movie, Flash Gordon, the role of Ming the Merciless is played by the celebrated Swedish actor Max Von Sydow, who is best known to American audiences for his roles in the somber films of Ingmar Bergman. Playboy Contributing Editor Bruce Williamson reached Von Sydow in Europe to ask him about this apparent career switch. Replied Von Sydow: "It's true that most movie parts I've done have been very subdued, underplayed. I enjoyed doing something so theatrical. I really hadn't done anything of this kind since I did children's theater in Sweden, where once I played a terrible giant who ate children."
Von Sydow sees Ming as "a mixture of Mephisto and Rasputin, a very evil person with no redeeming qualities whatsoever. He enjoys being nasty. As Ming, I'm playing with Earth, trying to create a collision between it and the moon, just because I'm bored."
Before he embarked upon the role of Ming, Von Sydow had few preconceptions about it. "I knew the comic strip existed, but others, like Buck Rogers and Mandrake the Magician, were more important to me as a youth. And I never saw the Flash Gordon films with Buster Crabbe. So I knew little of this material. But playing Ming was great fun for me, and this Flash Gordon, I think, is a very funny picture."
Slit Here
