Random Behind-The-Scenes Stories From Set Of '80s 'Flash Gordon' (14 items)

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  (#11) The Production Team Used Real Foliage To Build Miniature Trees

  Bill Pearson was one of many who handled the miniatures for Flash Gordon. Rather than phone in his work on the campy film, he created intriguing designs, such as when Flash goes to Dr. Zarkov's greenhouse. For the miniature, Pearson built tiny trees out of hedges, making them one of the few organic pieces in the film. 

  Pearson described to Futurism his experience creating miniatures for Flash Gordon:

  As everyone familiar with the Flash Gordon story knows, Flash and Dale meet Dr. Zarkov when their plane crashes near his laboratory. Martin and I had to construct Zarkov's greenhouse and the grounds around it. Richard Conway wanted us to build the miniature trees from scratch, so we went all around the studio grounds in search of the proper foliage.

  We found these amazing bushes outside this producer's office. Armed with a pair of sheet-metal cutters, we just snipped away at these bushes for about half-an-hour... The producer certainly had a less obstructed view of the studio when we finished!
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  (#1) Italian Translators Are To Blame For The Weirder Scenes

  If you've seen Flash Gordon, you know the dialogue is weird at best and borderline incoherent at worst. This is because the screenwriter had initially composed the script in English, then had it translated to Italian for the foreign crew to read. Lastly, a non-native English speaker translated the screenplay back to its original language. 

  According to screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr., known for works like Batman (1966) and King Kong (1976), the entire situation was surreal:

  [Producer Dino De Laurentiis] reads English better than many people realize, but translates all of his scripts into Italian. We were living in Nantucket at the time, and his translator was a woman whose name I forget. She could barely translate the scripts; if it said, "The tall, beautiful woman walked into the room," she'd say, "Oh, what a beautiful cat."

  When Semple told De Laurentiis the translations were off, the producer reportedly didn't care. Semple said, "I told him the translator was horrible, her translations aren't any good; he said, 'I do not want to be fooled by the words; I do not want to be fooled by written words. I want to know the story.'"
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  (#9) Nicolas Roeg Spent A Year Working On An Unproduced Version Of The Script

  Director Mike Hodges and screenwriter Lorenzo Semple Jr. were hardly the first team to work on the film. De Laurentiis had initially approached Federico Fellini to work on the movie, but the director declined. Thus, the producer brought on Nicolas Roeg - the director behind The Man Who Fell to Earth. Long after Flash Gordon's release, Roeg explained that he spent a year working on a script, saying:

  It took me a long time, but suddenly I tore into what I felt he was doing! It was extraordinary, and I became so excited at the idea that I said to Dino, "Look, I'll go away and write. I think I know what I'd like to do with it..." It took me a year, almost exactly a year, 'til I'd got it down how I wanted to make Flash Gordon. And I nipped back and said to Dino, "Look, this is it. It's ready."

  Roeg's longtime writing partner, Allan Scott, told Empire about the writing process behind Flash Gordon:

  Nic loved the idea that the bubbles were for the kids, but the im­ages were just so stark-raving erotic. Nic's version was going to be a comic book story but for adults. Ming was a god. Flash and Dale were Adam and Eve, and Ming was an evil deity chasing them across the uni­verse.

  Our Ming's ambition was to conquer the uni­verse by destroying pop­u­lated worlds, leaving no survivors except chosen fe­males with whom he would pop­u­late their world in his im­age.
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  (#6) Sam Jones Left The Set One Day And Never Returned, Only To Later Sue De Laurentiis

  It's well documented that lead actor Sam Jones took off during Flash Gordon's Christmas break and never returned. Though he hasn't elaborated on the rumors, Jones apparently kept getting into tussles during filming, which was a nightmare for the crew - specifically because they had to ensure Jones's face was consistent with continuity. 

  When it became clear Jones wasn't returning to the set, producer De Laurentiis told director Hodges, "We'll keep going, with the very best stand-in you can find." Later, Jones sued De Laurentiis for breach of contract because the producer did not honor his contractual agreement to produce two Flash Gordon sequels.
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  (#7) The Cast And Crew Played The Movie Straight

  As high camp as the film appears, the cast never hammed it up for the cameras. It was their goal to play everything as straight as possible even though they were aware that the film was ridiculous.

  According to director Mike Hodges, producer Dino De Laurentiis was the only person who didn't realize the movie was kitschy:

  That's why the movie's so funny, because we didn't try to make it campy. In fact, I'm surprised that (people) are laughing, because we weren't out to make a funny film. In fact, De Laurentiis was very upset when he showed the film and people started to laugh, because he thought they were laughing at it and not with it. In fact, he re-did the cheerleading scene. He wanted it to be serious.

   
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  (#12) George Lucas Wanted To Make 'Flash Gordon'

  Before redefining genre filmmaking forever, George Lucas wanted to make a Flash Gordon movie, as he had grown up watching the 1936 serials. He heard De Laurentiis was making the film, so he approached the producer and asked to helm the picture. De Laurentiis firmly objected and stated that Federico Fellini would be directing. 

  Undeterred, Lucas went off and made Star Wars IV: A New Hope, an overt homage to the Flash Gordon serials. Lucas used the same title crawl and wipes; in addition, Lucas allegedly felt inspired to use the title "Episode IV" because when he was a child, he'd have to watch non-sequential episodes of Flash Gordon.

  Producer Gary Kurtz later told Empire, "We decided we were making a Flash Gordon-type adventure and we're coming in at Episode IV... we're just racing through the story, not explaining any­thing."

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