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

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  (#10) Max Von Sydow Loved Playing Ming

  Max Von Sydow has starred in a plethora of incredible movies, often choosing distinct and compelling roles. He's rarely subtle, which works perfectly for Flash Gordon. Sydow has received a series of award nominations for his roles in films like The Exorcist and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close; director Mike Hodges said that Sydow threw himself into Flash Gordon.

  Hodges told Empire, "I've never seen an ac­tor have such a good time as Max playing Ming. Cracking his fin­ger joints and doing little jigs, he relished every moment."
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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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  (#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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  (#8) Flash Gordon's Lines Are Mostly Dubbed

  After principal photography for the film wrapped, actor Sam Jones disappeared and kept his whereabouts a secret. When the second-unit crew reconvened to shoot the CGI-heavy scenes, they had to finish the film without Jones, which included finalizing the audio. 

  The team had to perform voiceover work, as Director Mike Hodges explained:

  After Christmas, I came back and did all of the second unit stuff, too. For instance, I had to do the shots with the flying men and that sort of thing - what passed as special effects back then. So I also had to shoot a whole bunch of other stuff with a stunt double for Sam, and I had to re-voice the occasional line of dialogue, too. Not much but some - and I got somebody to impersonate Sam's voice. You would never know it wasn't him.

   
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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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