PERIL FROM THE PLANET MONGO (1966)
Article 2137 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 1-21-2007
Posting Date: 6-19-2007
Directed by Ford Beebe and Ray Taylor
Featuring Buster Crabbe, Carol Hughes, Charles Middleton

Flash Gordon returns to Mongo to do battle with evil emperor Ming the Merciless.

When feature versions of serials were being cobbled together in the mid sixties, it looks like FLASH GORDON CONQUERS THE UNIVERSE had the distinction of having two feature versions carved out of it. I’m thinking that the other version has the more interesting footage. As usual, I prefer the original serial because I find this sort of action movie easier to take in bite-size chunks. For the record, I still prefer the cast members playing Princess Aura and Prince Barin in the original FLASH GORDON, simply because they didn’t look like standard-issue leading men and women of the period as the ones here do. Buster Crabbe is still one of my favorite serial actors simply because he allows his characters to express a greater range of emotions than other serial heroes did. The best thing about this feature version is that, in comparison to most of the other ones put together in the mid sixties, this one is relatively short.