Life After Flash (2019)
dir. Lisa Downs
Rated: N/A
image: ©2019 Spare Change Films
“Flash! AH-AH!” Like millions of other movie fans my age, I grew up watching (and watching, and watching, courtesy of my parents’ HBO subscription) the 1980 cheese-fest Flash Gordon. The movie was a cash-grab attempt by producer Dino De Laurentiis to capitalize on the success of a little movie called Star Wars. Ironically, George Lucas’s original idea was to make a Flash Gordon film, but when De Laurentiis wouldn’t sell him the rights, Lucas went off and created the Star Wars universe instead.
The star of the De Laurentiis produced and Mike Hodges directed Flash Gordon was Sam J. Jones, a relative unknown in Hollywood. The sci-fi spectacle about a New York Jets quarterback who travels to another planet in order to save Earth from a sadistic despot was only the actor’s second credit after the Blake Edwards comedy 10. The documentary Life After Flash covers the production, release, and legacy of Flash Gordan as well as Jones’s ups and downs in life following his big break portraying the comic strip hero.
Director Lisa Downs begins her film with footage of Jones arriving at a sci-fi convention, ready to meet and greet fans of his iconic performance. This opening sequence, along with the picture’s title, Life After Flash, might lead you to expect the documentary will focus solely on Jones and what he’s been up to in the four decades since Flash Gordon was released.
Watching it, though, I got the feeling that there just wasn’t enough material on Jones to make a compelling film. So, Life After Flash whipsaws from Jones’s life to a brief overview of the original Flash Gordon comic strip. It then covers the making of the movie, including recollections from several of the cast members, before returning to Jones’s story. Mixed throughout are interviews with fans of the film – included among them are director Robert Rodriguez, comic book writer/artist Alex Ross, and actor and stunt performer Ray Park (who played Darth Maul in Star Wars: The Phantom Menace) – talking about their love of the movie.
I’m in the target market for Life After Flash, someone who grew up watching Flash Gordon and has massive nostalgic ties to it. But the documentary’s unfocused nature and jarring tonal shifts make it hard to connect to on an emotional level, even for an easy mark like me.
In one short segment of the documentary, Downs covers disparate topics like the production of Flash Gordon; Sam Jones’s attempted suicide years later when he realized his Hollywood career was over; and interviews with eager collectors of props and other memorabilia from the movie. It’s as though the director used every bit of footage that she had in order to cobble together the 94 minutes of her movie.
Despite its overall unsatisfying nature, the film does contain interesting tidbits about one of my favorite childhood movies. The ultimate signifier of Dino De Laurentiis as a producer is on display in the story of what he did when faced with two possibilities for the role of kooky scientist Dr. Hans Zarkov.
He flipped a coin.
I was stunned when it was revealed that De Laurentiis originally hired avant-garde director Nicolas Roeg to direct Flash Gordon. The artist who crafted the films Walkabout and The Man Who Fell to Earth spent a year in pre-production on Gordon. I couldn’t help thinking that a Jodorowsky’s Dune-style documentary about that topic would have been more interesting than what I was watching.
As it is, the tale of Sam J. Jones causing trouble on the set of Flash Gordon – the actor walked off the set at one point, he claims at the behest of his agents – along with his downward spiral and eventual turnaround makes for rather uninspired viewing. The ever-present schmaltzy and manipulative score by Toby Dunham doesn’t do the documentary any favors.
Life After Flash also takes a turn for the faith-based when it covers Jones’s religious re-awakening after his troubled years. It’s not a quiet, personal-faith style of religion, but the obnoxiously loud-and-proud, Purpose Driven Life, megachurch brand of Christianity. The unintentional irony is thick when Jones and his family and close friends espouse that God was clearly not done with Sam J. Jones in Hollywood.
I find it funny that God always seems to want for someone exactly what they want for themselves. The hilarity of God moving to speak through Jones by arranging to have him play a heightened version of himself in creator Seth MacFarlane’s vulgar and crass movie Ted (and its sequel, Ted 2) is lost not only on Jones, but on most of his friends and family, too. The only person who doesn’t come off as a complete hypocrite is one of Jones’s sons. He doesn’t hesitate to voice how terrible and offensive he found Ted.
Still, Sam J. Jones does come off as completely genuine when it comes to his fans. We see him at various sci-fi conventions, interacting with people who look up to him as a hero from their childhood. Jones’s love of and dedication to his family are also clearly very important to him. It’s good to see that things have turned out well for the man who played Flash Gordon, even if the documentary that brings that news isn’t exactly captivating.
Why it got 2.5 stars:
- It’s sort of fun, sort of interesting, but Life After Flash just isn’t that compelling. I suppose it’s essential viewing for any Flash Gordon die hard, though.
Things I forgot to mention in my review, because, well, I'm the Forgetful Film Critic:
- At one point in the doc, someone (I think it might have been Alex Ross), makes the point that without the original 1930s comic strip Flash Gordon, super heroes as we know them today wouldn’t exist.
- One of the most entertaining Flash Gordon cast member interviews comes from the high-spirited Brian Blessed. After hearing him talk about what an amazing experience working on the film was, I get the distinct impression that Mr. Blessed is as effusive with praise about every project he’s ever worked on.
- Flash Gordon caused one of the greatest Dino De Laurentiis quotes ever (although it’s possible he uttered it many times in his career). When faced with losing his star during the shoot, De Laurentiis apparently said, “When the pope dies, you get a new pope.”
- I'm really glad I got through this whole review without ever accidentally typing Flesh Gordon...
Close encounters with people in movie theaters:
- Week seven of the lock-down, but it looks like things might be changing soon. I live in the great state of Texas, which is subject to less-than-great political leadership. Our stay-at-home order is ending today (although it was never officially called that, because our governor is gutless), but that doesn’t mean just because businesses are allowed to reopen that they will reopen. And it certainly doesn’t mean I’ll be willing to roll the dice in the middle of an ongoing pandemic. The rules for the end of the shut down include movie theaters and restaurants operating at 25% capacity. So, it might not even make sense financially for them to reopen. Regardless, I think I might wait until June before I willingly put myself into close proximity of big crowds.