Flash Gordon/ Battle Beyond the Stars

FLASH GORDON, 1980, Universal, 111 min. Like the early 1930s serial, director Mike Hodges’ FLASH is surprisingly faithful to Alex Raymond’s original comic strip, with just the right balance of action, tongue-in-cheek humor and mindblowing production design with a score by none other than Queen! Relative unknowns Sam Jones and Melody Anderson play Flash and Dale, but the supporting cast includes Max Von Sydow (as Ming), Topol (as Dr. Zarkov), Ornella Muti (as Aura), and future James Bond, Timothy Dalton.

BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS, 1980, New World Pictures. 104 min. Dir. Jimmy T. Murakami. Roger Corman produced this variation on SEVEN SAMURAI/THE MAGNIFICENT SEVEN that transplants the action to space (and stars MAGNIFICENT SEVEN veteran Robert Vaughn!). Screenwriter John Sayles shows his usual flair for colorful characterizations in a film that serves his words well by putting them in the mouths of John Saxon, Sybil Danning, George Peppard, and other genre stalwarts.