The following is excerpted from film historian Charles Lee Jackson II's ebook, The Story of the Making of the Flash Gordon Movie Serials, expanded from his classic Filmfax article.
Casting
was mostly easy: the principals returned, though Jean Rogers, who was by then
at 20th Century-Fox, was unavailable (She later moved to M-G-M, where she
attracted the eye of Louis B. Mayer [sound familiar?], whose advances she
rebuffed). Pretty Carol Hughes, an ingénue
from RKO and Warners, assumed the part of Dale Arden, and acquitted herself
well, looking as much like Dale as Buster did Flash. Society-type player Roland
Drew replaced Richard Alexander as Barin, who had slimmed down after settling
into married life with Aura, now Shirley Deane. Republic cliffhanger star Lee
Powell appeared as back-up hero Roka, and Donald Curtis (later of films such as
It Came from Beneath the Sea) was
Frigian Captain Ronal. William Royle, about to step into the shoes of Nayland
Smith in Drums of Fu Manchu, played a
Barin sympathizer in Ming's guard. Stocky Don Rowan was Torch, who had been (as
Earl Askem) a mere officer in Flash
Gordon, now Ming's trusted Captain. Veterans Byron Foulger, Michael Mark,
Ben Taggart, Tom Chatterton, and Herbert Rawlinson, and comparative newcomers
like Edgar Edwards and Jeanne Kelly (who was re-christened “Jean Brooks” at RKO
Radio – as though someone might confuse her with a certain Metro dancer), as
well as favorites Ernie Adams, Ray Mala, and Roy Barcroft in the fairly large
cast.
Anne
Gwynne, a rising starlet, got the bad-girl role as Lady Sonja. Sonja, carried
over from the strip, had been a minor character who had loved Flash, but when
rebuffed, allied herself with Ming. She aided the emperor in an escape in
exchange for a promise of marriage. He made good his promise – but promptly had
the new empress executed. That’s Ming for you. She fared little better on
screen, though Gwynne went on to a career in Universal programmers, and still
made an attractive star as late as 1958’s Meteor
Monster.
Shooting
commenced at the end of November 1939, with location work at Red Rock Canyon,
the popular shooting location north of Hollywood. Delayed by bad weather, the
unit never did quite catch up, even with the prodigious amount of scenes made
back at the studio (and even with a second unit added to the picture), and MacRae’s
continued efforts to trim the picture’s sequences. The picture closed $8000
over its $165,000 budget.
But
the public knew nothing of these trials and tribulations; in fact, they got an
added bonus in the "Flash Gordon" daily strip, which began while the
serial was playing in theatres.
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