Purple Death from Outer Space

Purple Death from Outer Space is a 1966 American feature-length compilation of the first half of the 1940 serial Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe. A second feature with footage from the second half of the serial was used to complete another 1966 feature film Perils from the Planet Mongo. Both were made available directly as made-for-TV movies.

Purple Death from Outer Space
Publicity still with Carmen D'Antonio and Charles Middleton for the 1940 serial
Directed byFord Beebe
Produced byHenry MacRae (associate producer)
Screenplay byBasil Dickey
George H. Plympton
Barry Shipman
StarringSee below
CinematographyJerome Ash
William A. Sickner
Distributed byUniversal
Release date
  • 1966 (1966)
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Plot

When the Earth is attacked by a mysterious substance causing death and leaving the victim purple, Dr Zarkov, Flash Gordon, and Dale Arden discover the deaths are caused by one of Ming's spaceships from the planet Mongo. The trio go to the planet to bring an antidote back to the Earth and thwart Ming's schemes. Ming's plan is to steal all the Earth's nitrogen.

Along the way, Flash and his cohorts meet Azura Queen of Magic who plans to turn all humans into Clay People, White Sapphire, the Tree People, the White Sapphire and Prince Barin

Reception

Creature Feature found the movie to be a rousing video, giving it three out of five stars. The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction prefers the full, unedited version

Production

This 99-minute edited-down version was also released as The Deadly Ray from Mars (1938), and later retitled Mars Attacks the World to capitalize on Orson Welles War of the Worlds broadcast. in the early nineteen-fifties it was released as Space Soldiers' Trip to Mars to avoid confusion with the Flash Gordon television series. Various video release titles include Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars, Deadly Ray from Mars, and Mars Attacks the World [1] It was cut down from 15 chapters to a run time of 99 minutes. [2]. The budget for the full length serial was $350,000. This version was released to TV

Cast

Soundtrack

Les préludes by Franz Liszt

References
  1. Stanley, J. (2000) Creature Feature: 3rd Edition
  2. http://www.sf-encyclopedia.com/entry/flash_gordon

See also
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