I have watched all the three Crocodile Dundee movies in the theatre as well as their re-runs on cable TV at home:

- Crocodile Dundee I; - Crocodile Dundee II; - Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles:

I am very impressed by the hilarious antics of Mick Dundee (Paul Hogan). I also like his charming, down-to-earth character.

What I have enjoyed most in watching the three movies is that, I have learned that one can use sheer human ingenuity & creativity to overcome obstacles, no matter how intimidating they are...some life-threatening ones, too!

Just watch how Mick Dundee (sometimes with his side-kick) out-thinking all the predators &/or bad guys in all three movies...in the treacherous hot outbacks of Australia & the mean streets of New York (When a mugger poked a small knife in front of his face, Mick took out his jungle knife & said: "That's not a knife. This is a knife!)...& mercilessly cold concrete jungle of Los Angeles.

On the whole, I have enjoyed watching again all the three movies, each with its own engaging story & romantic notion of adventure.

As a strategy consultant/success coach on life (survival) skills, I have added these three movies to my resource repertoire.


Crocodile Dundee 2 was not as good as Crocodile Dundee 1 etc, etc.... So we always hear, but so what? View this third offering with an open mind and you will enjoy it without comparison to the first two. I was very pleasantly surprised at the very funny one liners and situations, and came away from the cinema with a smile on my face. Do yourself a favor and rent this for a bit of occasionally hilarious escapism. As one of the other contributors stated, don't take it too seriously, it's a comedy!


Ok, I was three when the first one came out, so I don't remember seeing it in 1986, but I do remember no. 2 in 1988. I've seen both of them too many times to count. Honestly, I never expected another Crocodile Dundee. I thought they had done all that they could with the idea. But, when I saw this movie, I thought wrong. Although this is not even close to being on my list of fav movies, it was worth the 4 bucks I paid to rent it. It wasn't original, but it was funny and entertaining, and that's what's important. too many people take movies like this and compare them to the movies that win Oscars. Personally, I thought this movie was more enjoyable than "Lord of the Rings," and I'm usually in to those kind of movies. 7 out of 10.


It's a fun movie that works for all age groups. The plot line is thin, but this is a comedy movie and it does deliver on that line. The jokes are good and the movie is fairly clean. Don't expect any big theological issues to be discussed, but do be prepared to laugh.


This movie was good nonetheless, but why wait 13 years to make another one? After waiting for about 5 years for a third movie after seeing parts one and two, I was kind of disappointed that I would probably not see another one, but after a 13 year wait, I finally got my wish. This movie didn't have the plot-structure as the first one which would probably hint as to why it was no where near as successful. It was good to see Dundee (Hogan) in a different venue other then the played out scene of New York. It was also good to see Hogan in another theatre release, since he really hadn't appeared in one since he starred with Elijah Wood in 1996's Flipper. Another person I was happy to see again was Sue's character played by Hogan's real-life wife, Linda Kozlowski. Even after 13 years she is still a very beautiful and attractive woman. With the release of this, I wouldn't be surprised if Paul Hogan tried to stay in the spotlight again by releasing a sequel to another one his movies. Lightning Jack 2 or maybe even a Flipper 2. That would be entertaining. Nevertheless, Paul Hogan remains my favorite Aussie actor.


I saw this film today in the Cinema. The film critics gave it the bottom grade. But I didn't listen to them. Do I ever? This third entry is not really as good as the two other films, but well worth seeing. I was really a lot better than I thought. Paul Hogan is as funny and charming as ever. If you're a fan like me. Four words: GO AND SEE IT! For everyone else. I recomend it. I give it 7/10.


First of all I never saw the first two Crocodile Dundee movie's personally I think its not a great movie but it is entertaining but some of the jokes ar not so funny but there are also a few good joke's but still I liked this movie paul hogan acting very well as Mick Dundee now I want to see the other 2 movie's and I heard they are better then this one if thats true then I really want to see them I give it a 7.5/10


i don't know what everyone has against this movie. sure, it isn't the best thing i have ever seen and probably won't win any academy awards, but still...the return of the crocodile dundee character was wonderful. linda kozlowski has been missed from the big screen as well. what great great performances husband and wife played in their recurring roles. i urge anyone and everyone to go see this movie.


This was just as entertaining as the previous two. There are some unexpected but funny cameo appearances. The plot is light but enjoyable. It's not like the first two Dundees were Oscar nominated flicks. Worth the matinee admission price.


"Crocodile Dundee In Los Angeles" is the third installment in Paul Hogan's franchise. In this movie, Mick Dundee is a family man, but still every inch the Aussie bushwhacker. He travels with his best gal Sue and their son to Los Angeles, and finds himself in the heart of one of America's strangest cultures. Yet he still manages to get by with his outback skills and "no-worries" amiability. This is an enjoyable movie. The spoof of Hollywood culture is everywhere and has laugh potential. There's even celebrity cameos (the one with Mike Tyson seems even more ironic now than ever!). So, if you're a fan of Crocodile Dundee, you'll love his adventures in Los Angeles!


The Crocodile Dundee series is a great one that's funny and exciting at the same time!Paul Hogan and Linda Kozlowski are very good.I just like the scenes in the out back and and Hogan is hilarious in the city!This series is very good and very entertaining.Check it out soon!


This is a nice light comedy. If you enjoy the first two Dundee movies, especially the first, you'll probably enjoy this as well. This movie isn't one of the all time greats, but good for a fun evening. A cute movie which deserves a good notch or so above the overall rating here. As another review stated, just don't analyze it as if it were a serious movie and simply enjoy the fun. Personally I prefer this one over the second movie which I thought came off too heavy, took itself too seriously.


'Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles' is a nice family comedy, that won't get you embarrassed in front of your parents and it will still make you laugh.

Paul Hogan plays Crocodile Dundee, exactly the way he played it fifteen years ago. And this is not bad too. His innocence is still adorable after all these years, as it is his way of applying the laws of the jungle to the big city life.

The production is okay, the pace is good and the story is light and nice.

A very refreshing moment nevertheless.

9/10


While great comedy should often appear effortless, that doesn't mean that the word should be taken literally, though on one level Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles can truly be said to be an effortless comedy. Absolutely no effort whatsoever has been made: it's in focus and the microphone never creeps into shot as uninteresting things happen in the most uninteresting way possible while the cast are given uninteresting things to say to bulk out the running time to the contractually agreed length, but that's about it for exertion. That the 'plot' revolves around a smuggling operation financing a movie studio producing a guaranteed flop third episode in a dead franchise could possibly be seen as a moment of post-modernism, but it's probably just a desperate cry for help from the screenwriters. All the charm and wit of the first (and to a lesser extent the second) film has vanished, taking the characters and goodwill with them: Paul Hogan is starting to look a leathery as the crocs themselves and the most interesting thing about Linda Kozlowski here is trying to pinpoint the plastic surgery through the soft focus filters she's often shot with and work out how much of her disengaged performance is down to boredom and how much to Botox. Both are saddled with characters that simply aren't believable at their age anymore even if they do now have a rather bland son to acknowledge the passing years. She's a primary school play version of a reporter while somehow Mick Dundee seems to have suddenly become a complete simpleton with no memory of all the things he encountered in the first two films in the hope that the audience will find his newfound ignorance funny rather than simply bewildering - it's not even as if his character took a whack to the head in a contrived plot point, it's just plain lazy writing. Things improve slightly to become vaguely watchable in the last half hour, but that's not exactly a recommendation. Belated threequels are usually desperate attempts from faded stars to revive their career and bank balance, but this is so utterly disinterested in doing anything but visiting the cashpoint that it practically qualifies as a non-film. It's just a void. Avoid.


Unfortunately, I found this movie to be only mildly entertaining. Paul Hogan revises his role in this comedy drama as the Australian crocodile hunter Mick Dundee. His real life wife Linda Kozlowski also joins him taking the role of his girlfriend Sue Charlton. I found the plot line to be weak, although some of the humor was good, particularly the parts dealing with cultural differences. George Hamilton makes a cameo in the movie as does Mike Tyson, both of which are complete surprises. This movie is matinee material at best and only if you have 90 minutes to waste. Younger children should not view this movie as there are some questionable situations.


The original Crocodile Dundee film was fresh and creative, as was the first sequel, as it juxtaposed the culture of the Outback with the shallowness of modern urban society, tipping its hat to the superiority of the former over the latter. This film, however, seems to have been shot with the idea of profit paramount. The product placements are obvious (Pepsi, Apple computers, Wendy's and, who could miss it, a Subaru Outback station wagon), as is the thinly-developed plot. Paul Hogan was very effective in the earlier films, but in this one he seems tired of the role. Without the novelty available to the earlier films, the only thing that would have saved this one was a vibrant Mick Dundee, and, unfortunately, Hogan could not pull it off.


With its bland photography, flat direction, and a lack of both gags and ambition, the only surprise to be found in this 13-years-along follow-up to the first sequel is that it wasn't designed to go straight to video. Crocodile Dundee is back and treading in the footsteps of Axel Foley as he brings his rough and ready personality to the uptight show-offy candyland of Beverly Hills. The plot, in which Mick gets a job as a movie extra and uncovers an art smuggling ring, is nonsense, and whatever steam might have been left in the series after the dismal 'Crocodile Dundee II' has entirely evaporated in the intervening years. Tiresome, repetitious and plodding, this trundles through a series of barely-linked scenes, none of which are particularly unexpected, most of which are reheated from the first film; meanwhile Linda Koslowski does very little and does it even more wetly and woodenly than before. It's all very pointless and dull, and absolutely no match for the original, which is still charming after all these years.


When over 10 years passes between sequels, it's generally not a good sign. For every "The Color of Money," there are several "Two Jakes," pointless sequels made for a quick buck that may or may not materialize.

Go ahead and toss "Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles" into the pointless category. I guess you could watch this with your kids for harmless fun. But if your kids are old enough to remember the first two films in this franchise, they're too old to enjoy this one.

Aside from showcasing the adverse effects of prolonged exposure to the sun, there was zero reason to drag out leather-skinned Paul Hogan for another installment of "The Croc." A silly plot, flat jokes, and some of the laziest acting this side of "Con Air" make this film entirely unnecessary.

For humor, you're better off hitting an open-mic night. And for that old Australian charm, hell, you're better off at Outback Steakhouse. And that ain't a compliment to Outback.

Pass.


Maybe a dingo ate this movies real script, and producers were forced to go with this one instead. Or perhaps star and Producer Paul Hogan believed the audience would drink so much "Foster's" beer they wouldn't realize how awful this movie is! "Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles" is a lazy copy of the original movie's fish out of water story line. But that fish has been out of water for 15 years now, and its stinking up the theatre!

And really, the original "Crocodile Dundee" was a one joke movie as well. "Watch what happens to this wacky Australian guy who doesn't know a thing about our modern society!" While this formula charmed us back in 1986 -- it now only makes you want to throw Paul Hogan, and a few shrimp on the barbee for inflicting this boring and derivative flop on us! If you go see "Crocodile Dundee in Los Angeles" you won't have a G'day Mate! 1 and a half stars out of 5


I guess I shouldn't be surprised, SciFi Channel hasn't done science fiction since they took the 4th Season option to cancel Farscape. But I digress.

First off, if you went into this expecting to hear shades of the 1980 movie's Queen soundtrack, you're going to be disappointed. The opening theme wasn't that bad (it actually has a lot of potential), but the rest of the soundtrack is a letdown. Typical canned music that one would expect if Hollywood ever made a porn movie. If SciFi Channel was going to remix the original Flash Gordon song for their trailers, you would think that it would show up somewhere in the series.

The music isn't the major letdown, however. It's the completely soulless "re-imagination" of a science fiction classic that dumps just about everything that made Flash Gordon - from the original comics, serials, animated series, and movie - so great. About the only thing that carried over was character and planet names. I'm sorry, but it's going to take more than that to make an interesting series. If the comics could be "re-imagined" into the Buster Crabbe serials, and the serials into the animated series, and all of that into the 1980 movie while still keeping the whole Flash Gordon spirit, how hard would it be to make a TV series that can do the same?

The characters lack any character. Between the bad acting and the poor writing, it is impossible to find a character that isn't boring, or even likable. The actors are 20/30 somethings and few of them are well known. Probably because SciFi Channel decided to save on money by hiring their usual low grade, pretty face talent Maybe if the writing hadn't been done by committee it would seem less like "Dawson's Creek in Space", but I doubt it. I can understand the whole "Sliders Rift Thing" as a convention for the characters getting to Mongo - interstellar flight isn't possible for Earth when this series is set and most viewers realize this - but overall there isn't much innovation. Perhaps SciFi Channel should learn to develop their imagination before trying to "re-imagine" any other series.

Final thought: I thought that CBS' "re-imagination" of Kolchak the Nightstalker was the worst remake ever. SciFi Channel has proved me wrong once again.


High hopes turn into groaning frustration and confusion upon seeing the first (and unfortunately not the last) episode of the latest attempt to resurrect the popular hero.

One can forgive the poor acting given the see-and-say dialogue and poorly thought out story elements. However, if your expecting dazzling special effects and quality action to save the day, your better off watching a power point presentation at the office.

One more thing; Can Ming be any less intimidating? This version of Flash Gordon's nemesis has all the villainous charm of Bill Lumbergh from Office Space!


OK i just watched the pilot for FLASH GORDON. Oy. This was bad TV. Problems.... SPOILERS AHEAD not that I think anyone will care...

OK so now Flash is Stephen Gordon aka "Flash" because he runs marathons and wins medals for it. Medals he hangs on his fathers grave, medals which are still there 2 years later (it was the 3rd annual marathon he won in a row)... Dumb on 2 counts, obviously the leaving the medals and having them stay there for years is dumb but it shows that even 13 years after his father died, Flash has yet to move on. Don't get me wrong its good to honor the memory of lost parents and all, but I think our hero needs some counseling.

So then we get dimension rips or wormholes or whatever and out steps a heavily armored cyborg who is hunting the for something. He's able to understand our postal address system well enough to find the Gordon house using papa Gordon's drivers license and goes hunting for this Imex thing (which i kept thinking god why does it sound like I-Max). Hes got the ability to mind control Flash's mom but loses the fight to a reporter with a power cord and a big meat fork. At this point I figured out the missing thingamabob is in dad's old watch the one Flash has worn since his dad died, so much for secrecy.

Our reporter turns out to be smart enough to use power cords to create a dandy electrocution kit without causing massive damage to the house electrical system but doesn't understand the simple premise of a tracking device that beeps when pointed the right direction. GAH.

So now we track down goofy science guy living in the micro-Winnebago by looking up his college yearbook online..... WHAT? They just happened to have the address where he parks his van (down by the river?) and it's available online....

OK so now creepy science guy explains that ripping holes in the fabric of space-time is bad... But makes to effort to stop Flash and Dale from doing just that.

Boom! Hi there welcome to Mongo. A planet that should be a hotbed of tectonic activity with not just 2 moons but a whole other planet right next door in orbit. Mongo is a great place if you are the Emperor... You are the hero with the only source of clean water on the planet. Everyone else is just there to be serfs I guess.

Ming is no longer a deviant Chinese man who destroys whole worlds for fun, now hes a Tyrant who worries about public opinion and has trouble tracking down a missing watch on another planet despite the fact that he has the address of where it is located.

Cut to torture time with Flash, now they were going to map his brain to learn everything he knows.... But wait just then a woman bursts in and saves flash by shooting his torturer. Great she's obviously just a simple palace slave who wants to escape. A simple well dressed slave with excellent skin tone and makeup, forget that she has access to the torture room... oh and a gun... oh and she knows the layout and guard patrols.. oh and she knows all about the water purification area under the castle (which for something so massively important to planetary survival has no security or guards)... She also knows how the patrol craft operate and how to use a dimension ripper. FLASH YOU IDIOT!

So back home, yay! Lets rip some more holes... Bounty hunter time, another rip and look the bounty hunter is a hottie too.. no armor... one gun... ummm yeah, oh and she can drive stick, she can also find people with her vast psychic powers too i guess.. the same psychic powers that let the princess find her way from Dale's place to Flash's mother's home on pure instinct. I mean bad enough everyone speaks perfect English but they can also find one house out of a city without a map or a learner's permit.

Hey Flash the princess is here, shes got a gun and can recognize the I-mex immediately, even though its disguised and she doesn't know what a TV remote is or what the I-mex looks like. I mean she should have at least taken his cellphone too just in case IT was the I-mex.

You know if I had lost the sum of all knowledge in the universe I wouldn't wait 13 years to reclaim it. I also wouldn't send 1 guy with dubious combat skills. But thats just me.

Hey time to rip even MORE holes.. this was a bad thing right? Anyway the evil princess gets fooled into thinking the I-mex is destroyed, although your average street magician could have been more convincing, and we find out daddy is alive (DUH) and is hooked up to some computer... maybe the one that maps your brain and would have told the bad guys not only where to locate it but also which pizza places would have delivered to the house while you were there...

You know some shows have plot holes, some have major ones (Professor stop making radios out of coconuts and fix the 2 foot hole in the boat) and some just say "We didn't actually care enough to hire writers, we just strung together a series of scenes and called it a pilot, we figure sci-fi viewer are dumb enough to watch anything"

Sigh. I had hoped it would be good.


The pilot episode was a little slow, and I almost didn't watch the next one, but I decided to give it another chance and am very glad that I did. The show found its footing and characters and it's now one of my favorite shows on t.v. And since it's production is in Vancouver, it should be immune from the writer's strike.

Zarkov seems like a rip-off of Rodney from Stargate:Atlantis, but the rest of the characters are very good. Gina Holden is hot!

It's little strange the way they changed Mongo from being another planet to being another dimension, but I guess they did that for budget purposes and to make the storyline easier. This way they just have to walk through a rift and can be in Mongo in 5 seconds.


Geez, reading all the negative comments on this board you would think that the old Flash Gordon TV shows weren't even more campy and far cheaper looking. In fact, has anybody here even SEEN the old shows? How anyone could say the new Flash Gordon. Flash Gordon has always been light and slightly goofy sci-fi fun. The special effects in the new show are decent and no one on the show seems to be taking it as seriously as the critics here seem to think it merits.

Let's face it. We're talking about freakin' FLASH GORDON here. This isn't Blade Runner for crissakes. If more of you could just take it for what it is instead of comparing it with the Flash of their youth (with all the warm glowing nostalgia) you might even enjoy yourselves. This is light entertainment, not cutting-edge science fiction drama. Lighten up, kids.


Starting off, let me tell you that I've never seen any of the previous Flash series before, so that might explain my openness. Even so, I think that Flash Gordon is a decent TV series, not something to win major awards, but something to relax and unwind to on a Friday night. The plot follows Steven "Flash" Gordon (Eric Johnson) who along with his former girlfriend Dale (Gina Holden), eccentric scientist Hans Zarkov (Jody Racicot), and alien bounty hunter Baylin (Karen Cliché) travels between Earth and the alien world of Mongo with the help of dimensional rifts. While trying to find his long-lost father, he must foil the various plots of the evil dictator Ming (John Ralston) and is occasionally helped as well as hindered by Ming's haughty daughter, Aura (Anna van Hooft).

Eric Johnson takes most of the bizarre sights and activities that he sees with an "oooookaaay..." type of air which adds a humorous air to situations. Jody Racicot also does well as the extremely nervous Hans Zarkov (or "that strange fidgety little man", as Baylin calls him). Karen Cliché is easily one of the most enjoyable cast members, delivering humor with her confusion or lack of knowledge about human customs or lifestyles, however also is a tough woman with no problem punching someone in the face. Gina Holden is so-so, but she is not my favorite by far. While her connections to the media are used to introduce Mongo invaders to Flash and Co in the episodes, she herself unfortunately shares little chemistry with either Flash or her fiancé, Joe. Anna van Hooft is brilliant as Ming's stuck-up teenage daughter, disgusted with her father's actions yet caring enough not to wish for his own death (or the death of others). John Ralston portrays Ming the "Benevolent Father" as a more modern dictator, using the planet's limited water supply to control the population and insisting all the while that he loves the people.

The series has had a somewhat rocky, though adequate, start. By the episode Sorrow, the show has definitely started to introduce deeper subplots and better character development, paving the way for a better future.


Good god this show deviates hugely from the comic book and movie. In fact I liked this this TV show the first time round when it was called sliders.

SCI FI give the money to star gate Atlantis or for another Babylon 5 movie. But 22 episodes of a sliders rip off.

I don't even want to say its flash Gordon I mean he is just a small town athlete, nothing that great and he is trying to save his father.

OH the acting sucks as well.

They could of at least used the music from queen and tried to make it campy. But nope.


Flash Gordon 90 minute Pilot: OK so the story so far is that when Flash is 10 years old, his father gets sucked into a vortex never to be seen or heard from again, the cover story is that Flash's father died in a fire but there was no body found.

Now, fifteen years later, Flash is 25 and there's a hint that his father didn't die in a fire, that he was "lost" in one of his experiments gone haywire.

through a series of events, Flash opens a portal to Mongo and jumps head first with Dale Arden to try to rescue his father from Ming the Merciless... OK.

Dale fights with Ming's daughter, who's fighting with a bounty hunter chick, who's fighting with Flash... OK.

Ming's daughter wants "the Imex" a secret thing that Flash's father had. OK.

"the Imex" is the Timex watch that Flashes father gave to him at age 10. It unlocks the secrets of Mongo or the universe... we're not quite sure.

1) why would Flash's father give Flash the Timex watch that contains all the secrets of the universe when he was 10? Apparently he's a pretty responsible youngster and has never lost anything...ever, because 15 years later Flash is STILL wearing the Timex watch that his father gave him... uh.. OK.

2) why would Ming send a flying probe though the portal? this seemed rather lame and pointless. It was quickly decimated by a local Mexican immigrant wielding a double barrel shotgun from his truck cab. I'm also fairly certain there are laws against weapons and firearms being hidden in cars and trucks... right? I'm also fairly certain that if **I** were Ming the Merciless, my Probe Scanning Flying things wouldn't be so easily decimated by some idiot wielding a double barrel shotgun. (see robot, later on) 3) why would Ming send a single robot through the portal to get the Imex instead of launching a full or semi-full scale invasion of Earth? 4) why is the robot carrying Flash's father's drivers Licence, which is discovered in the remains of the charred exploded robot? Why would Ming the Merciless intentionally do this at all? If Flash's father planted it there (and from the show's final scene, he didn't) how would he have known that Flash would be the one to discover it? 5) why are there only four eye witnesses in a packed crowded bowling alley that report seeing an alien robot blow stuff up? The bowling alley had people at every lane... yet only four eye-witnesses saw the robot? Why did the robot blow up a bowling ball? 6) Flash believes his father died in a fire, but he didn't, he was sucked through a portal to Mongo yet when we finally see a flashback of this "fire" it only occupies about 5% of their lab and is quickly extinguished with a fire extinguisher, its clearly not a big enough fire to cause major damage yet this is the cover story that Flash's father burned to a crisp and no body was ever found? what? 7) while Dale and Flash argue outside his fathers old lab, which is now Zarkov's Lab, the door suddenly explodes outward... why? Aside from these gaps in logic, and more, it was interesting to watch and even more interesting to pick apart the show.

The portal and the device that opens the portal reminded me an Awful LOT of the FOX show Sliders


This show appeals to a certain type of audience - it's not particularly clever but it's enjoyable to watch if not taken so seriously.

This is one of those shows that will age well given time - it feels like the actors/writers haven't quite settled into the show yet. Buffy the Vampire Slayer had a disastrous first season with terrible, cheesy writing, low brow plot lines and terrible acting... yet it went on to have a huge cult following and seven seasons. I think this series deserves a chance.

The characters are endearing and it has a clear direction that I'm interested in. I hope we see a second season.


Just when I thought Sci-Fi couldn't get any worse. They proved me wrong. I didn't expect much when I heard there wasn't going to a rocket ship. Flash Gordon without a Rocketship is like Tarzan without a vine. It just doesn't make sense to make change that strays away that much from all previous Flash Gordon's. The acting is terrible and the scripts made me want to throw up. Ming has all the badness of an accountant. Charles Middleton Ming from 1930's is still listed in Hollywood 100 top villains of all time. This Ming should be Number 1 worst actor of all time. Zarkov is joke given his importance to Flash Gordon. They dig up this wimpy actor who in turn plays a wimpy Zarkov. I thought Cleoparta 2525 was bad. This makes that look like a Classic Sci-fi series. Sci-fi, do us a favor and pull the plug on this before you ruin a classic Sci-Fi hero Flash Gordon for generations to come.


i thought the show was downright boring. i found the series premier lacked the outrages costumes and had way too many slow times that contained no substance. the set was way to earthy on mongo, in the movie you felt you were in a alien world, this ming seems much to soft and did not earn the term "the merciless". dale arderns relationship with her fiancé was almost non-existent and her desire to chase flash around showed a lack of moral character. also in the movie flash was a football hero, in the series he is a aging track athlete sponging off of his mom instead of being a man and earning his own living. i feel this show is much less a visual treat than the movie and the stars are plain than i was expecting.. i hoped for a lot more than this show delivered.


i was excited for flash Gordon to becoming to the small screen so i tivoed it, well it was half and half, half good half bad the good being the actors are good the bad is that they made the story too modern so it not as believable as the cartoon series and the cheesy1980 film. (Spoiler Ahead) good special effects and MIG was not ugly and scary enough he's quite laughable to tell you the truth he looks GQ model in spandex and not as cool as the actor that played MIG in 1980 film in truth it looked like a carbon copy of battle star the 2005 version i could'nt stand watching that version either. i guess i'm an old schooler if it's not broken why i fix it? Hollywood loves to wreck old shows by turning them into something worse ugh. i think i'll stick with the old cartoon series and 1980 film.


I love this show!!! I love that it's a bit campy.

Cast is great!!! I would love to see this show for more seasons.

Eric Johnson as Flash is just perfect.

Anna Van Hooft as Aura is very likable. She plays her part very well.

John Ralston adds just enough "evil".

It seems that every member is really getting into the characters that they play.

I think it's way cool that they are spending so much time on developing the characters and adding new groups of people every week.

The story is believable and has continuity.

I'm not sure why we need 10 lines.

GO FLASH!!!


This show is great - pure entertainment. It's updated and different and has beautiful women and a good story line. The sets and costumes, for a small-time TV sci-fi show, aren't bad. The characters from the various cantons show imagination and allow for varied stories. This show is s-o-o-o-o much better than Battlestar. OK, Flash is a little dippy, but, hey, look at the old Buster Crabbe movies. Could there have been a worse actor? I don't know who was worse Flash, Zarkov, or Ming. Yet they have endured the test of time, and clearly set the stage for the various Star Trek series. (If you look closely William Shatner as Captain Kirk copied Buster Crabbe's "shoulder run" - he ran with his shoulders.) I TiVo the Friday episode and can't wait until Saturday morning to watch it. It's like a trip down memory lane. Give Flash a break!


First the good news. Great story line, even if it is unadorned. This series has all the good old fashioned values, heroism, courage, love, family, good and evil, starkly drawn. It resonates with all your best emotions, and it's as American as apple pie.

Lots of cute chicks, sexy repartee, flirtations, and jealousy. Solid plotting, nice twists, surprises, and lots of sci-fi. So everyone is not naked, and no one uses four letter words, and the lead heroine is a virgin even though she is engaged - to the wrong guy of course. It's like sci-fi was back then, without the X rating.

And now the bad. Low production values but good enough not to get on your nerves. The acting is a tad, well more than a tad, wooden, but give the ensemble some time. These amateurs are just starting out, the director will improve too. They make up for it though by being very attractive, personable, likable, and and the script and dialog is better than they are, so it carries them and the show along.

Despite its weaknesses this is a sci-fi show thats entertaining, and positive. It sets a good example, and has lots of room to grow. I really liked it and the kids will love it. Beats the pants off the high razz-dazzle shows like Smallville, which wears after an episode or ten of shock, extremes, and special effects, all form and no substance. I have higher hopes for the show, but I can watch and enjoy it as is.


Clearly not everyone will have the same taste but I really like this show. I like the characters, I like the plots, I like the acting and I like the special effects..and the car kicks much ass too.

Is it perfect? That depends on your definition of perfect. It entertains the hell out of me so that's as perfect as it needs to be. I like surreal art and even more so, surreal movies, TV and music. There's also a nice element of humor that the cast does a great job of pulling off.

Rumor is it's getting canceled but I have a hard time believing it. We're still in it's first season and I think it's getting better with each passing episode. The Sci Fi Friday night line up is outstanding in my opinion and Flash Gordon really brought i all together.

I'm not loyal to very many shows but I'm loyal to this one.


Flash Gordon doesn't have the special effects that Battlestar Galactica has. It doesn't have such actors as Edward James Olmos. I want to be the first to tell you that's okay because Flash Gordon isn't trying to be like BSG. Flash Gordon is trying to be Flash Gordon, full of good campy fun, just with a little modern flavor. I like Flash Gordon because it doesn't take itself seriously, and that is what makes it enjoyable. If you want to spend an hour in front of the TV (45 minutes if you TIVO it and cut out the commercials) and you don't want to spend the whole time figuring out some intricate plot or learn the newest criminal investigation techniques, then watch Flash Gordon.

I will admit that I miss the intimidating version of Ming, especially when played by Max Von Sydow. This Ming doesn't have the bite, but he has a subdued ruthlessness (I know that sounds like an oxymoron). And I do have to say that I didn't care too much for the first episode. Still I decided to stick with it for a while and I am glad that I did. Now that the season is over I'm sure Sci Fi will play the entire season over again. So anyone who missed it can start all over. Just give it 2-3 episodes. It's won't kill you!


I've read the reviews, and I know my opinion is unpopular. So, in my honest opinion, the new Flash Gordon is a good adventure series and not unlike the original Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, Hercules, Firefly, or any other tongue-in-cheek adventure show. The new Battlestar Galactica is a drama set in a Sci Fi universe, but it takes itself too seriously for my taste. Don't get me wrong, the new BG is good, but I prefer shows like the new Flash Gordon over it.

I've read the venomous barbs attacking the show and I don't want any part of that: suffice it to say "to each his own". I guess what I'm saying is I prefer the Fantasy-side of Sci Fi over the drama-side, but that does not mean I'm any less of a fan of Sci-Fi. From my perspective,FG is a good effort and the Sci Fi channel ought to be lauded for such a brave endeavor, but like the Dresden Files, Flash Gordon will most likely be canceled.


I don't have any knowledge of the Flash Gordon franchise beyond the fact that it exists and that earlier works are apparently very different from this new series, so my opinion of the new series is based solely on what's presented there and not on the body of knowledge from the Flash Gordon universe at large. This is important because I think it's unfair to judge what's essentially a reboot of the franchise by comparing it to the history of the original incarnation(s). Battlestar Galactica fans made the same mistake before realizing what a complete gem the new series is.

OK, so this is no Battlestar Galactica. It's low-budget and goofy, and it's not particularly intelligent or emotionally deep. There's no arguing that.

But, who said it had to be the next great sci-fi series? Flash Gordon seems to be intended as silly, escapist fun, and I can't find any way in which it doesn't fulfill that role. The simple story lines are executed well with a good (if predictable) mix of drama and humor, and the characters are developed well enough to keep at least a passing interest, not to mention being easy on the eyes.

Flash Gordon reminds me a lot of Doctor Who mixed with a dash of Baywatch. I suspect that most viewers will enjoy it if they allow themselves to. I definitely do.

Not that I'd admit it to anyone. :)


Most of the reviews I've read of Flash Gordon have been supremely unfair. I've seen most every episode, and I thought it was pretty good.

Admittedly, it got off to a rocky start, but it was bearable and there's so little sci-fi on TV these days I decided to stick with it. To my surprise, it actually improved significantly, going against all known laws of television shows, which generally peak with the first few episodes/seasons and then drop off from there. The actor who plays Ming is my favorite sort of villain--quietly evil, no maniacal laughter or cheesy lines. Eric Johnson is excellent as Flash, and the actresses in this show astounded me by playing female characters I didn't despise (I'm a girl, but I can't stand them on TV and in movies--they're all so stereotypical). The main character actors are actually all really good--I don't have a complaint about any of them. Some of the one-episode villains can be annoying, but they're not there to stay, and it was only a few times.

It was the plots that made this so-so at first. They were of the "meh" sort, at first, but story arcs are beginning to develop, and now that the Flash-Dale relationship has appeared to stabilize (no more awkward, groan-inducing pseudo-romance scenarios), this is one of my favorite shows. I love the whole business with Aura's relationship with Ming, her father. It's interesting, and isn't the tired, overdone child-hates-father relationship.

I've never read the comics or seen any previous show/movie adaptations of Flash Gordon, so I can't compare, but the citizens of Mongo are believably oppressed, the characters (especially Aura, strangely enough) are deep and have realistic motivations, and the plot lines are getting better all the time. I really hope they pick it up for another season.


I really enjoy watching the show, but that's probably because I don't have expectations of the show because I've never read the comic books. I enjoy watching the episodes, they make me laugh at some points, and by the end of the episode I want to watch the next one to see what happens!! I suppose I like it so much because I didn't start watching the show having a standard of what it should be like fixed in my mind, so I wasn't disappointed. I hope at least it manages a whole first season rather than just about 13 episodes or what not. I'm up to episode 12 which was left on a slight cliffhanger about what was going on in my opinion and id be gutted if it ended like that!!


Critiquing a series after only seeing the pilot? I have been watching the series since the beginning, seeing the 5th episode yesterday. While I agree it is a low budget series, it is somewhat intriguing for someone who knows something about the history of the main characters in the story. While there are some changes in the original storyline, the changes were not as drastic as the changes in "Smallville" regarding how Superman grew up in the little Kansas town. As for the cast, I agree that I expected Ming to be older and have a more vicious look, but then Ma and Pa Kent were pretty old already by the time the found the little alien baby. Therefor, I suspect that the market group they are trying to find is closer the those in their late teens and early 20s and they are casting for that group.

As for the actual developing story line, I find that the character's traits are emerging episode by episode thereby allowing you to learn about them just as you would if you met someone and learned more and more about them as you spent time with them.

I am a bit fan of "Smallville," "Heroes," and "Greatest American Hero." Having been force fed the original Adam West "Batman" series, the very low budget "Spider-Man" and "Hulk" series, and the loathsome "Wonder Woman" fiasco, it is a pleasure to see someone making a realistic approach to making some Superhero series, even if they have to twist around the original concepts to make it believable.


OK if no one will defend this show I will. First of all Flash Gordon has been dead for quite some time now, it needed to be brought back and more importantly UPDATED!! Also this is a series you can't really judge after one episode. As much as I love the 1980 movie (just bought the savior of the universe edition) camp does not sell for comic book films(series) so it needs to be on a serious level but still fun The good qualities of this show....

1. The portal- this is good because now Flash and the others can go back and forth between earth and Mongo. And it allows Flash's enemies to come to earth.

2. Flash's Father- having Flash be in search of his father gives him more of a reason to stop Ming instead of just deciding to save the world randomly, and it builds the drama.

3. Character changes- lets start with Flash Gordon, he seems a lot more like a small town hero than a pro athlete, which was a good change. Also instead of being big and ripped he looks more normal so the odds are a little against him.

Next is Dale Arden, when I watched it she struck me as very much a Lois Lane type which I thought was awesome, and having her be engaged to some one else is brilliant.

Finally Ming, Max Von Sydow was a phenomenal Ming no one can touch him. Although I disagree with the way Ming looks in the TV series, but having him be more of a dictator and the people of Mongo trust him was a good move on the developers.

OK so I gave you my input on the series and it is getting a bad rep already so just watch more than one episode before you bad mouth it. Also sources tell me Sam Jones aka Flash Gordon from the movie is doing a guest spot in the 9th episode which will be awesome.

FLASH!!!!!!!!!


This was simply a great show. I glanced through some of the many comments which savage this show, and frankly, I don't really get it. This program has a typical sci fi premise, with the twist of adding a slick, insidious dictator along the lines of a self righteous Ayn Rand villain. The special effects and action are a bit cheesy, but the show play it tongue in cheek ("laser whip, really?"). The plot and character interaction steadily improves throughout the show and Flash's allies on Mongo are portrayed as a lesser of two evils instead of being self righteous freedom fighters. Each of the individual cantons has a unique look and culture. The plot steadily builds and the final five episodes are amazing: inevitable, yet soundly executed. Man, I really have no ides why people did not love this show.


I think this is a very entertaining show. My wife kids and I look forward to watching it every week. The effects are well made and fancy enough for TV. I'm glad you don't need to be an aerospace engineer or some geek to understand this sci-fi show. The customs are great and the girls are beautiful. It's refreshing to see a woman (Baylin) being a real hero over and over. She is also a great sidekick for flash.

The simplicity yet cool storyline of the show is one of its greatest assets. As a former Aerospace Engineering student I am happy to know that this is a show I can share with my non scientist family and we can all enjoy. It's also innocent enough to not be traumatic in children's minds. I could not watch Battlestar Galactica with my 11 and 12 year old children.


Like all the haters, I to thought Flash Gordon was pretty bad in the beginning. The "Hawkmen" episode just about lost me, but I have a high tolerance for cheese.

Then something unexpected happened--the show got better! The writers figured out who the characters were and came up with some plot lines that are actually interesting. Now the characters are fun to watch and I am genuinely interested in how the story progresses. They've struck the right balance between humor, camp, and drama as to be reminiscent of earlier seasons of SG-1. Flash Gordon has moved from a show I watched because nothing else was on to a show I look forward to every week. What a difference a few episodes can make (specifically the "Til Death" episode).

If you haven't seen it since the first few episodes, take a look at it now. I hope this one gets a second season.


Let me first say that after watching the pilot I agreed with the first poster; the show was awful, and I was ready to call it quits and free up space on my DVR. However (and fortunately for me), my parents enforced a Three Bite Rule at dinner when I was growing up; I adapted this into the "Three Show Rule" and sat down to the next two episodes of "Flash" with a virtuous, if heavy heart. The good news is that things got better.

The show is still not great, but I gave it an 8/10 because it is now doing a good job at being exactly what it should be, a campy romp with clever dialog and just plain fun. We sit down to this show now with pleasure, and even choose it first over other shows like "Heroes" when we want something guaranteed to be light and fun. The acting has gotten better, but it's the writing that's really improved. It's as if the writers, having made it through the obligatory story setup and character introductions, are finally able to have fun with their work. And now, I am too.


While I agree with many of the comments regarding the first few episodes, what most people have missed was the amazing turnaround of this series.

First of all, I'm surprised that so many film and sci-fi buffs failed to recognize that despite the show's early rushed production and acting problems, the sound editing and writing are surprisingly good. The show sounds amazing, and the music editing shows what an extremely editor/team can do on a low budget.

Since most people stopped watching about the 2nd or 3rd episode, I have to say that the pilot and the wedding / joybug episode were the absolute worst of the lot. There is no hiding Gina Holden's bad acting in those episodes, and it seems like they rushed through the shows on the first take like a soap opera.

However, as the season progresses, the show gets remarkably better. The first sign is the episode with the Hawkmen/Dactyls called ascension. Even though the cheese factor in this episode is through the roof you can see that the plot line is starting to come together and get very interesting.

The comic-action mood of the series has also finally blossomed. The Baylin character is actually quite funny and Flash has found his place as a hero who is comfortable with his ignorance and makes up for it with a second helping of courage, kind of like the O'Neill character in Stargate SG1. In fact the whole show is starting to feel a lot like Stargate SG1, with the four person save the world team, excellent writing, great mythology, straight-and-narrow good heroes, and of course impossibly hopeless situations that the heroes always get out of unscathed at the last minute.

The pinnacle of the season so far has been the "sorrow" episode, which basically tells the story of how Mongo got to be the crappy place it now is. The writing and music are fantastic, and Anna Van Hooft gives an almost tear-jerking performance as she deals with the complicated reality of her life. In fact, the show has started to focus a lot more on her now, and she steals almost every scene she is in. The dale character is also benefiting from Gina Holden's improving acting skills, and it is fun watching her want so badly to be an action hero and contribute to the team. I think it would be totally awesome if she somehow became an honorary Omodrian or took fighting lessons from Baylin.

I also have to say I'm pleased with John Ralston's courageous interpretation of the Ming character. He is not afraid to try really risky over-the-top stuff and the cringe factor is off the charts (resulting in what I think is way too much unfair criticism.) I for one admire the enthusiasm the puts into this almost comically unstable character.

If you haven't watched Flash Gordon lately, I encourage you to take a second look, the show has undergone a vast improvement!


I've seen some of the original Flash Gordon serial from the 1930s/40s (and found it pretty darn cheesy, inferior to this 2007 series in acting, writing and special effects), but I mainly tuned in to this new version because I thought Eric Johnson did a good job in his supporting role on Smallville. I'm glad to see a decent actor (not just a pretty boy) get the lead role on a series for once! This role gives Eric the opportunity to display his sense of humour, which I thought I detected in a Smallville behind the scenes interview clip years ago, and wondered why that show failed to tap into.

In fact one of the main things I enjoy about this new Flash series, is the humour in general. It's a relief to be able to watch a show that doesn't take itself too seriously, and where you can relax, have fun, and not have to worry that your favorite characters are gonna be killed off (not a spoiler, just my impression). Naturally some people prefer more suspense and a "dark" "edgy" tone, but I'm pretty sick of that sort of thing. Although the show touches on serious subjects like slavery and environmental issues, and there are definitely dramatic, emotional scenes in the episodes, so far (I'm up to episode 9) things are basically lighthearted. I'm hoping for a satisfyingly happy ending.

Flash may not be terribly original, but is anything anymore? At times I'm reminded of other sci-fi shows like Smallville (character dynamics such as Ming's twisted tough love approach to his daughter, which is reminiscent of Lionel and Lex Luthor...and the fact that Dale is a bit of a cross between Lois Lane and Lana Lang, as a smart reporter/hometown girl next door/long-time love), but honestly, Smallville has become unwatchable and offensive in many ways. I'd rather watch Flash right now. Those who miss the earlier, lighter, more fun-for-the-whole-family seasons of shows like Smallville or Buffy, should check this out.

It's nice to find something on TV these days with relatively strong female role models (in contrast to the poorly written and constantly exploited females on Smallville), an entirely likable cast (especially Karen Cliché who's kick-ass cool and does a great job with her comedic moments as an alien adjusting to Earth), engaging characters/story lines, etc. Flash also shows some restraint regarding sexually suggestive stuff that would largely sail over kids' heads, and violence that isn't too disturbing - how refreshing that they kept a story that was originally innocent & intended for children...suitable for children. (Smallville again suffers by comparison there). And, again, humorous banter and an overall fun vibe should not be undervalued!

I only hope the writers & producers of Flash Gordon don't make too many changes, trying to please those who have written negative reviews. I truly don't understand the harsh criticism I've read about this entertaining show.

P.S. Those who are disappointed because this Flash differs from previous incarnations of their childhood, should keep in mind that those other versions differed as well, from each other and from the original comics. If the world can accept "modernized re-imaginings" of classics by Shakespeare, Jane Austen, L. Frank Baum, etc, I think we should be able to handle a new kind of Flash Gordon. As long as the show stays true to it's own established universe/concept/characters, I won't complain.


This show is NOT the marvelous cheese fest of the 1980's movie but a more serious take on the premise. So far it is going well the cast is pretty good except I'm not real keen on Zarkov, he seems too young and is a bit MORE annoying than he should be. But I am please with Flash and Dale they are both have good chemistry and are decent actors.

There are some connections they've added using Flash's Father that are new to the premise. And they do have some good bits of humor sprinkled throughout. We'll keep watching it for now...I'd like it if Ming was a bit more of the Merciless Emperor roll than your typical military dictator in a uniform type but the actor is doing well so we shall see.

I also hope they will be adding in some of the classic characters like Vultan and Prince Baron. Certainly this show is a huge improvement on much of the drek that is currently on TV so I'll keep watching it as long as they don't mess it up or cancel it.


'The Champion' is a nice short film by Charlie Chaplin and of course with Charlie Chaplin. Watching him I always admire his skills. I don't know if you can call it acting but whatever you call it he is great with it. This short starts as a real story but soon it can come to the moment where Chaplin can show his skills. This time in a boxing contest and the preparation before it. There are some very funny moments and most of it was not that predictable. That is the case very often in the shorts of Charlie Chaplin but not so much in this one. I also liked the way the music played together with the performances, it made the whole thing funnier. Definitely worth a watch.


This is one of 5 Chaplin that are on the first DVD of Chaplin's Essanay Comedies. In general, compared to volume 2, the shorts on volume 1 aren't as well-made--because the DVDs are arranged chronologically. Chaplin's skill as a film maker and actor appeared to improve through his stay with Essanay Studios.

This short is not great, but compared to the previous Essanay shorts, it is a major improvement. That's because this short is more like a mini-movie and is very plot-driven--something ALL great Chaplin shorts have in common. The final boxing sequence is funny but makes no sense--just turn off your brain and enjoy.

By the way,...I like the dog in the film. Dogs like this are cool.


Charlie walks with his bulldog and finds a "good luck" horseshoe when he passes a training camp that is looking for a boxing partner "who can take a beating".Charlie won't take a beating, that he has decided.After watching the others lose, he puts the horseshoe inside his glove and wins.Now the trainer prepares Charlie to fight the world champion.Can Charlie win this time.There's also a nasty gambler who wants him to throw the fight.And there's also some love in the air with the trainer's daughter.What a great silent short from Charles Chaplin.The Champion is from 1915 and it also stars Edna Purviance (Trainer's Daughter), Ernest Van Pelt (Spike Dugan), Lloyd Bacon (Second Sparring Partner etc.) and Leo White (Crooked Gambler).You can also see Billy Armstrong, Ben Turpin and Broncho 'Billy' Anderson.This is a perfect comedy.There's no stop to laughter once you get started.When Charlie trains for his match and he keeps getting hits on his nose.When he shows off to Edna with the weights.How he kisses the dog on the head before going into ring.And the fight itself is priceless! How he gets exhausted and swings from one side to another in the ring.And then we see the dog in the ring hanging from the behind of the opponent.Hilarious, just hilarious!


It seems natural that at the very start of Chaplin's career he should make a movie in which he plays a grossly unqualified boxer who succeeds by sneaking horse shoes into his gloves. I only wonder why it didn't happen even earlier. He passes a sign saying that sparring partners are wanted, people who know how to take a punch, and heads in. We see him grow increasingly concerned as one guy after another, all bigger and stronger than him, get up to fight and return in a state of dazed semi-consciousness.

A lot of times when I watch these early comedies from Chaplin, I get the feeling that he is often trying to create at least a mildly engaging story throughout which he can throw in a lot of kicking and punching scenes, but in this movie it's the kicking and punching the drives the plot, giving the film an unusually honest feel.

High-energy physical slap-stick is what Chaplin did best at that time, and smacking around a huge mountain of a man while he dances carelessly around as only he can is certainly a treat to watch. And the climactic battle between Charlie and the meaty Bob Uppercut (or Young Hippo, depending on which cannibalized version you may see) is well-acted and fun.

Mack Sennett like his comedies to be fast paced and high energy, without too much time wasted on things like characterization or even story. But in The Champion, Chaplin proves that we can have well-developed characters, an easily discernible story, and still have enough action and solid slap-stick to keep the shorter attention spanned audience members entertained. This is definitely one of the best short comedies that Chaplin had made up to that point.


The real leap forward that Charlie Chaplin made in screen comedy, the thing that put him ahead of his peers, was that he staged his comedy within a straight and serious world. His first two Keystone pictures had little plot but allowed his little tramp to interact (chaotically) with a realistic environment, albeit with a handful of supporting comedy characters thrown in. With the Champion he moved on to develop stronger story lines which were not funny in themselves, but which gave the tramp a world to be funny in.

The set-up of an up-and-coming boxer who fights his way to the top, is then bribed into throwing a fight and has to choose between his integrity and the payoff was an established cliché even back then. This well-known sequence of events allows Chaplin to mess around with stereotypes or subvert conventions. For a start, there is the fact that Charlie is a scrawny little feller, who essentially cheats his way to the championship. Then there's the farcical training routine, which Chaplin cross-cuts with the opponents more serious routine to give it more comedy impact, followed by the tramp's nonchalant seeing-off of Leo White's over-the-top sinister villain.

Throughout Chaplin is showing more confidence in his staging and arrangements. He allows himself to become a more marginal figure in some sequences  for example when Spike Duggan is knocking out one challenger after another, Charlie isn't doing very much, and is off-screen half the time, but it's his reactions to the growing number of defeated men that is funny. The other characters simply act naturally, whereas Chaplin is the originator of all the comedy.

In Chaplin's previous picture, A Night Out, he came dangerously close to becoming a double-act with Essanay's resident comic Ben Turpin. A large part of Chaplin's humour was based on reacting to other comedy characters, so he needed to have his supporting cast of burly bullies and pompous twerps to antagonise. However in the Champion you can see he is being careful not to let any of them have too much screen time. Although Bud Jamison, Leo White and Ernest van Pelt all do a great job, each of them is a walk-on, walk-off character; none of them shares the picture with Charlie. Ben Turpin has a tiny part as a vendor, but even in this one-shot role he manages to violate Chaplin's rule of the tramp being at the comedic centre of attention, stealing the laughs as he scrambles over the crowd to reach a customer. This would be Turpin's last picture with Chaplin.

And now, we finish with the all-important statistic  Number of kicks up the arse: 1 (1 for, 0 against)


In 1915 Chaplin produced fourteen films for Essanay, just over a third of his output for the previous year under the conveyor belt-like production values of Keystone. This was a trend that would continue, with Chaplin's quantity shrinking more and more each year until the two-features-a-decade of his final years. However, with this shrink in output, the quality would increase, with massive advancement in the artistry of his work.

This said, the Essanay shorts, while more inventive, better plotted and better realised than the Keystone work, initially aren't all that better. A case in point is The Champion, still a relatively primitive piece that has no great meaning or comedic punch (pun unintended). It's worth remembering that this was still only twenty years since the emergence of the first extensive film productions, and that it would have been sophisticated in its day. Yet despite this, the lack of continuity between internal/external locations and lapses of plot logic (Chaplin's Tramp becomes a feared boxer because he has a horseshoe in his glove later he is able to perform the same feats of knock out artistry without the horseshoe, which makes no sense at all) do pall somewhat.

Probably most notable for inspiring a sequence in "City Lights", this is still the era of large comedy moustaches and lack of screen realism. While comedy can be exaggerated, with nothing to ground it in any form of reality it has no great currency over 90 years on. Thankfully the Essanay shorts began, most notably from "The Tramp" on, to develop Chaplin's character as a more sympathetic and socially relevant persona; the seeds of which can be seen here, with a more likable take than Chaplin had previously indulged in. In all, The Champion is interesting as a historical document and notable for the rapid progression Chaplin was making. On its own terms though, it isn't terribly good.


"A Very Natural Thing," according to sources I've read, was one of the first films to show gay men candidly as people. The two principle characters could be anyone. They don't fall easily into stereotypes which plague gay-themed films, even today in the late 1990s.

This film definitely has the look and the feel of its times, the mid-70s. It's fascinating to see how people dressed, the way they talked, what cars they drove, even how they cut their hair. It's also interesting to look at gay lifestyles in this period setting. This was before AIDS/HIV, and unprotected sex was the norm. It takes place just at the beginnings of the 70s age of sexual liberation, not only for gays, but people in general as well. (For another view of the period see BOOGIE NIGHTS or the TALES OF THE CITY series.)

But the most important part of the film is the relationship between the two, psychologically different characters who meet in a dance club, fall in love, and live together. It could be two people today. It shows what two average gay men might experience living together.

I cross-referenced some of the people who made this film. Few went on to do anything else in movies. I think only one made it into the '80s in a mainstream film.

The film has low-budget production values from the period. I didn't find that so much distracting as endearing. It made the film all that much more real.


I only heard of this film in passing, and did not realize how good it was until I rented the DVD. Don't be put off by the dated 1970s music, wardrobes, hairstyles, small-budget, grainy photography, etc. for this is a milestone in gay cinema. Made just about 5 years after the groundbreaking "Boys in The Band", this greatly improves upon that film, with no self-loathing characters, but natural, real people. The writer-director Christopher Clark incorporates pensive dialogue in the story of an ex-Seminary student who finds love with one man, but is soon turned away from him and eventually finds peace with someone else. The musical score is moving, with classical pieces and more. Cast of unknowns unfortunately remained that way, but they are all outstanding. The parade sequences give added flavor and still timely food for thought. The last 5 minutes, with slow-motion photography and soaring music (pre-dates "Chariots of Fire" -1981), better illustrates male bonding than anything seen before or since. Most of the latter-day gay films remain silly, shallow, frequently mean-spirited fodder, with "Making Love" (1982 - good, "Maurice" (1987 - better) "Big Eden" (2000 -great) among the few notable exceptions. A classic awaiting rediscovery.


I was genuinely surprised by how good this film is, especially given that it was made only a few years after Stonewall. The portrayal of the relationships the protagonist has was very moving and real, the psychological depth much more complex than most films that are made today, gay or straight. Of all the movies I've seen in my life, I have never seen so many beautiful images of gay male love that are so celebratory and happy. It's like a Walt Whitman love poem brought to vivid life. The movie is worth seeing just for the last five minutes alone.

The film is also an incredible historical archive. Some of my favorite sequences were interviews made with people on the street during the 1973 "Christopher Street Pride Parade," probably among the first Pride festivals ever. Many of the comments made could have been said today. This film shows a slice of life at the beginning of the gay sexual revolution, and at the same time deals with all the complicated issues of falling in love that remain timeless. That it shows life before AIDS also adds a layer of poignancy that the filmmakers could never have planned for.

I was sad to see that the principal figures in the movie, the actors and director, didn't do much more cinema work beyond this film. I hope they know they created a very special film that still can touch one's heart.


this is a tale of pre-aids post stone wall. gay in new york city (early village) this a very important film for many reasons including the 1973 NYC gay pride parade footage, the very ground breaking subject of that time men on men in long term relationships, also for its very butiful gay love seence. A truly butiful movie a decade before its time. thanx sky w.


I watched this last night on television. I'm quite the gay film buff but I had never heard of this movie. I can't top Tom Norris's review;they reflect my thoughts perfectly. The film is a documentary of a time I lived through but was just a little too young to participate in. A must see film.


I stumbled across this film from Netflix. I really had no preconceived notions of the film when I got the DVD in the mail. I was surprised and uplifted to see a film that was extremely progressive for being filmed in 1973(!) The discussions and concepts brought to light are somewhat the same as now. There was an openness to the cast and real people interviewed during the film that I was unaware of during the early 70s. So many times gay films seem to lack real substance and can't get over the basic premise of dealing with being gay and using stereotypical characters. The story moves from beyond that point and deals with real issues, even if it's just finding someone to love. I was very impressed and it was a great story of modern gay relationships.


This is a beautiful period piece. Even though the direction is uneven (but gets better in the last half) it carries a powerful message which still has meaning 3 decades later. It has less sex than the series "Queer as Folk",or cable "Adult Movies", yet still communicates this aspect of gay relationships. The surprising thing when viewed from an historical perspective, is that society's attitudes toward diversity have changed little and gay people are still struggling with the problems presented in this movie. An additional plus, is that it deals with the difficulties facing all human relationships, whether gay or heterosexual. A must see film.


I no longer live in Florida, having decided to move to California after the death of my long-time companion/partner -- a life altering event. Having never heard about or seen this movie before, I wish Bill could have viewed this film before he left me! We were pre-Stonewall (I am now in my 80's)and, in fact, living just around the corner from The Stonewall in the NYC Village on the night of that famous explosive event -- another life altering event. A Very Natural Thing is an amazing film that everyone (gay or straight) should (must?)see. It tells a simple story in a very simple manner: expressive of a time when gay men and women were watchful and fearful of exposure. I confess tears streamed down my face -- partially because of the beauty of the film and partially grieving for lost youth. I hope younger homosexuals will not disparage the old-fashion-ness or the lack of modern day cinematic sophistication of this outstanding piece of film work: indeed a thing of beauty and a joy forever.


It a fairly decent film,the script isn't that bad,and for being a TV film had some very atmospheric moments given the way it ends obviously they were aiming for a TV series but i really had to laugh when i read the trivia page "a pilot for a series never made" because whoever made this should be suing the makers of "Lost" big time.. There are so many comparisons between them that it list them all should take pages JJ Abrams Damon Lindelof and co should be shamed of themselves for so blatantly ripping off "Danger Island" without giving either the director Tommy Lee Wallace or the writer William Bleich any credit ...not even a little nod in their direction in any interviews.. Lost is the better show its written better and the cast is better but i just wish they had been a bit more honest about how they came up with the idea for Lost


When I watched the NBC airing of DANGER ISLAND, I was fascinated by what a well-stocked premise the show had. First, a well-hidden lush jungle island. Add a local mysterious (but not evil, no matter what the earlier poster thought) tribe. And finally, the mysterious government black op, "Project Naomi", a well-stocked laboratory apparently handling a disturbingly wide variety of experiments. Which caused any number of mutants and mutagens to be released to roam the island.

Heck, as a former role playing game designer, I was envious I had not come up with such a setting. It would make a heck of an RPG!

The characters covered a wide variety of types, including apparently an ex-CIA type who knew about Project Naomi.... And a hero who, upon being exposed to a mysterious mutagen, is starting to become something other than human....

Man, I would love to see the writers' guidelines for this series!

The basic format of DANGER ISLAND has been revisited by two other TV series.

The mid-90s syndicated series PETER BENCHLEY'S AMAZON had an airliner crash in the remote jungle, stranding a few dozen passengers in an unexplored valley filled with mysterious threats..... And in fall 2004, ABC brings us LOST. An airline crash on a mysterious uncharted island filled with mysterious threats......

Postscript, January 2005-- It's funny watching LOST and DANGER ISLAND and seeing some of the same photogenic areas being used by the two similar shows a decade apart. LOST is definitely the better written show but still, it would have been nice for DANGER ISLAND to have had a better chance!

POST-postscript, January 2006-- A year later and it looks even more like DANGER ISLAND was a parallel world counterpart to LOST. Especially now that we know DI's "Project Naomi" has a counterpart in LOST's "Swarma Institute" (or whatever it's called!).


Yet another guilty pleasure. If you're looking for state-of-the-art special effects, snappy dialogue, or a plot that's original or logical, you'll have to look elsewhere. Otherwise, Danger Island is a best watched for its lush locations, a little suspense and leggy lovelies Kathy Ireland and Beth Toussaint. Future sex kitten Nikki Cox is also here, but won't reach her potential for another three years. There are worse ways to kill two hours, as long as you turn your brain off.

Danger Island follows in the grand tradition of campy shows with a group of people marooned on a isolated tropical island. Sort of like Gilligan's Island meets Lost In Space. As if to reinforce the analogy, here's June Lockhart reprising her sweet, motherly role from Lost In Space. With Kathy Ireland as a Gingeresque supermodel who presumably would never run out of cosmetics even after years on the island. Lisa Banes is a female "Professor." Vic the Marine stands in for Major Don West. Christopher Pettiet is the Will Robinson replacement. And Richard Beymer's oily, enigmatic Ben is reminiscent of the early, not very cowardly Dr. Smith. Irwin Allen would have been proud. Or he would have sued for plagiarism.

Interestingly, the music is quite similar to the original score for "Nightmare Cafe." What makes it uncanny is that this was written by Peter Manning Robinson while that was written by J. Peter Robinson. (No relation as far as I can tell.)

This was made by NBC as a pilot for a series that never materialized. Danger Island bears more than a passing resemblance to the 1951 movie Mysterious Island, from the motley crew thrown together by circumstance to the fateful flight through a violent storm to the abandoned habitat they find and make their own and the monsters they have to fight. During the 1992 TV season, NBC seemed to like sci-fi groaners, as four months later they showed Journey to the Center of the Earth, a remake of another movie based on a Jules Verne story. That also never found a spot on NBC's regular schedule.

As a failed pilot, Danger Island laid out numerous loose ends meant to be tied up in later episodes. What tentacled menace attacked Rick and Frank? What was done to the island's natives? Who was watching them when they first made it to the beach? What does Ben know about the MK-Naomi project? The secrets of Danger Island were limitless. Perhaps it's best that they remain hidden. This way, the MK-Naomi research station will be forever shrouded in mystery, as it should be.


I first watched this movie back in 1998, in a late night slot on the UK's Channel 5. I had never heard of the movie or read about it and just happened to start watching it. In the first few minutes, I assumed it would be a romantic drama on a tropical island. Swiss Family Robinson meets Blue Lagoon, maybe? Oh, how I was wrong.

After they arrive safely upon the island we get the view from under the water and the eerie music comes on. So its not a modern day Swiss Family Robinson after all. More like Demon Seed. I become even more intrigued in to what mysteries the island possesses, with references to the mutated fruit, 'fish like people' and hallucinations that Vic (Graham) has. I had to keep watching this movie, even though some of the acting was cringe worthy.

In to the latter part of the movie when they move in to the ''Habitat'', the group start to discover what truths there are behind the islands military past. A lot of the action takes place around this part of the movie, some it quite entertaining and exiting. When it came to an end I was shocked, I wanted more. Looking back though, there are painful reminders that Danger Island was not meant to end like this, but made to pave the way for a TV series, which never took off unfortunately (unless you can count Lost).

A good and entertaining film, with a relatively unknown cast and poor scripting, but good acting from Gary Graham and June Lockhart. In all though very intriguing characters and all work well together as a group. Would have been great to found out the answers that were never given especially if they were ever rescued. Oh well, a worthy 7/10


Looks so much like a current LOST ... so funny. If writer get is as new idea :) Plane crashes. 2 croups. Odd buildings Experimental stuff. So copy of this original or there some movie of mother of this? I like lost but screed too far. One movie would do it. Kathy Ireland and Beth Toussaint they rules. True babes. So I like to you to enjoy this movie. FX are in low budged and nice to see young Nikki Cox before you can think she is pretty babe. Here she is just kid with serious acting attempt. Just wonder when they found "Monster" in water in LOST then it would be too lame. So lets see what comes. I's say this film is worth of watching for all those Robinson Crusoe lovers.


I really think this is a great movie. It got a very low rating on IMDB, but I would give it an 11! I think it is way above standard for a 1992 TV movie. Kathy Ireland is great, as well as Joe Lara and June Lockhart. You also get to see a young Nikki Cox (and even at that yound age her acting is GREAT!). The script is really good, and I do not see a problem with the special effects (like some other people have ssaid in there reviews). The plot is simple: People get stranded on an island, and attacked by creatures, but the movie is much more complex. I could never tell what was going to happen next (and that always is a GOOD sign!). The locations chosen for this film are beautiful. I have the dvd (which was re-released in 2001), and I have watched it about 20 times. Thanks for reading my review!


This movie contains very few established actors with Kathy Ireland and the Mexican guy from the A-Team being the best known. It also has as its hero a guy who looks remarkably like Mick Jagger(he has a huge jaw). The plot centres around a desert island which contains a sinister abandoned research facility. A motley crew of annoying people are washed ashore after a plane crash and terror ensues when some of them inexplicably turn into incredibly cheap looking monsters. The special effects are poor, especially the explosions at the start which sound similar to a cap-gun. Having said this it should be remembered that this is just a TV movie after all. There is one extremely strange scene halfway through the film when one of the characters makes what appears to be a vital quote about "operation Naomi", it appears as if he has some inside knowledge about the hugely chilling goings on, but no, our hopes are dashed. "Operation Naomi" is not mentioned again in the movie. This is the most bizarre part of the movie as it might have explained what the hell was going on, but it just made it more confusing. Finally, this movie contains poor TV actors and has a rotten script and minute budget for the special effects, but it is still one of the most entertaining TV movies ever made.


this was a TV Pilot that was before its time. A story that gave flight to a thousand possibilities, yet to the unimaginative was maybe to Crebral for them to fathom maybe...

The premise: a group of mix-mashed crossrefrences of modern day life are Stranded deadlocked on a Island that is not on any maps and not a soul even knows that it is here... Now all of them, not only have to traverse the mystery of just who each of them actually are, but before it is too late they must Figure the right way through the Unknown Depths of an Island in which the Nightmarish truths are about to be unearthed on a Island known only as "MK:NAOMI"

excerpt: a gov cover-up a Experiment Island in which Failed Experiment Plague the Traditional Loin cloth wearing Inhabitintes have to overcome If you sleep.... hope you have a happy dream Pray Hard it is not a scary one or you might think it really is real really ... cause on this island your nightmares are reality oh and one other thing be careful what you eat oh and think before you open the door...or like the Hero you could be a little green under the gills ...wait hell ya might have gills ... in fact this show was so good i remembered it and thought LOST was the culmination of it coming back...OH well... WWW.Myspace.com/Waywardtravler777


Obviously, this movie was not made for the kids who grew up with CGI. Anyone with a keen eye for special effects can see how it is done. But in those days, there was only a handful of techniques you could use. This is miniatures and stop motion, and although not in the league of Ray Harryhausen, there is far worse.

Some people claim it is a BEAST FROM TWENTY THOUSAND FATHOMS ripoff, a mock buster. I don't agree. All these movies have a similar pattern. Something inexplicable happens, slowly the mystery and the number of incidents grow, a scientist comes up with a possible explanation and then the grand finale where the special effects and the military come in (with lots of - sometimes inappropriate - stock footage).

The Giant Behemoth follows that pattern. It takes half an hour before the monster is shown and then you get a good 20 minutes of more than passable special effects. No men in rubber suits here. The scene at the power plant is a classic as far as I'm concerned.

For the modern viewer it takes a bit of patience to chew up the first three-quarters of babbling around, but there is enough to keep your attention. Not like It Came from Beneath the Sea where the continuous scenes on the submarine gets you craving for the end.

All in all, it is a pretty decent movie. There are far, far worse.


I was pretty stoked to see this film, generally 1950's films about giant beasts tended to hail from the US and this was one of the handful of British counterparts, along with superior classic The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms and Gorgo, which I've not yet seen. All are directed by Eugène Lourié and here he proves to be a dab hand with the material, bringing a sincerity and sense of creepy intrigue that not only sustains the film nicely during its slower earlier stages but giving it a frisson of actual shock and disturbance. I'm not sure of the grounding of the science in the film, the basis for problems seeming to be radioactive particles in the sea, ingested by plankton, which are in turn consumed by fish, themselves eaten by sea birds, with the trouble being that the particles are multiplied in concentration at each stage. This may be true, but from my small knowledge of the subject it seems a little iffy. 'Tis of little matter though, whats important is that the radiation has woken up a prehistoric reptilian beast, multiplied it to awesome size and gifted it with the power of deadly radioactive waves that can fry onlookers. The first half of the film is all building creeps, burns and radioactive study, low key tension and regional accents, set around the the Cornish coast, captured rich in atmosphere by the chilly cinematography of Desmond Davis and Ken Hodges. Until the monster really begins to strike the film is a very British affair, stiff upper lips and tightly controlled and when the monster does strike the reactions to it are British indeed, making for some chuckle worthy lines of dialogue. The monster is a tad patchy in its appearance, at first looking pretty shabby, when it properly emerges it is an effectively fearsome force, and the final effects work of the great Willis O'Brien (King Kong). Though sadly it doesn't get to eat anyone it wreaks a few scenes of cool havoc, fries a good number of people with its deadly waves and best of all takes out a ferry in the Thames. Though lacking in personality it is an effectively harsh creature, offing folk of all ages and doing so with a certain committed gusto. It makes for a fine final third and given that the film isn't much more than 70 minutes long anyway, things have barely moments in which to slip out of interest. The film has a few problems, its slight and a bit tricky to care about proceedings, it could have done with more havoc, more personality and more of the monster bringing death to individuals, preferably by eating, since the radiation effect looks a little weak in practice even though the burn effects are good. The acting is also mostly a tad non-descript, Gene Evans and André Morell are slightly uninteresting heroes and the most engaging acting comes from a bizarrely enthusiastic yet wryly frozen faced turn from Jack McGowran as a paleontologist. He steals his scenes, but regrettably isn't around for very long. Also, the monster sometimes induces chuckles, whilst some of the earlier ideas of the film aren't best explored. Its the sort of thing that will appeal chiefly to an older fan base and younger folk with a taste for this sort of thing, it has at times a creakiness a hokeyness that it isn't quite classy enough to fully hold up against, but its still good fun. Well, I liked it quite a bit anyhow, recommended to monster enthusiasts but there are better out there.


Giant radioactive monsters, while apparently preferring Tokyo, do occasionally attack other major cities, whether they be San Francisco in It Came from Beneath the Sea, or London, as in this movie. This one, called the behemoth, I think is referred to as a plesiosaur but looks more apatosaurus-like. The Giant Behemoth, aka Behemoth the Sea Monster, is your average monster-attacks-city movie. It spends an inordinate amount of time on people jabbering along, scientists trying to figure out what gave dead people radiation burns, et cetera, et cetera. By the time I started nodding off, the monster makes his first appearance, and looks kind of like a piñata. Later it comes on land and is a stop-motion effect. This was Willis O'Brien's penultimate film. At this point, O'Brien and his techniques had been surpassed by those of his student, Ray Harryhausen. The behemoth looks not much better than the dinosaurs of the silent The Lost World. Still, I quite like it. There's just something about stop-motion effects that charms me. But these effects are too few and far between to make the movie worth anything.


Eugene Lourie did not make socially important film like his fellow 1950's directors like Stanley Kramer, or Elia Kazan. Instead, Lourie made three exciting films depicting a giant dinosaur attacking a major city. His first was 1953's THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS, with classic stop motion effects by Ray Harryhausen. The best of this trio was 1960's GORGO, where a highly annoyed off mommy dinosaur rips London into shreds rescuing it's captive baby. Available in this box set is his 1959 Dino-fest, THE GIANT BEHEMOTH, the weakest of Lourie's monster movies, but still, a fun time at the movies. Before, after and during making his own films, Lourie as a art director for Clint Eastwood, Sam Fuller, Jean Renoir, and Charles Chaplin.

The behemoth problem with THE GIANT BEHEMOTH is that it is slow paced. 37 minutes in we get to see the monster's shoulder. It will take another eleven minutes to get to our first monster scene- where Behemoth raises out of the water, and attacks a Thames River ferryboat. One wonders how many animators worked on this film. One of the animators was pioneering stop-motion artist Willis O'Brien, who animated life into the silent THE LOST WORLD, the 1933 KING KONG, and many other exciting monster films. The stop motion animation varies from inventive,


This is a brave and robust monster -- and it travels well too. It started off around 1950 as a Ray Bradbury story about a lonely sea monster who mistakes a lighthouse fog horn for the mating call of a possible mate. Then it became "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms", about an Apedosaurus who is released from his cryogenic state by a nuclear blast, attacks New York City, pillages rabidly, kills with its radioactive blood, and perishes amid a conflagration in Coney Island's roller coaster. (I'm thinking -- twenty-thousand fathoms. That's 120,000 feet or 23 miles. The deepest location on the earth's crust is the Marianas trench, and that's only 6.8 miles.) This animal may not be deep but he is tough to kill. Here it shows up on the English coast, under a different name, with a smaller budget, and starring Gene Evans and Andre Morell. Gene Evans is the scientific expert who cuts up the radioactive fish that wash ashore in adumbration of the monster's appearance. A morel is some kind of eel.

The plot is very similar to that of "The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms," really. Some of the shots are almost exact duplicates of the original. A fishing vessel is attacked at sea. An amusing, oddball professor is a paleontological enthusiast and is done away with. A brick wall crumbles beneath the animal's elephantine foot and crushes the pedestrians on the other side. A car is stomped, chewed up, thrown away. Citizens in a panic run this way and that in front of the camera. Someone falls and the others clump over him or trip and fall themselves. The streets of London are eerily empty of people and traffic because no one is willing to venture outside. Urgent international emergency broadcasts in six different languages. The monster's skull is too thick to penetrate, so a radioactive projectile must be blasted in through a soft point in its neck.

The original was no masterpiece but it's better in every respect, from the acting to the special effects by Ray Harryhausen. Here, instead of Cecil Calloway, there is Gene Evans. Gene Evans. Not to put the guy down, but he is from Holbrook, Arizona, which I recall from a generation ago as consisting of a crossroads, some scattered housing, a few small shops, a gas station, and a Dairy Queen. I'll have to look up his background to find out how Gene Evans managed to get from that Dairy Queen to a starring role in a British monster movie. His looks -- balding, freckled, with a fringe of russet hair around his ear line -- is most unprepossessing. His acting talents were modest. (You or I, dragged in fresh off the streets, could probably equal him in a contest.) And when he announces, "I'm just going to cut up a fish," he sounds as if he knows a lot more about cutting up fish than about science.

I've kind of made fun of the film and, to be honest, I don't really know why it was made. But I watched it all the way through, partly out of curiosity, and partly out of respect for Andre Morell, a fine actor who looks and sounds the part he plays. If you like these kinds of movies, you'll enjoy this movie. It's not likely to present you with any kind of challenge, anymore than it challenged the plagiarists who wrote it.


Lacking a budget makes for a sub-par 50s creature feature. Radiation again is the blame for A giant creature attacking mankind. Massive amounts of dead fish wash ashore and a man dies of burns from the radioactive beams projected from what will be called The Behemoth, from the Book of Job. The creature is a giant brachiosaurus that attacks ships and submarines before converging on the city of London. Destroying the monster presents the problem of releasing devasting levels of radiation contaminating the entire country. Filmed entirely in England and is actually a remake of 1953's THE BEAST FROM 20,000 FATHOMS. The players include: Gene Evans, Leigh Madison, Jack MacGowran and John Turner.


Giant Behemoth surprised me. Catching the film really from the first frame for the first time in years I was shocked by just how damn good the movie is. Owing more to the British thrillers such as the Quatermass films and the stark black and white horror films of Hammer (X The Unknown) or things like the Day the Earth Caught Fire (which while released 2 years later has similar feel) or Corridors of Blood, this is for a good chunk of the film a dark detective story of sorts as the monster remains hidden and the scientists try to figure out whats going on. There is complexity of the story, fish kills, radiation and a sense that this is a larger problem, that is lacking from most American films of the time period and the genre.

Strangely, the monster, which always bothered me, actually looked pretty good. If you look at the monster itself I think you'll see that compared to the Beast from 20000 fathoms, this is the better monster. if you look at the design and the skin texture the monster actually looks realer than Beast which seems to be more a block of clay. the problem here is that O'Brien's animation isn't very good at times. A throw back to his 1920's work on the Lost World (watch the way the neck and head move), its clear that O'Brien was regressing from his peak on King Kong (Mighty Joe Young doesn't count, Harryhausen actually animated most of that). To be certain part of the problem is that speed was required, Behemoth had a limited budget so it had to be done fast as possible, but ultimately O'Brien wasn't that creative an animator (he may have been the father of the technique but his children made it into something). Luckily the monster is shown in shadow and darkness frequently so we can't always see whats going on, which is good since it adds a sense of mystery to the proceedings that Beast is lacking.

By no means a "great film" behemoth is actually a better film than I think its given credit for. I think had the monster been changed or better handled this would have had a reputation beyond the earlier Beast.

For a great double feature watch Beast from 20,000 Fathoms after this for a nice follow up (Events in Beast are kind of mentioned in the final fade out)


I first saw this show when I was very young (when it first came out). In fact, I believe it was the first "horror" show I was allowed to see, I was 7. It gave me such nightmares at the time that my mother refused to let me see any of the genre films until I was in my teens.

When I recently saw it again, it brought a smile to my face. It was one of those movies that was so bad it was good.

The "special" effects were very Dr. Who-ish. The monster was pathetic and the acting very bad. The budget must have been smaller than mine, LOL.

This movies rates up there with "Plan 9" and others.

A lot of fun to watch.


In the 1950's, Britain didn't go for monster movies like America did. This one from 1959 is one of the best.

It is directed by Eugene Lourie and is basically a remake of his The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms with the story set in England instead of America.

The dinosaur in this movie is woken up from a very long sleep as a result of atomic bomb tests off the coast of Cornwall. He heads for London after killing several people on the way. He goes on the rampage there, bringing down London Bridge and killing some soldiers in the process. He gets gassed at the end. Willis O'Brien (King Kong) was responsible for the stop-motion monster. It looks quite impressive.

I foud this movie quite enjoyable and is worth seeing if you get the chance.

Rating: 4 stars out of 5.


Did you just have no ideas of your own? I asked this, because I recently saw another UK film called "Stranger from Venus", which was a cheap knockoff of "The Day the Earth Stood Still".

This movie was obviously influenced by both the American "Beast from 20,000" fathoms and the Japanese "Gojira" (Or as he is known in America as "Godzilla".) The monster, mutated by atomic bomb tests, has the ability to spew radiation at its victims. Brought to life by Willis O'Brien (who did the FX for "King Kong" and whose protégé, Ray Harryhousen, animated the "Beast/20,000 Fathoms")the monster doesn't really look that good. In some parts, a hand puppet was used for its neck.

The pacing is typical for this kind of movie. Strange things are occurring in remote sea-side villages until the monster makes its debut in a big city, and has a fight to the death with the military. Other than that, you have a bunch of British actors who show a little too much English reserve. For crying out loud people, there's a big giant lizard wrecking your capital! Try to act like you kind of care.

The movie ends with a news bulletin that fish washed up all along the Ameican shore, meaning you Yanks are about to get yours.

Another movie that proves the MST3K guys ended their work too soon. So many movies to lampoon, so little time.


I can't believe that some people compare this movie favorably with Beast From 20,000 Fathoms. Behemoth is a near carbon copy rip-off of Beast,shamelessly using many plot elements from the previous movie. Among these are:the creature destroying an isolated structure(A lighthouse for Beast,a farm for Behemoth),picking up a car in its mouth and shaking it before dropping it,knocking a building over on people,causing mass death and illness(a disease for Beast,radiation for Behemoth),that they were both spawned at the mouth of a river,and that both are killed by having a nuclear projectile fired into them.

But the worst flaw in this movie is the terrible stop motion technique. This creature has none of the personality of the Beast,it is simply a mindless juggernaut. The head and body movements are stiff,clumsy and repeated ad nauseum,as is the roar,which never changes tone once. The movie does have a few good points-Gene Evans as the young,brash American,melds well with Andre Morell's quiet,efficient effort. The radiation emitted by the creature is well done,and the resulting corpses are gruesomely believable. However this movie,to me,is one of the worst of the "Giant Lizard stomps Big City" genre.


This is a movie without use. The title tells all: Translate into English (any continental variety)...it means something very close to

"...The Giant Big."

The film itself is worse. How, exactly, did the "creators" imagine the repeated use of the same shots would be un-noticed? How, exactly, did the "director" expect his audience wouldn't notice repeated reverse shots from lines earlier in the film? etc. etc.

Don't buy. Don't rent. Don't steal.

Ignore it.

Maybe the glaciers will grind it to dust.