Buck Rogers On The Big (And Little) Screen!

Buck Rogers the classic movie serial from Universal starring Larry "Buster"Crabbe was made during his classic run of Flash Gordon movies for the same studio and it fits right in among them. The pacing, the sense of derring-do all match perfectly the tone of the Flash Gordon movies. A few times you even expect to hear "Flash" come from someone's mouth. 

But in a number of ways this movie is maybe superior to the Flash Gordon serials. While it doesn't have the sheer sense of awe of the first Gordon serial, it matches up very well against the later two. The pacing in this story is very well handled, with very few slow patches. The chapter lengths are about right for the stories told and you don't have long sections of endless corridor running which beef up weaker serials. The villains are less exotic but seem more competent making them more of a basic threat. 

The real strength of this story though is the wide array of technical details it offers up. This movie features the sci-fi concepts of suspended animation and time travel, instant molecular transport, anti-gravity belts, interplanetary spacecraft, mind-control machinery, bullet mini-trains, alongside the obligatory rayguns and ray cannons. There's even some invisibility. Things never get dull and the different things make for a varied and somewhat unpredictable adventure (at least by serial standards). Heck, Wilma Dearing even saves herself a time or two, not needing Buck to ride to the rescue. A woman saving herself was downright unique in the format, not to mention the boy sidekick Buddy who isn't really just an excuse but helps out Buck quite a bit himself. Rare indeed. All in a dandy serial. 

Buck Rogers is a curiosity in that the concept at once inspired Star Wars and was inspired by it when in 1979 Glen Larson's outfit, the fame folks who gave us Battlestar: Galactica revived the vintage comic strip hero and dressed all in white and let him dash around for the amusement of those of us hungry for every mote of science fiction we could vector in on. 

The update as seen in the "theatrical release" is reasonably true to the classic, a time-lost hero is awakened five hundred years in his future to an Earth struggling after devastating conflicts. The open racism of the classic Nowlan-Calkins strip is disappeared largely but in its place are heaping gobs of anti-feminist dross. The old comic was sexist as heck too, but by 1979 most of that was still okay. The "movie" starts with a title sequence that would've made James Bond proud, a gaggle of slinking beauties bathing in the reflected light of the logo. Among that assembly was the lovely Erin Gray who has become arguably the sci-fi sex icon of the era. 

Most of the show is pretty decent rot for the time, save for Gil Gerard's take on what passes for perseverance and mostly resembles contrarianism. There's a whole dance sequence I just ignore, so painful is it to watch that I find it a grand opportunity to get something to drink or eat. Pamela Hensley is seriously hot, but her role is cliched beyond her control. Henry Silva connects the dots on his villainy, and not do much more ain't his fault as far as I can see. 

The two things I most remember about the show are Twiki along with his medallion buddy Doctor Theopolous, and the trailer. I did see Buck Rogers in the theater, as it was a time when I saw most every show even sort of science fiction like. But I don't remember seeing it so much as seeing the trailer which was incredibly long and told the story fairly completely, less an incentive to see the movie and more a summary. I've always applied the rule that the longer the trailer the worse the movie and that usually holds up.

Buck Rogers became a television show and it was fine, something passably decent to watch with competent acting and production. But it rarely if ever rose above its upbringing, and that's a pity too. 

NOTE: This is a Dojo Revised Classic Post. 

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