Cheap Reel Values TV Classics, Vol. 9 (Flash Gordon / One Step Beyond) (DVD) (Wallace Worsley Jr., Gunther von Fritsch, Joseph Zigman) Price

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Customer Reviews of Reel Values TV Classics, Vol. 9 (Flash Gordon / One Step Beyond)

Great 50's Sci-Fi Television
This disc is a nice look into the state of Sci-Fi television in the 50's. It contains six episodes-three each of FLASH GORDON and ONE STEP BEYOND.
FLASH GORDON turns out to be fairly typical of 50's Sci-Fi, reused special effects (including the use of the same zoom into a planet mock-up to describe several different planets). There are some nice rocketship designs, though the one for Flash's ship is reused once or twice. Steve Holland plays an appropriate Gordon, down to the voice and physique. Very campy, and very fun for it! ONE STEP BEYOND is a nicely done predecessor to OUTER LIMITS and TWILIGHT ZONE. The stories on this DVD deal mainly with psychic phenomena, and are engaging.
The episodes included aren't listed by name on the box, but the main gist of them follows:
FLASH GORDON-
AKIM THE TERRIBLE
Akim is a tyrant running a planet where villainy is the law, and honesty is the crime. His terrible machine turns honest men into killers, and Flash must stop him!
THE BREATH OF DEATH
Flash and Dale visit a prison planet, only to be accosted when one of the inmates who Flash put away escapes and takes over Flash's ship. They must stop on a planetoid to retrieve a cache of fuel left by the prisoner. The problem: he who breathes the air dies!
THE RACE AGAINST TIME
Flash must deliver a delegate to Mars where he will put in a vote to stop the individual planets from getting ahold of the planetary government's technology for themselves. Someone doesn't want them at the meeting, and will do anything to stop them!
ONE STEP BEYOND (There are no titles given for these episodes)
1. A young Robert Blake is a prison inmate (imagine that!) trying to aid in the escape of four others. One called 'Gypsy' is the leader, and doesn't want Blake to go.
2. A woman named Elsie sees her husband die in a military battle during a dream-a battle that happens on August 12th to a husband she's never met!
3. Four WWI French soldiers are on trial and likely to be put to death for leaving the battlefield after encountering deeply personal and amazing visions in a mysterious floating light. Similar to the 'Angels of Mons' visions reported in WWI.

The DVD is fair quality, with the ONE STEP BEYOND episodes being the worst. The 3rd episode is particularly bad, appearing as if it were taken from a tape with a bad tracking pattern. All are watchable and enjoyable. Each of the six episodes is about 30 minutes long, with no available scene selection as the episodes only include one scene each. Nice for the price; less than two dollars per episode!

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ONE STEP BEYOND is great
I only bought this DVD for ONE STEP BEYOND, so I can't comment on Flash Gordon at all. The DVD comes with NO FRILLS whatsoever...not even a one page insert in the box. But it does have three episodes of each show.

The quality of the picture and sound is average. I doubt they can ever get much better. ONE STEP BEYOND is a kind of forgotten show, long in the public domain, and I doubt that anything short of a major ... effort could restore these shows to something resembling pristine quality.

That being said, the show itself is still more than watchable and enjoyable, and for the price, it is money well spent to take an obscure trip down memory lane. I don't think they picked the all time greatest episodes, but they are solid shows, and I'm glad I made this purchase.

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Fifties TV still fun and cool
I was really curious about this video as it has three episodes of a Flash Gordon TV series and I'd never seen it..

Compared to the earlier efforts of Chas. Middleton and Buster Crabbe it really didn't measure up..but hey my twenty four year old son watched them with me and we got a barrel of laughs watching it together. Irene Champlin as "Dale Arden" is really pretty cute and kinda sexy in her furlined outfit.

What really awed me though was an enchanted episode of "One Step Beyond"...blew my mind when a bright object was sighted simultaneously by several soldiers on various fronts in November 14, 1915 at 2230 hours military time. This one episode makes the whole disc well worth the money!