Sam Jones, Star of the 1980 Classic FLASH GORDON Will be Signing Autographs May 23rd at the ‘I Had That’ Collectibles Shop in Belleville, IL

By Tom Stockman | April 25, 2021

“Flash! Flash, I love you! But we only have fourteen hours to save the Earth!”

Sam Jones, star of the 1980 classic FLASH GORDON (and TED and many other action films) will be signing autographs from 1pm-5pm on Sunday May 23rd at the ‘I Had That’ Collectibles Shop in Belleville, IL That’s located inside Collectors Corner at 120 East Main Street in Belleville, IL. The ‘I Had That’ Facebook page with updates and more info can be found HERE

Autographs start at $40 each. If you don’t have your own item, Sam will have 8×10’s available at his table that he will sign for you. He will also have 11×14’s for an additional cost. If you want to take a selfie with Sam, it’s $40 as well. Or, you can buy an autograph and a selfie for a special combined price of $60. ‘I Had That’ will also have Beckett on hand for authentication for $8 if you would like a COA with your autograph. If you can’t make the signing, they are offering a dropoff/send in service for $50/auto (plus shipping if applicable). Authentication will still be $8.’I Had That’ will be in their new building when this signing happens. It’s right next door to their current location.

When promoting a screening of FLASH GORDON that I hosted at the midnight show at The Tivoli in 2015, I wrote of the beloved film:

FLASH GORDON (1980) is a sci-fi family blockbuster directed by the fellow who gave us the gritty ’70s gangster movie GET CARTER. Its two leads (Sam Jones, Melody Anderson) can’t act at all and are barely engaging. The performances are completely uneven to the extent that actors seem to think they’re in different films. After STAR WARS and ALIEN had set a benchmark for sci-fi being a bit dark and grimy it’s like they threw all that out and decided that sci-fi should look polished, shiny and colorful. And the soundtrack is by Queen, with the preposterousness and pomp turned up to eleven.

And yet it works, and it works stupendously well. There is so much to enjoy about the 1980 version of FLASH GORDON. After a very dull first ten or so minutes involving the aforementioned unengaging leads, we take a plane to meet Topol’s Dr Hans Zarkov and the pace, and sense of fun, never lets up until the end. Its extraordinary stuff with so many memorable set-pieces: Ming’s first on-screen appearance to Queen’s menacing synth music, Flash’s ludicrous game of “American Football” in Ming’s throne room, the tree- stump monster, the whip battle on the tilting platform (with retracting spikes, naturally), the hawkmen attacking a rocketship. And so many brilliant, fun lines: “Flash, flash I love you but we only have fourteen hours to save the earth!”, “Dispatch war rocket Ajax to brrring back his body!”, “Gordon’s alive?!!”

Incredibly for a film with two such poor lead performances everyone else is brilliant. Topol is in great form as Zarkov, Timothy Dalton plays the whole thing utterly straight as chiseled Prince Barrin, Brian Blessed is essentially just playing himself but it would be half the film without him, Peter Wyngarde manages to give Klytus an air of upper-class menace from behind a metal mask and Max von Sydow portrays Emperor Ming so well that he manages to make an essentially 2D B-movie type villain into someone who comes across as complex and interesting.

I hesitate to use phrases like “popcorn movie” or “leave your brain at the door” about FLASH GORDON because that’s doing it a massive injustice. This is a brilliant, funny, clever, outrageously camp and even slightly subversive film hiding in the most commercial of genres. We will never see its likes again and that’s a shame. Now you’ll have a chance to see FLASH GORDON on the big screen again.