FLASH GORDON (1936) Serial, episode 1

This was released to theaters in the year my father was born, but in the sixties, I managed to watch every single episode on New York's channel 11. Forget Kurosawa. Forget Joseph Campbell. This was the real inspiration for Star Wars!

 The Star of Flash Gordon was Clarence Linden "Buster" Crabbe, a handsome and likable actor who first became famous as an Olympic athlete. In 1932, he took the gold medal for freestyle swimming. I remember that in the 70s, in the New York market, Buster Crabbe appeared in a frequently-recurring commercial where he hawked some kind of exercise equipment. I couldn't find that on YouTube, but I found these: