When Howard Ziehm and producer Bill Osco began developing Flesh Gordon in 1972, the project was conceived as a relatively modest pornographic spoof of the old Flash Gordon serials, with an initial budget of approximately $25,000. Instead, the production spiraled into an unusually ambitious underground film involving elaborate sets, special effects, animation, and artists who would later become major figures in Hollywood effects work, including Rick Baker, Dennis Muren, Greg Jein, and Jim Danforth. The project became even more precarious when police raided the production and confiscated all of its negatives, a devastating blow for a film whose existence already occupied a legally dangerous position in the early-1970s adult-film business.
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AI concept artworkArchive Record · 1970s
The Police Raid and $700,000 Budget Explosion That Nearly Destroyed Flesh Gordon
Flesh Gordon / Howard Ziehm and Bill Osco / 1970s
When Howard Ziehm and producer Bill Osco began developing Flesh Gordon in 1972, the project was conceived as a relatively modest pornographic spoof of the old Flash Gordon serials, with an initial budget of approximately $25,000. Instead, the production spiraled into an unusually ambitious underground film involving elaborate sets, special effects, animation, and artists who would later become major figures in Hollywood effects work, including Rick Baker, Dennis Muren, Greg Jein, and Jim Danforth. The project became even more precarious when police raided the production and confiscated all of its negatives, a devastating blow for a film whose existence already occupied a legally dangerous position in the early-1970s adult-film business.
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