Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe is a 1940 American twelve chapter black-and-white science fiction serial film from Universal Pictures, produced by Henry MacRae, directed by Ford Beebe and Ray Taylor, that stars Buster Crabbe, Carol Hughes, Charles B. Middleton, Frank Shannon, and Roland Drew. The serial was written by George H. Plympton, Basil Dickey, and Barry Shipman and was adapted from Alex Raymond's syndicated newspaper comic strip of the same name. It was the last of the three Universal Flash Gordon serials made between 1936 and 1940.
During the 1950s, all three of these Flash Gordon serials were directly syndicated to television, by Motion Pictures for Television, along with many of Universal's other serial output. To avoid confusion with the Flash Gordon TV series airing around the same time, they were retitled Space Soldiers, Space Soldiers' Trip to Mars, and Space Soldiers Conquer the Universe.
In 1966 Flash Gordon Conquers the Universe was then edited into two feature-length films for television syndication, Purple Death from Outer Space and Perils from the Planet Mongo, by King Features Syndicate. In the early 1970s, a third feature version was edited for the 16mm home movie market, using material from the entire serial, bearing the title "Space Soldiers Conquer the Universe": this later appeared on television during the 1980s. All three feature versions afterward became available, through various public-domain video sellers, on videotape and DVD.
In the mid-1970s all three Universal Flash Gordon serials were shown by PBS stations across the US, bringing its iconic hero to a new generation, a full two years before Star Wars and Close Encounters of the Third Kind re-ignited interest into a waning science fiction film genre. During the late 1980s, they all became available on videotape, and later DVD, in restored versions (including the original titles) from commercial sources.
