KEEPING UP WITH THE JONES

The documentary of a leading man’s Life After Flash

The five-disc Collector’s Edition of StudioCanal’s new Flash Gordon release features Life After Flash, a 2017 documentary that set out to tell Sam J Jones’s real-life story – as well as throwing in plenty of Mongoflavoured nostalgia.

“Apart from Ted, I only knew Sam from Flash Gordon, but I thought he must have had a fascinating life,” says director Lisa Downs. “The tricky thing was you can’t Google everything that I found out – I knew there were rumours something happened on set with Sam, but I didn’t know to what extent it was true or not. Apart from that, I didn’t know what Sam’s story was, so I didn’t know whether it was going to be interesting or not.”

Downs struck gold however, as Jones – a former marine who now works in private security, as well as being a regular on the convention circuit – proved remarkably candid, even on the more painful moments of his past.

“We must have interviewed him about five times over the course of a couple of years and it was only in about the fourth and fifth interview that Sam really opened up,” Downs recalls. “He’d said to his friends, ‘Look, as long as you’re telling the truth, you can say anything.’ He turned out to be incredibly honest and it wouldn’t have worked if he wasn’t. It took a while to get there but rightfully so.”

As well as telling Jones’s story, Life After Flash evolved into a celebration of the movie featuring many of the stars – and Queen’s Brian May giving an intimate piano recital of the famous theme song. “It was so surreal. It was like I’m actually having this mini private concert by Brian May with this song that no one really kind of hears in this way. It was such a humbling experience – I should have practised piano more!”