Michael Tommy Hodges (29 July 1932 – 17 December 2022) was an English film and television director, screenwriter, playwright and novelist. After varied work on television, he made his feature film directing debut with the crime thriller Get Carter (1971), which was a critical and commercial success and was voted one of the BFI Top 100 British films.
His subsequent works included the comic thriller Pulp (1972), the sci-fi horror film The Terminal Man (1974), the superhero film Flash Gordon (1980), and the neo-noir Croupier (1998). The British Film Institute described him as an "outsider auteur" and "a rule-breaking master given to deconstructing genre," while Andrew Sarris called him "one of the most under-appreciated and virtually unknown masters of the medium in the last 30 years."
Early life
Hodges was born in Bristol on 29 July 1932, and was raised in Salisbury and Bath. He qualified as a chartered accountant and spent two years of national service on the lower deck of a Royal Navy minesweeper.
Career
Hodges found a job in British television as a teleprompter operator. The job allowed him to observe the workings of the studios, and gave him time to start writing scripts.
After that, Hodges quickly progressed to producer/director status, with series such as Sunday Break for ABC, World in Action for Granada Television and the arts programmes Tempo Hodges worked with Carter star Michael Caine again in Pulp (1972), before proceeding to make films such as the Michael Crichton adaptation The Terminal Man (1974) and the space opera Flash Gordon (1980). Some of Hodges' later films include A Prayer for the Dying (1987), Croupier (1998) and I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (2003). Hodges also collaborated on the English language version of Federico Fellini's And the Ship Sails On (1983).
Theatre and radio
Hodges's theatre plays included Soft Shoe Shuffle (1985) and Shooting Stars and Other Heavenly Pursuits (2000), which was adapted for BBC radio. Other radio plays included King Trash (2004). His first novel, Watching The Wheels Come Off, was published first in French by Rivagse/Noir (Quand Tout Se Fait La Malle) in 2009 then in English in 2010. In 2018 his trio of novellas ('Bait', 'Grist' & 'Security') was published by Unbound.
Personal life and death
Hodges was married twice. His first marriage was to Jean Alexandrov; they had two sons and later divorced.
Recognition
Hodges was awarded the degree of 'Doctor of Letters' by the University of the West of England, Bristol in 2005.
Selected filmography
Feature films
{| class="wikitable"
! Year
! Title
!width=65| Director
!width=65| Writer
! Notes
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| 1971
| Get Carter
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| 1972
| Pulp
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| 1974
| The Terminal Man
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| also producer
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| 1978
| Damien – Omen II
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| 1980
| Flash Gordon
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| 1985
| Morons from Outer Space
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| 1987
| A Prayer for the Dying
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| 1989
| Black Rainbow
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| 1998
| Croupier
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| 2003
| I'll Sleep When I'm Dead
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|}
Television
- The Tyrant King (1968)
- Rumour (1969)
- Suspect (1970)
- The Manipulators (1972)
- Missing Pieces (1982)
- Squaring the Circle (1984)
- The Hitchhiker season 3, episode 4: "W.G.O.D." (1985)
- Florida Straits (1986)
- Dandelion Dead (1994)
- The Healer (1994)
- Murder by Numbers (2001 – documentary)
References
Further reading
- Steven Paul Davies: Get Carter And Beyond: The Cinema of Mike Hodges, Batsford, 2003,
- Douglas Keesey: Neo-Noir: Contemporary Film Noir From Chinatown to The Dark Knight Kamera Books, 2010,
- Steve Chibnall & Robert Murphy: British Crime Cinema, Routledge, 1999,
- Steve Chibnall: Get Carter (British Film Guides #6), I.B. Tauris, 2003,
- Geoff Mayer: Guide to British Cinema (Reference Guides to the World's Cinema) Greenwood Press, 2003
- Interview with Mike Hodges
- Interview with Mike Hodges 2000
- The Telegraph, Film-makers on film-Mike Hodges 2004
- The National: Get Carter turns 40
- The Michael Klinger Papers; Interview with Mike Hodges by Tony Klinger and Andrew Spicer
External links
- Interview at The Guardian
- Interview by Dan Lybarger