Flash Gordon And Get Carter Director Mike Hodges Dies At 90

Goodbye To A Film and TV Original

The very sad news reached us that British film and TV director and screenwriter Mike Hodges, best known for Flash Gordon and Get Carter, has just died at the age of 90. Here’s wikipedia’s summary of his long career…

Michael Tommy Hodges (29 July 1932 – 17 December 2022) was a British screenwriter, film and television director, playwright and novelist. His films as writer/director include Get Carter (1971), Pulp (1972), The Terminal Man (1974) and Black Rainbow (1989). As director, his films include Flash Gordon (1980), Croupier (1998) and I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead (2003).

Hodges got 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. One of these was Some Will Cry Murder, written for ABC’s Armchair Theatre series. Although never performed, it served to get him enough writing commissions to quit his job as a technician.

After that, he quickly progressed to producer/director status, with series such as Sunday Break for ABC Television, World in Action for Granada Television and the arts programmes Tempo and New Tempo for Thames Television. He wrote, directed and produced two filmed thrillers, Suspect (1969) and Rumour (1970), again for Thames Television. These films formed the basis for the creation of Euston Films, the influential television production company that continued into the 1980s. These two films also led to Hodges being asked to write and direct Get Carter (1971), which has been described as “one of the great British gangster films of all time.” 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).

Interspersed with his cinema work are some critically successful television films, including The Manipulators (1973), Squaring The Circle (1984; scripted by Tom Stoppard), Dandelion Dead (1994; scripted by Michael Chaplin), and The Healer (1994; scripted by G. F. Newman). Hodges also collaborated on the English language version of Federico Fellini’s And the Ship Sails On (1983).

Everyone at Tripwire is a huge fan of Get Carter and so we send his friends and family our deepest condolences.