{"id":165054,"date":"2022-12-22T08:55:59","date_gmt":"2022-12-22T08:55:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/mike-hodges-director-of-flash-gordon-and-get-carter-dies-at-90\/"},"modified":"2022-12-22T08:55:59","modified_gmt":"2022-12-22T08:55:59","slug":"mike-hodges-director-of-flash-gordon-and-get-carter-dies-at-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/mike-hodges-director-of-flash-gordon-and-get-carter-dies-at-90\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Hodges, Director Of ‘Flash Gordon’ And ‘Get Carter,’ Dies At 90"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Mike Hodges, the director of \u201cGet Carter\u201d (1971) and \u201cFlash Gordon\u201d (1980), has died. He was 90.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hodges died at his home in Dorset, England, on Dec. 17, according to ET. His friend Mike Kaplan, who produced Hodges ‘2003 movie \u201cI’ll Sleep When I’m Dead,\u201d confirmed his death and called Hodges \u201ca great friend and a great filmmaker.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cFor a part of his career, he was underappreciated, and he is not anymore,\u201d Kaplan told ET. \u201c’Get Carter’ was a huge success all over the world. He had a great sense of humor. All of his movies were entrenched with humor and personality. \u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Born in Bristol in 1932, Hodges worked as an accountant before mandatory military service aboard a Royal Navy minesweeper. Hodges wrote in The Guardian earlier this year that his travels to impoverished islands like Hull irrevocably radicalized him.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cFor two years, my middle-class eyes were forced to witness horrendous poverty and deprivation that I was previously unaware of,\u201d wrote Hodges. \u201cI went into the navy as a newly qualified chartered accountant and complacent young Tory, and came out an angry, radical young man.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hodges died at his home in Dorset, England, on Dec. 17.<\/figcaption>
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Carlo Allegri via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

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Hodges later worked a teleprompter for ABC Weekend TV’s \u201cArmchair Theatre,\u201d and began to direct and produce shows of his own throughout the 1960s. He adapted the Ted Lewis crime novel \u201cGet Carter\u201d into a seminal 1971 movie starring Michael Caine.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhen I was asked to adapt Ted Lewis’s great book, I recognized that world [of horrendous poverty and deprivation] and attached my own experiences to it,\u201d Hodges wrote in The Guardian. The adjectives describing the \u201cGet Carter\u201d world \u2014 sleazy, slimy, nasty \u2014 \u201ccould equally apply to … Britain,\u201d he wrote.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cGet Carter\u201d was hailed as Britain’s response to \u201cThe Godfather\u201d and led the pair to reunite for \u201cPulp\u201d in 1972, according to The Guardian. Hodges’ adaptation of Michael Crichton’s \u201cThe Terminal Man\u201d in 1974 left luminaries like Stanley Kubrick and Terrence Malick in awe.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cI have just come from seeing The Terminal Man and want you to know what a magnificent, overwhelming picture it is,\u201d Malick wrote to Hodges. \u201cYour images make me understand what an image is.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hodges managed to steer from the bleak nihilism of \u201cGet Carter\u201d and \u201cPulp\u201d to the pulpy and campy pop art of \u201cFlash Gordon.\u201d The 1980 space opera has since become a classic, with constant speculation about a remake.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hodges’ adaptation of “Get Carter” (1971) turned Michael Caine (left) into a movie star.<\/figcaption>
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MGM Studios via Getty Images<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

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Hodges returned to the crime genre with \u201cA Prayer for the Dying\u201d (1987) and \u201cBlack Rainbow\u201d (1989), but neither fared well. His 1998 movie \u201cCroupier,\u201d starring Clive Owen, however, became the highest-grossing independent film that year in the US, according to Variety.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hodges teamed up with Owen one more time for \u201cI’ll Sleep When I’m Dead\u201d in 2003. The film \u2014 another bleak exploration of Britain’s criminal underworld \u2014 starred Malcolm McDowell as the villain.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Later, Hodges stopped making movies and focused on gardening.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\u201cHe’s a rare bird in British cinema, and I’m just pleased he’s getting some recognition,\u201d McDowell told The Guardian in 2003. \u201cI’m pissed off that it’s taken 35 years, but that’s typical of England. We never realize what we’ve got until it’s almost too bloody late.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Hodges is survived by his wife Carol Laws, his sons Ben and Jake, and five grandchildren.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n