The 90-year-old filmmaker Mike Hodges, whose movies included Flash Gordon and Get Garter, has passed away. Producer and longtime friend of Hodges Mike Kaplan announced his passing to the Guardian and US trade journal Variety.
The director allegedly passed away on Saturday at his Dorset home. As of yet, no cause of death has been disclosed.
Croupier, The Terminal Man, and I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead, his final feature film, are among Hodges’ filmography credits.
Flash Gordon actor Brian Blessed paid tribute to Hodges and praised him for his “strong personality” and “great imagination.”
Blessed said of Hodges in an interview with BBC Radio 4’s World At One program: “(Flash Gordon) is the only movie, aside from Henry V with Kenneth Branagh, that I hurried to the studio to start filming.
Hodges had a fantastic imagination, but his direction was really incredible. Excellent manners and perception. A breath of fresh air, the movie.
Matthew Sweet, a writer, and broadcaster, said: “A true maestro. An intensely restless talent. an unchallengeable body of work adored the movies. cherished the man
Front Row host Samira Ahmed added, “I adored this man so much. “The British film industry’s metaphysical poet, as well as a generous, smart, kind, and politically active individual.”
Hodges, who was born in Bristol in 1932, practiced chartered accounting while spending two years as a minesweeper for the Royal Navy in the northern fishing ports of England.
His first job in the entertainment business was operating teleprompters for television, which paved the way for him to go on to produce and direct news and documentary shows.
The 1971 theatrical release of Get Carter, an adaptation of Ted Lewis’ novel, was his first significant feature film. In the film, Sir Michael Caine played a London mobster who, after his brother is slain in Newcastle, pursues his own brand of retribution.
Due to the popularity of Get Carter, Hodges and Caine worked together once again on Pulp the following year.
In 1980, the space opera Flash Gordon, which would become one of his most successful movies, came out.
In the film, rival factions on the planet Mongo came together to fight Ming the Merciless’ repression. Alongside Blessed and Timothy Dalton, it included Sam J. Jones and Melody Anderson.
His other works include the 1989 film Black Rainbow, starring Rosanna Arquette, and the 1987 Mickey Rourke drama A Prayer for the Dying.
When it was first released in the UK, Hodges’ 1998 movie Croupier, which starred Clive Owen as a casino dealer who later finds himself involved in a robbery, did not do well at the box office.
Hodges reportedly made the decision to retire at that time, believing his career was ended. But after the film’s release in the US, which received excellent reviews, a second UK release was made possible by that country’s popularity.
Hodges started and ended his career as a feature film director with a gangster movie.
Sleep, please In the 2003 film When I’m Dead, he collaborated once more with Owen, who portrayed a criminal out for blood after raping his younger brother.
Ben and Jake Hodges, along with his wife Carol Laws, were left behind.
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