Tributes from British film legends flooded in thick and fast following the death of Get Carter and Flash Gordon director Mike Hodges.
The acclaimed film veteran’s close friend Mike Kaplan confirmed his death to The Guardian late Tuesday night.
The 90-year-old died at his home in Dorset on Saturday but the cause of death has not been confirmed.
Hodges was best known for his work on the British gangster film genre.
The film Get Carter starring Sir Michael Caine, that he wrote and directed was critically acclaimed.
The producers of Flash Gordon didn’t like Nicolas Roeg’s treatment and he was replaced with Hodges as director the iconic film.
Hodges said it came together like a perfect “soufflé”, but disallowed his work on the critically panned 1987 Mickey Rourke film A Prayer for the Dying.
He tried to take his name off the film as he felt the studio had drastically altered the it.
Hodges called it, “a piece of schlock for the American market divested of any kind of poetry or subtlety.” The author Jack Higgins called it the best film made from one of his novels.
Tributes flooded social media after his death was confirmed, including from the British Film Institute which called his warmth and generosity “legendary”.
Filmmaker Matthew Sweet tweeted: “Just heard the news about Mike Hodges. A true master. A furious restless talent. An unassailable body of work. Loved the films. Loved the man.”
Screenwriter Brian Lynch said: “Mike Hodges, director of FLASH GORDON, has passed.
“Finally saw this movie during the pandemic and it brought me such joy.
“Have watched it a bunch of times since. Nothing else like it. Rest in Peace, sir.”
Hodges was born in Bristol in 1932, and originally worked as a chartered accountant, he served two years on a Royal Navy minesweeper.
He attributed the horrendous poverty he witnessed while working on the ship as the instigator of the rage behind Get Carter.
He said he entered a young Tory and left an angry, radical young man.
Hodges filmed 1998’s Croupier with a young Clive Owens who starred as a casino dealer. It was a UK box office bomb but became a cult classic in the US.
It was another film with Owen’s — 2003’s I’ll Sleep When I’m Dead that pulled him out of retirement.
This film brought him back to his roots and had Owen’s out for revenge after the rape of his younger brother (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) by a London gangster played by Malcolm McDowell.
McDowell was a longtime friend and called Hodges a “rare bird” in British cinema.
Hodges said in 2020 that he had no intention to return to film and was happy tending his vegetables and writing noir fiction at home in Dorset.
He is survived by his wife Carol Laws, sons Ben and Jake Hodges, and five grandchildren, Marlon, Honey, Orson, Michael and Gabriel.
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