Get Carter and Beyond by Steven Paul Davies

Mike Hodges, British film director of seminal works such as Get Carter and Croupier as well as blockbusters, including Flash Gordon, talks to the author about his work in film. Get Carter and Beyond takes the reader through the career of Mike Hodges, exploring decades of life in Hollywood and British film-making and the work of an auteur. This first-ever book on Mike Hodges covers the inside stories of working in mainstream and arthouse cinema in both the UK and Hollywood. The book includes: - Foreword by Michael Caine - a brief look at Hodges formative years, his childhood, education, and television work - Get Carter: the making of the movie, from the director's first impressions of the novel, writing the screenplay, casting Caine, Hendry and Ekland and shooting in Newcastle. - Get Caine Again: a look at Pulp (with Caine) made a year later, discussing the glamorization of gangsters. - The Terminal Man: a chapter on this cult 70s sci-fi classic starring George Segal. - Big movies: Hodges discusses his period of big-budget crowd-pleasers (Dino De Laurentis' Flash Gordon and Morons From Outer Space, which allowed him more artistic freedom for later movies - A Prayer for the Dying: the making of this controversial film not just for its IRA subject matter but because Hodges and star Mickey Rourke disowned it. This chapter gives the inside story into the burying of Rourke and the Americanisation of the Irish. - Faith and Fakery: A return to simple film-making with the award-winning Black Rainbow and Croupier.