Richard Franklin (director)
Encyclopedia
Richard Franklin was an Australia
n-born film director
.
, Melbourne
and was educated at Haileybury College
. In the 1960s, Franklin was the drummer in the Melbourne band The Pink Finks
, which also featured Ross Wilson and Ross Hannaford
, later of Daddy Cool
. The band released several singles, none of which had any significant chart success. Franklin decided upon a career in film rather than music. He went on to study film at The University of Southern California alongside other notable directors George Lucas
, Robert Zemeckis
and John Carpenter
. Franklin was a devotee of Alfred Hitchcock
(ever since he saw Psycho
at the age of 12), and his attempt to arrange for a screening of Hitchcock's Rope
(1948) at USC resulted in a phone-call from Hitchcock himself. Franklin invited Hitchcock to give a lecture at the university, and subsequently he became good friends with the director.
and the 1976 soft-core pornography feature Fantasm. Franklin's next film was the cult horror movie Patrick
(1978), written by Everett De Roche, about a man in a coma who uses telekinesis to create murder and mayhem in a hospital. Franklin gave De Roche a copy of the screenplay of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window
(1958), and De Roche suggested a movie with the plot of Rear Window taking place in a moving vehicle. The result was Roadgames
(1981), directed by Franklin from a screenplay by De Roche. Filmed and set in Australia, and starring American actors Stacy Keach
and Jamie Lee Curtis
(the latter whom Franklin met whilst visiting his one-time USC classmate John Carpenter on the set of The Fog
), Roadgames was the most expensive Australian movie ever made at the time of its release in 1981.
After moving to Hollywood, Richard Franklin directed Psycho II (1983), the first sequel to Hitchcock's 1960 classic Psycho
, with Anthony Perkins
reprising the role of Norman Bates
. The film was a financial success and received generally good reviews (it also led to a further two sequels, neither of which Franklin was involved with). Franklin then directed the 1984 spy/adventure movie Cloak & Dagger, starring Henry Thomas
and Dabney Coleman
. The film was a remake of The Window
(1949), which was in turn based on the short story "The Boy Who Cried Murder" by Cornell Woolrich
(Woolrich's short story "It Had to Be Murder" was adapted into Hitchcock's Rear Window, which was the inspiration for Franklin's Roadgames). Franklin's next film was Link
(1986) a British horror movie (starring Elisabeth Shue
and Terence Stamp
) about a super-intelligent, murderous orangutan
. The film reunited Franklin with screenwriter Everett De Roche. Franklin was disillusioned with Hollywood after the experience of directing the 1991 action/thriller FX2: The Deadly Art Of Illusion
(starring Bryan Brown
and Brian Dennehy
). He returned to Australia where he filmed Hotel Sorrento
(1995) and Brilliant Lies
(1996).
Franklin's most recent film, Visitors
, was shot in 2003. He lectured at Swinburne School of Film and Television in Australia until his death.
Richard Franklin died of prostate cancer
on 11 July 2007, four days before his 59th birthday. The documentary film Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!
(2008), for which Franklin was interviewed, was released after his death and was dedicated to him. Before his death, Franklin was set to be interviewed for The Psycho Legacy
, a documentary that examined the Psycho
franchise however said interview was never filmed. However Franklin was enthusiastic about the documentary project and wanted to do whatever he could to help the production.
Quentin Tarantino
has cited Roadgames as his favourite Australian moviehttp://www.popcorntaxi.com.au/event.php?event_id=273, and he screened Psycho II at the sixth Quentin Tarantino Film Festival
(2005)http://google.com/search?q=cache:tZ_MR4dNpWMJ:dumbdistraction.com/index2.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26do_pdf%3D1%26id%3D73+quentin+tarantino+psycho+II&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=au. Tarantino revealed in an interview that when he was a teenager, he wanted to write a book on genre filmmakers, and Richard Franklin was one of the directors he wanted to engage in conversation for it.http://www.geraldpeary.com/books/tarantino_interview.html
Australia
Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...
n-born film director
Film director
A film director is a person who directs the actors and film crew in filmmaking. They control a film's artistic and dramatic nathan roach, while guiding the technical crew and actors.-Responsibilities:...
.
Early life and career
Franklin was born and grew up in BrightonBrighton, Victoria
Brighton is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 11 km south-east from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Bayside. At the 2006 Census, Brighton had a population of 20,651...
, Melbourne
Melbourne
Melbourne is the capital and most populous city in the state of Victoria, and the second most populous city in Australia. The Melbourne City Centre is the hub of the greater metropolitan area and the Census statistical division—of which "Melbourne" is the common name. As of June 2009, the greater...
and was educated at Haileybury College
Haileybury, Melbourne
Haileybury is an independent school affiliated with the Uniting Church in Australia, located in Berwick, Brighton East and Keysborough, suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The school incorporates both Haileybury College, an all-boys college and Haileybury Girls' College, an all-girls college...
. In the 1960s, Franklin was the drummer in the Melbourne band The Pink Finks
The Pink Finks
The Pink Finks was an Australian pop/R&B band of the mid-1960s. Based in Melbourne, Victoria, the group is most notable for being the first in the series of bands that featured Ross Wilson and Ross Hannaford, which culminated in the hugely successful Daddy Cool.-History:The Pink Finks formed in...
, which also featured Ross Wilson and Ross Hannaford
Ross Hannaford
Ross Andrew Hannaford is an Australian musician. He is often referred to by his nickname "Hanna". Widely regarded as one of the country's finest rock guitarists, he is best known for his long collaboration with singer-songwriter Ross Wilson, which began as teenagers, and with whom he formed the...
, later of Daddy Cool
Daddy Cool (band)
Daddy Cool is an Australian rock band formed in Melbourne in 1970 with the original line-up of Wayne Duncan , Ross Hannaford , Ross Wilson and Gary Young . Their debut single "Eagle Rock" was released in May 1971 and stayed at number 1 on the Australian singles chart for ten weeks...
. The band released several singles, none of which had any significant chart success. Franklin decided upon a career in film rather than music. He went on to study film at The University of Southern California alongside other notable directors George Lucas
George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. is an American film producer, screenwriter, and director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones...
, Robert Zemeckis
Robert Zemeckis
Robert Lee Zemeckis is an American film director, producer and screenwriter. Zemeckis first came to public attention in the 1980s as the director of the comedic time-travel Back to the Future film series, as well as the Academy Award-winning live-action/animation epic Who Framed Roger Rabbit ,...
and John Carpenter
John Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor, composer, and occasional actor. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres in his four-decade career, his name is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction.- Early life :Carpenter was born...
. Franklin was a devotee of Alfred Hitchcock
Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE was a British film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood...
(ever since he saw Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...
at the age of 12), and his attempt to arrange for a screening of Hitchcock's Rope
Rope (film)
Rope is a 1948 American thriller film based on the play Rope by Patrick Hamilton and adapted by Hume Cronyn and Arthur Laurents, directed by Alfred Hitchcock and produced by Sidney Bernstein and Hitchcock as the first of their Transatlantic Pictures productions...
(1948) at USC resulted in a phone-call from Hitchcock himself. Franklin invited Hitchcock to give a lecture at the university, and subsequently he became good friends with the director.
Directing career
Franklin returned to Australia in the 1970s, when the country's film industry was experiencing a resurgence. He directed four episodes of the Australian police drama "Homicide" before directing the bawdy 1975 sex comedy feature The True Story of Eskimo NellThe True Story of Eskimo Nell
The True Story of Eskimo Nell is a 1975 Australian comedy film produced, directed, and written by Richard Franklin, and starring Max Gillies as Deadeye Dick and Serge Lazareff as Mexico Pete...
and the 1976 soft-core pornography feature Fantasm. Franklin's next film was the cult horror movie Patrick
Patrick (film)
Patrick is a 1978 Australian horror film directed by Richard Franklin and written by Everett De Roche. It is the pivotal movie of respected Australian director Richard Franklin's career.-Plot summary:...
(1978), written by Everett De Roche, about a man in a coma who uses telekinesis to create murder and mayhem in a hospital. Franklin gave De Roche a copy of the screenplay of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window
Rear Window
Rear Window is a 1954 American suspense film directed by Alfred Hitchcock, written by John Michael Hayes and based on Cornell Woolrich's 1942 short story "It Had to Be Murder"...
(1958), and De Roche suggested a movie with the plot of Rear Window taking place in a moving vehicle. The result was Roadgames
Roadgames
Roadgames is a 1981 Australian film directed by Richard Franklin. The film stars Stacy Keach as a truck driver, and Jamie Lee Curtis as a hitchhiker.-Synopsis:...
(1981), directed by Franklin from a screenplay by De Roche. Filmed and set in Australia, and starring American actors Stacy Keach
Stacy Keach
Stacy Keach is an American actor and narrator. He is most famous for his dramatic roles; however, he has done narration work in educational programming on PBS and the Discovery Channel, as well as some comedy and musical...
and Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis
Jamie Lee Curtis is an American actress and author. Although she was initially known as a "scream queen" because of her starring roles in several horror films early in her career, such as Halloween, The Fog, Prom Night and Terror Train, Curtis has since compiled a body of work that spans many...
(the latter whom Franklin met whilst visiting his one-time USC classmate John Carpenter on the set of The Fog
The Fog
The Fog is a 1980 horror film directed by John Carpenter, who also co-wrote the screenplay and composed the music for the film. It stars Adrienne Barbeau, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Atkins and Janet Leigh...
), Roadgames was the most expensive Australian movie ever made at the time of its release in 1981.
After moving to Hollywood, Richard Franklin directed Psycho II (1983), the first sequel to Hitchcock's 1960 classic Psycho
Psycho (1960 film)
Psycho is a 1960 American suspense/psychological horror film directed by Alfred Hitchcock and starring Janet Leigh and Anthony Perkins. The film is based on the screenplay by Joseph Stefano, who adapted it from the 1959 novel of the same name by Robert Bloch...
, with Anthony Perkins
Anthony Perkins
Anthony Perkins was an American actor, best known for his Oscar-nominated role in Friendly Persuasion and as Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho , and its three sequels.-Early life:...
reprising the role of Norman Bates
Norman Bates
Norman Bates is a fictional character created by writer Robert Bloch as the central character in his novel Psycho, and portrayed by Anthony Perkins as the main antagonist of the 1960 film of the same name directed by Alfred Hitchcock...
. The film was a financial success and received generally good reviews (it also led to a further two sequels, neither of which Franklin was involved with). Franklin then directed the 1984 spy/adventure movie Cloak & Dagger, starring Henry Thomas
Henry Thomas
Henry Jackson Thomas, Jr. is an American actor and musician. He has appeared in more than 40 films and is best known for his role as Elliott in the 1982 Steven Spielberg film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial.-Early life:...
and Dabney Coleman
Dabney Coleman
Dabney Wharton Coleman is an American actor, best known for his roles in 9 to 5, WarGames, You've Got Mail, Sworn to Silence, The Beverly Hillbillies and as the voice of Principal Peter Prickly in Recess and Recess: School's Out.-Early life:Coleman was born in Austin, Texas, the son of Mary...
. The film was a remake of The Window
The Window
The Window is a 1949 American black-and-white suspense film noir, based on the short story "The Boy Cried Murder" by Cornell Woolrich. The film, which was a critical success, was produced by Frederic Ullman, Jr. for $210,000 but earned much more, making it a box office hit for RKO Pictures...
(1949), which was in turn based on the short story "The Boy Who Cried Murder" by Cornell Woolrich
Cornell Woolrich
Cornell George Hopley-Woolrich was an American novelist and short story writer who sometimes wrote under the pseudonyms William Irish and George Hopley....
(Woolrich's short story "It Had to Be Murder" was adapted into Hitchcock's Rear Window, which was the inspiration for Franklin's Roadgames). Franklin's next film was Link
Link (film)
Link is a 1986 British horror film starring Elisabeth Shue and Terence Stamp. The title character, "Link", is a super-intelligent orangutan who lashes out against his masters when they try to have him put to sleep...
(1986) a British horror movie (starring Elisabeth Shue
Elisabeth Shue
Elisabeth Judson Shue is an American actress and producer, most famous for her roles in the films The Karate Kid, Adventures in Babysitting, Cocktail, Back to the Future Parts II and III and Leaving Las Vegas, for which she won five acting awards and was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden...
and Terence Stamp
Terence Stamp
Terence Henry Stamp is an English actor. Since starting his career in 1962 he has appeared in over 60 films. His title role as Billy Budd in his film debut earned Stamp an Academy Award nomination for Best Supporting Actor and a BAFTA nomination for Best Newcomer.His other major roles include...
) about a super-intelligent, murderous orangutan
Orangutan
Orangutans are the only exclusively Asian genus of extant great ape. The largest living arboreal animals, they have proportionally longer arms than the other, more terrestrial, great apes. They are among the most intelligent primates and use a variety of sophisticated tools, also making sleeping...
. The film reunited Franklin with screenwriter Everett De Roche. Franklin was disillusioned with Hollywood after the experience of directing the 1991 action/thriller FX2: The Deadly Art Of Illusion
F/X2
F/X2 is a 1991 American action thriller film directed by Richard Franklin and starring Bryan Brown and Brian Dennehy. It is a sequel to the 1986 film F/X.-Plot:...
(starring Bryan Brown
Bryan Brown
Bryan Neathway Brown, AM is an Australian actor.-Early life:Brown was born in Sydney, the son of John Brown and Molly Brown, a house cleaner who worked as a pianist in the early days of the Langshaw School of Ballet. He grew up in the south-western Sydney suburb of Bankstown and began working at...
and Brian Dennehy
Brian Dennehy
Brian Mannion Dennehy is an American actor of film, stage and screen.-Early years:Dennehy was born in Bridgeport, Connecticut, the son of Hannah and Edward Dennehy, who was a wire service editor for the Associated Press; he has two brothers, Michael and Edward. Dennehy is of Irish ancestry and was...
). He returned to Australia where he filmed Hotel Sorrento
Hotel Sorrento
Hotel Sorrento is a 1995 Australian drama film directed by Richard Franklin. Three sisters reunite in the sleepy Australian town of Sorrento after a ten year hiatus. One of the three has written a book called Melancholy which is a thinly disguised version of their lives...
(1995) and Brilliant Lies
Brilliant Lies
Brilliant Lies is an Australian film released in 1996, produced by Bayside Pictures and Beyond Films.Directed by Richard Franklin.Produced by Sue Farrelly, Kim McKillop and Richard Franklin....
(1996).
Franklin's most recent film, Visitors
Visitors (2003 film)
Visitors is a 2003 thriller movie dealing with the experiences of a young woman sailing solo on a yacht around the world. The loneliness makes her start to lose her sanity. The movie was directed by Richard Franklin and was produced by Jennifer Hadden. This movie in some ways is close to the theme...
, was shot in 2003. He lectured at Swinburne School of Film and Television in Australia until his death.
Richard Franklin died of prostate cancer
Prostate cancer
Prostate cancer is a form of cancer that develops in the prostate, a gland in the male reproductive system. Most prostate cancers are slow growing; however, there are cases of aggressive prostate cancers. The cancer cells may metastasize from the prostate to other parts of the body, particularly...
on 11 July 2007, four days before his 59th birthday. The documentary film Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation!
Not Quite Hollywood
Not Quite Hollywood: The Wild, Untold Story of Ozploitation! is a 2008 Australian documentary film about the Australian New Wave of 1970s and '80s low-budget cinema...
(2008), for which Franklin was interviewed, was released after his death and was dedicated to him. Before his death, Franklin was set to be interviewed for The Psycho Legacy
The Psycho Legacy
The Psycho Legacy is a 2010 independent documentary film that examines the history of the Psycho film franchise and the continuing legacy of the original Psycho. It also pays a tribute to actor Anthony Perkins for his portrayal of Norman Bates, it is written and directed by Robert Galluzzo. It...
, a documentary that examined the Psycho
Psycho (film series)
The Psycho film series is an American horror film franchise loosely based on the Psycho novels by Robert Bloch. The first film, Psycho, was directed by legendary filmmaker Alfred Hitchcock in 1960, with three sequels, a spin-off, and a remake following. The official films consist of Psycho,...
franchise however said interview was never filmed. However Franklin was enthusiastic about the documentary project and wanted to do whatever he could to help the production.
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Tarantino
Quentin Jerome Tarantino is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, cinematographer and actor. In the early 1990s, he began his career as an independent filmmaker with films employing nonlinear storylines and the aestheticization of violence...
has cited Roadgames as his favourite Australian moviehttp://www.popcorntaxi.com.au/event.php?event_id=273, and he screened Psycho II at the sixth Quentin Tarantino Film Festival
Quentin Tarantino Film Festival
The Quentin Tarantino Film Festival, or QT-Fest, is a semi-annual film and multimedia event held by the Austin Film Society in Austin, Texas and attended by film director Quentin Tarantino. Most recently, the Alamo Drafthouse theater in downtown Austin, Texas has been the selected venue...
(2005)http://google.com/search?q=cache:tZ_MR4dNpWMJ:dumbdistraction.com/index2.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26do_pdf%3D1%26id%3D73+quentin+tarantino+psycho+II&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=6&gl=au. Tarantino revealed in an interview that when he was a teenager, he wanted to write a book on genre filmmakers, and Richard Franklin was one of the directors he wanted to engage in conversation for it.http://www.geraldpeary.com/books/tarantino_interview.html
External links
- Richard Franklin at Senses of Cinemahttp://archive.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/05/franklin.html