David Hemmings is a fascinating character. Though I can’t profess to know all the nooks and crannies of his filmography, I enjoy his iconic late 60s counter-culture roles ( Blow Up , Barbarella ) and more conventional mid-70s leads or co-leads ( Deep Red , the wonderful Juggernaut ) and at the opposite end of the career spectrum his prolific last act adding weathered gravitas to titles like Gladiator , Spy Game , Gangs of New York , Last Orders , and The Night We Called It a Day . He was also, like Robert Powell and Richard Chamberlain, one of those British globally exported leading men who dabbled in Australian cinema, essaying bureaucrat-in-suit roles —Martin Donovan before Martin Donovan—in late 70s Ozploitation titles Harlequin and Thirst . Hemmings also directed for film —including David Bowie vehicle Just a Gigolo —and television, including episodes of The A-Team . He also helmed two Ozploitation movies produced by Antony I. Ginnane: spooky thriller The Survivor and adv...
Like many, I was deflated by the recent news of Sam Neill’s passing. Neill was a dependable class act: wry but reassuring, seemingly effortless but always switched on, never bad, always good. As a child of the 90s, Neill’s credits in that decade loom especially large in my mind, most obviously Jurassic Park but also The Piano , Hunt for Red October , In the Mouth of Madness , Memoirs of an Invisible Man , and so on. But there’s great work from Neill in every decade, and looking over his filmography I’m struck anew by the hefty volume of Antipodean titles he appeared in. He was the rare export star who didn’t just pay lip service to working locally, but genuinely threaded the needle and worked prolifically at home and abroad: in the 2000s, for instance, he starred in The Dish , Dirty Deeds , Perfect Strangers , Little Fish , Irresistible , Dean Spanley , and Daybreakers , among American and international assignments. Neill’s passing prompted a revisit of A Cry in the Dark , Fred ...