Screenhead

Last night I found out through another online film critic that Australian filmmaker Richard Franklin died last Wednesday. Best known for the cult films Patrick and Road Games, Franklin is perhaps best known for Psycho II. Born in Melbourne, Franklin formally studied filmmaking at the University of Southern Calififornia. Among his classmates were John Carpenter and Robert Zemeckis. In addition to making films at USC, Franklin organized retrospectives of some of his favorite American directors such as John Ford, Orson Welles, and of course Alfred Hitchcock. Franklin was able to begin his directing career in Australian just as the industry was undergoing a re-birth, gaining international recognition for Road Games (1981) which was the most expensive Australian film of its time. After several years in Hollywood, Franklin returned to Australia where he could continue making films with relatively more freedom. Among his later films to have been acclaimed is Hotel Sorrento, made in 1995. Franklin also continued his interest in film scholarship contributing a couple of essays to the website “Senses of Cinema” with pieces on Ford and Hitchcock. Franklin died at age 58 of prostate cancer.

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