Memed, My Hawk is a 1984 British-Yugoslav drama film directed by and starring Peter Ustinov, with Herbert Lom, Denis Quilley and Michael Elphick. The film's cinematographer was Freddie Francis and featured music by Manos Hadjidakis. [1] It is an adaptation of the 1955 Turkish novel Memed, My Hawk , the debut novel of Yaşar Kemal, nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Memed, My Hawk was produced in Yugoslavia following the Turkish government's refusal of permission to film. [2]
In 1920s Turkey, Memed, a young peasant, and his childhood sweetheart, Hatçe, are in love. However, a feudal landlord wants the girl for his own son. Consequently, the young lovers elope, and Memed becomes a brigand, now waging war against feudal landlords.
Sir Peter Alexander Ustinov was a British actor, director and writer. An internationally known raconteur, he was a fixture on television talk shows and lecture circuits for much of his career. Ustinov received numerous accolades including two Academy Awards, a BAFTA Award, three Emmy Awards, and a Grammy Award.
Denis Clifford Quilley, OBE was an English actor and singer. From a family with no theatrical connections, Quilley was determined from an early age to become an actor. He was taken on by the Birmingham Repertory Theatre in his teens, and after a break for compulsory military service he began a West End career in 1950, succeeding Richard Burton in The Lady's Not For Burning. In the 1950s he appeared in revue, musicals, operetta and on television as well as in classic and modern drama in the theatre.
Herbert Charles Angelo Kuchačevič ze Schluderpacheru, known professionally as Herbert Lom, was a Czech-British actor with a career spanning over 60 years. His cool demeanour and precise, elegant elocution saw him cast as criminals or suave villains in his younger years, and professional men and nobles as he aged. Highly versatile, he also proved a skilled comic actor in The Pink Panther franchise, playing the beleaguered Chief Inspector Charles Dreyfus in seven films.
Thomas Patrick McKenna was an Irish actor, born in Mullagh, County Cavan. He had an extensive stage and screen career.
Yaşar Kemal was a leading Turkish writer and human rights activist of Kurdish origin. He received 38 awards during his lifetime and had been a candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature on the strength of his 1955 novel Memed, My Hawk.
Michael Joseph Anderson was an English film and television director. His career spanned nearly 50 years across three countries, working at various times in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Canada. His most critically and commercially successful works include the World War II film The Dam Busters (1955), the dystopian sci-fi film Logan's Run (1976), and the comedy adventure epic Around the World in 80 Days (1956), which won the 1957 Academy Award for Best Picture.
Michael John Elphick was an English film and television actor. He played the eponymous private investigator in the ITV series Boon and Harry Slater in BBC's EastEnders. He was nominated for a BAFTA Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in the 1983 film Gorky Park. With his gruff Sussex accent and lip-curling sneer, he often played menacing hard men.
Mr. Topaze is a 1961 British film directed by Peter Sellers and starring Sellers, Nadia Gray, Leo McKern, and Herbert Lom. It was Sellers' directorial debut. The screenplay was written by Pierre Rouve based on the 1928 playTopaze by Marcel Pagnol.
Evil Under the Sun is a 1982 British mystery film based on the 1941 novel of the same name by Agatha Christie and directed by Guy Hamilton. Peter Ustinov stars as Hercule Poirot, the Belgian detective whom he had previously played in Death on the Nile (1978).
Scoop is a 1987 television film directed by Gavin Millar, adapted by William Boyd from the 1938 satirical novel Scoop by Evelyn Waugh. It was produced by Sue Birtwistle with executive producers Nick Elliott and Patrick Garland. Original music was made by Stanley Myers. The story is about a reporter sent to the fictional African state of Ishmaelia by accident.
Memed, My Hawk is a 1955 novel by Yaşar Kemal. It was Kemal's debut novel and the first novel in his İnce Memed tetralogy. The novel won the Varlık Prize for that year, and earned Kemal a national reputation. In 1961, the book was translated into English by Edouard Roditi, thus gaining Kemal his first exposure to English-speaking readers.
Phil Rose is an English actor, best known for his role as Friar Tuck in the 1980s TV series Robin of Sherwood.
Privates on Parade is a 1983 film adaptation of the Peter Nichols play of the same name about a fictional – and mostly gay – military entertainment group, the "Song and Dance Unit South East Asia (SADUSEA)" assembled to entertain the troops in the Malayan jungle during the Malayan Emergency.
High Tide at Noon is a 1957 British drama film directed by Philip Leacock. It was entered into the 1957 Cannes Film Festival. High Tide at Noon was based on the first of a series of novels by Elisabeth Ogilvie, set in Maine. Location work was done in Devon.
They Burn the Thistles – Ince Memed II is a 1969 novel by Yaşar Kemal. It was Kemal's second novel in his İnce Memed tetralogy.
Private Angelo is a 1949 British comedy war film directed by Michael Anderson and Peter Ustinov and starring Ustinov, Godfrey Tearle, María Denis and Marjorie Rhodes. It depicts the misadventures of a soldier in the Italian Army during the Second World War. It was adapted from the 1946 novel Private Angelo by Eric Linklater. The film's costumes were designed by Ustinov's mother Nadia Benois.
The Lost People, also known as Cockpit, is a 1949 British drama film directed by Muriel Box and Bernard Knowles and starring Dennis Price, Mai Zetterling and Richard Attenborough. It was written by Bridget Boland based on her 1948 play Cockpit.
Intent to Kill is a 1958 British film noir thriller directed by Jack Cardiff and starring Richard Todd, Betsy Drake and Herbert Lom. The film was based on the 1957 novel of the same name by Brian Moore. It was shot on location in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, with an international cast of European and North American actors.
Jadran Film is a film production studio and distribution company founded in 1946 in Zagreb, Croatia. In the period between the early 1960s and late 1980s Jadran Film was one of the biggest and most notable film studios in Central Europe, with some 145 international and around 120 Yugoslav productions filmed at the studio during those three decades, including two Oscar-winning films and Orson Welles' 1962 screen adaptation of Franz Kafka's novel The Trial. The word Jadran refers to the Adriatic Sea in Croatian.
Rough Shoot, released in the USA as Shoot First, is a 1953 British thriller film directed by Robert Parrish and written by Eric Ambler, based on the 1951 novel by Geoffrey Household. The film stars Joel McCrea, in his only postwar non-Western role, with Evelyn Keyes as the leading lady, and featuring Herbert Lom, Marius Goring and Roland Culver. The scenario is set in Cold War England when tensions ran high regarding spying.