Director: Ron Peck | Paul Hallam
Year: 1978 | 1991
Country: UK
Language: English
Length: 113 | 91 mins
Format: PAL | R0
Colour: Colour
Aspect Ratio: 1.33: 1
Certificate: 18

Synopsis

When Nighthawks was first released 30 years ago our world was undoubtedly a different place. Key gay rights had still yet to be won, and low-budget independent British films were influenced by international arthouse directors such as Pier Paolo Pasolini, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Andy Warhol, Paul Morrisey, Wim Wenders and Chantal Akerman. Nighthawks defies categorisation, its compelling cyclical structure interspersing the daily work of schoolteacher with his documentation of changing urban spaces and nights spent cruising bars and clubs in search of Mr Right. Leading a mixed cast of actors and non-professionals, Ken Robertson excels in a brave performance that confounded critics at the time. This stunning restoration by the BFI reveals Nighthawks to be one of the great undervalued films of the 1970s. Nighthawks II: Strip Jack Naked was made thirteen years after Nighthawks, the film tells of the struggle to get Nighthawks made and released and the director's life as a gay man growing up in Britain.

Special Features

- Its Ugly Head (13 mins)
- On Allotments (31 mins)
- Edward Hopper (47 mins)
- What Can I do With a Male Nude (23 mins)
- The Last Biscuit (26 mins)
- Illustrated booklet

Related

The History Of Nighthawks

November 1975
Applied to British Film Institute Production Board for financing.

April 1976
Application turned down.

May 1976
Immediate fund raising campaign brings support from John Schlesinger, producer/director Don Boyd, producer Elliot Kastner, director Jack Gold, novelist Robin Maugham, film critic Dilys Powell, novelist Angus Wilson and film critic Robin Wood among many others, straight and gay, from all walks of life.

July 1976
Application to the National Film Finance Corporation.

September 1976
Application turned down. Decide to shoot a test sequence in color and try to raise more money.

October 1976
Decide to shoot first sequence of the film.

December 1976
Money runs out completely. One backer raises £960 ($1,900) to finance an uninterrupted rewriting of the screenplay.

August 1977
In Paris, trying to raise money. The response everywhere is that unless the film is overtly pornographic it will not do well.

September 1977
ZDF Television in Germany invest enough money to enable shooting to begin again. December 1977
Impossible to get any School to give permission to shoot classroom sequences, once the fact the teacher is gay is mentioned.

January 1978
Shooting commences. Money has still not come through at the start of shooting.

August 1978
Nighthawks opens at the Edinburgh Film Festival.

Courtesy of Second Run DVD