Get Carter Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Get Carter is a 1971 British crime film, directed by Mike Hodges and starring Michael Caine as Jack Carter, a veteran gangster who sets out to avenge the death of his brother.
Hodges's first directorial job, the film was based on the 1969 novel Jack's Return Home, and the screenplay was written by the author Ted Lewis and by Hodges. The film went from novel to finished film in just eight months, with location shooting in Newcastle and Gateshead lasting just forty days. The film was produced by Michael Klinger and released by MGM.
As well as Caine, the film gave roles to the playwright John Osborne, Ian Hendry, Bryan Mosley, and Geraldine Moffat among others, with a cameo by Britt Ekland. The distinctive music in the film was composed by Roy Budd, a jazz and "easy listening" specialist, who worked well outside his previous boundaries for this film. The much admired theme tune features the sounds of Caine's train journey from London to Newcastle. All the music was played by Budd and two other jazz musicians -- Geoff Cline and Chris Careen.
Initial critical reception was poor, especially in Britain -- "soulless and nastily erotic . . . virtuoso viciousness", "sado-masochistic fantasy", and "one would rather wash one's mouth out with soap than recommend it". A minor hit at the time, the film has become progressively rehabilitated via subsequent showings on television; with its harsh realism, quotable dialog, and incidental detail, it is now considered the greatest British gangster film ever made.
The story is simple: Jack Carter is a Northern gangster based in London. As the film opens he travels to Newcastle, his childhood home, to attend the funeral of his brother, Frank Carter. Although Frank was supposedly killed in a car crash, Jack quickly comes to suspect foul play; his subsequent revenge is unrelenting and brutal, played out against a bleak industrial backdrop of parking lots, docks and slag heaps.
Get Carter was remade in 2000, with Sylvester Stallone playing the main part, and Michael Caine has a significant cameo. The newer version was poorly received as a pointless travesty of the original.