Get Carter - 1971 film review

I've mentioned Get Carter several times in blog posts over the years. As I've said, it is, along with The Long Good Friday, one of my all-time favourite gangster films and many would rate it even higher than that masterpiece. Back in 2010 I was glad to have a chat with the director Mike Hodges at CrimeFest. Mike has achieved a great deal over the years but I'm pretty sure that Get Carter is the film for which he'll be remembered, long into the future. It's a classic of its kind, and since - amazingly - it's 50 years since it was made, here's a review based on my latest viewing.

Just as Bob Hoskins is the key to the brilliance of The Long Good Friday, so Michael Caine is at the heart of everything in Get Carter. His performance as a one-man killing machine is superb, and there's also a rare touch of emotion at one point. But only a touch. There isn't anything quite as chilling as the final scene in The Long Good Friday, but there are lots of shocking moments, not least in the closing stages as Jack Carter's quest comes to a bloody conclusion.

Ted Lewis''s novel on which the film is based (and which really is excellent - the best British gangster thriller by far) was originally called Jack's Return Home. He' goes back to his roots in the north east following the mysterious death of his brother. Jack is a villain, and so, in a smaller way, was his brother, who was mixed up with villains including Cyril Kinnear, played with creepy menace by John Osborne. Ian Hendry, who was originally considered for the Caine role, plays Eric Paice, a nasty piece of work who meets an extraordinary end. The cast as a whole features some terrific performers,stalwarts of British television ranging from George Sewell, Alun Armstrong, Glynn Edwards, Terence Rigby, Bernard Hepton, and Bryan Mosley, as well as Britt Ekland in a minor but not to be overlooked role as Jack's girlfriend.

Fifty years on, this violent movie offers us insight into a past way of life just as interesting as, if very different from, the pictures of vanished lifestyles in vintage crime novels. The attitudes towards women are strikingly dated, needless to say. Jack Carter's world is a man's world, and it's frightening and very grim. But I don't think, taken as a whole, that it's a film in which Mike Hodges glamorised violence. On the contrary, it's really a movie about very bad things happening to very bad people. And it remains compelling.   

 

Ted Lewis, the "Get Carter" man

This blog tends to focus rather more on whodunits and novels of psychological suspense than it does on gritty, violent thrillers, but there are plenty of books in the latter category that I enjoy. And one of the most interesting of all British writers of tough and rather dark thrillers was the late Ted Lewis. I'm therefore very pleased that his work is enjoying a renaissance, thanks to Soho Press.

Lewis is best known for Jack's Return Home, a very good book in itself, which was brilliantly filmed by Mike Hodges as Get Carter. Along with The Long Good Friday, and possibly Layer Cake, it's one of my favourite non-American thriller films of the "gritty" variety (I'm not sure I really like describing books as "gritty", but in a blog post, this rather tired and often misused and overused adjective is at least useful shorthand.) The novel is just being reissued by Soho Press, under the title Get Carter, and I have no hesitation in recommending it.

Lewis dies at the age of 42, after a colourful life which, like so many colourful lives, ended sadly and all too soon as a result of heavy drinking. The publicity material accompanying the Soho Press reissues includes an extract from an as yet unpublished biography of Lewis by Nick Triplow, which I found very interesting. I do hope it finds its way into print before long. Suffice to say that I've been told a bit about Lewis' life by a friend of his whom I know, and his account very much corroborates what Nick Triplow has to say.

Among Lewis' other books is Plender. I haven't read this one, but I did discuss the French film version, Le Serpent in my early days as a blogger. The other Soho Press titles coming out just now are GBH, Jack Carter's Law,and Jack Carter and the Mafia Pigeon. I gather that GBH in particular is a notable book (written towards the end of Lewis's life, when his powers as a novelist had seemed to be in decline) and I look forward to reading it.  

Pulp

I’ve not seen many films directed by Mike Hodges other than the iconic Get Carter, but the pleasure of meeting him prompted me to take a look at another of his movies (which he also scripted) starring Michael Caine. Pulp is the story of a pulp fiction writer, British but based in Italy, who is hired to write the autobiography of a dying gangster (Mickey Rooney, of all people.) He becomes embroiled in the violence that lurks not far beneath the surface of his adopted homeland, and his efforts to play the hero in the manner of his fictional heroes are not exactly a roaring success.

I suppose Pulp is best described as a comedy thriller, and striking the right balance between comedy and thrills is a very difficult trick to pull of indeed. There aren’t many successful examples – The Italian Job springs to mind, but few others. Hodges’ underlying purpose is serious, but I felt that the film sent out mixed messages. There were some excellent moments, and several witty lines, but for me, the ingredients did not add up to a completely satisfying whole. Viewed nearly 40 years after it was made, it simply seems too slow in places, and this is a pity, because there was a good story here, trying to make its presence felt.

The cast is eclectic and includes Dennis Price (Kind Hearts and Coronets) as well as a newcomer, Nadia Cassini, who is very glamorous but does not seem to have made a lasting impact as a movie star. The background music was excellent, I thought, and as the credits rolled I discovered that the composer was George Martin, who was such an influence upon the Beatles.

If you’re expecting another Get Carter, this isn’t really the film for you. Pulp has its merits, but I prefer a later Hodges movie about a writer. Croupier, starring Clive Owen, strikes me as more tightly written and much more gripping.

Mike Hodges and John Curran

Two highlights of Crimefest for me were first meetings with two men whose work I admire for very different reasons. One of the advantages of spending a bit of time in the bar at conventions is that you meet some very interesting people, and this was never more the case than when Maxim Jakubowski and his wife introduced me to Mike Hodges, whose first novel is being published by Maxim’s new imprint.

Mike Hodges is, of course, the legendary film director whose masterpiece is Get Carter. I’ve mentioned before in this blog that Get Carter is in my opinion one of the finest British crime films ever made, and it was a real pleasure to have a lengthy chat with Mike, who at 77 is a lively and entertaining companion. He told me a bit about his working relationship with Roy Budd, who composed the brilliant score for the film. He also mentioned that his fee for the film was a princely £7000. Not much for creating a classic, even allowing for inflation.

I also met up with John Curran, author of the wonderful Agatha Christie’s Secret Notebooks. I’d been listening to Marcel Berlins, a top crime reviewer, interviewing John and Matthew Pritchard, Agatha’s grandson, whom I’ve met a couple of times before. John, Matthew and I then had lunch together – for a Christie fan like me, this was a terrific experience.

I was glad to hear that John is bringing out a follow-up to his book next year. And very interested to learn that he has given up his job to do a PhD on Christie and other Golden Age writers. To spend your time having a wonderful excuse to read classics of the genre! It sounds enviable to me. But John deserves it; he has done crime fans a real service with his original work on the notebooks, which not only expand our knowledge of Christie, but cast light on the plotting process in a way that is hugely thought-provoking.

Layer Cake

I like good gangster movies, but mediocre ones can be very tedious – and the really good ones are rather thin on the ground. So I approached the film of J.J. Connolly’s book Layer Cake with some trepidation, drawn as much by the fact that it starred the excellent Daniel Craig as by optimism that I’d enjoy the story.

But enjoy it I did – very much. In fact, Layer Cake now lines up alongside Get Carter, The Long Good Friday and The Italian Job as one of my absolute favourite British gangster films. Craig is predictably cool and classy in the lead role, but he is assisted by a first rate cast which includes, as senior Bad Guys, those fine actors Kenneth Cranham and Michael Gambon, both of whom perform with gusto.

The plot is complex – multi-layered like some cakes, in fact. Briefly, Craig is planning to retire young to enjoy his ill-gotten gains, but a hapless henchman called Duke lands him in the mire by stealing a vast quantity of drugs from some seriously menacing Serbian villains, while Craig finds it impossible to keep both Cranham and Gambon off his back. There are some very violent moments, which are not for the faint-hearted – Cranford this is not! - but also some very funny lines and scenes.

Craig moves smoothly from one messy situation to another, pausing only (though this is entirely understandable, I think) to pick up Sienna Miller, who dumps Duke’s unstable nephew, with consequences that in the end prove very unfortunate. I liked the pace and twists of the story-line, and as long as you don’t mind violence and bad language, this is a film that can definitely be recommended.

Robbery

One of the best gangster films I’ve ever seen is Robbery (1967.) A recent re-watching reminded me of its quality and I’m amazed that the movie isn’t regularly ranked along with other classics of the 60s like Get Carter and The Italian Job.

The film was directed by Peter Yates, and the story goes that it so impressed Steve McQueen that it prompted him to get together with Yates the following year in Bullitt. The story of Robbery was clearly inspired by the Great Train Robbery four years earlier, but the details and characters are heavily fictionalised. The scriptwriters included George Markstein, best known for his work on ‘The Prisoner’, and Edward Boyd, who wrote the tv show ‘The View from Daniel Pike’, later turned into book form by Bill Knox.

The cast reads like a Who’s Who of sixties British acting talent. Stanley Baker plays Paul Clifton, the criminal mastermind. Baker was a superb actor, knighted by Harold Wilson shortly before his untimely death at the age of 48. His co-conspirators include Barry (‘Van Der Valk’) Foster, George (‘Special Branch’) Foster, Frank (‘Casanova’) Finlay, and Ken (‘Coronation Street’) Farrington. In an uncredited bit part one can spot the young Robert Powell. The cop on Clifton’s trail is James Booth, someone who seemed at the time to be destined for stardom; it seems that booze and bad career decisions prevented this charismatic actor from fulfilling his potential. Booth turned down the role of Alfie, just as Baker had earlier snubbed the chance to play James Bond….

The style of the film is akin to that of a documentary. The pace is brisk, and the mood unsentimental, and there is no lack of tension as the plot unfolds. There have been very few better heist movies in the history of British cinema.

Themes and Laurie Johnson

Music is an important element in many crime films and television series. A great theme can add an extra dimension to any story. Sometimes the music lingers longer in the memory than the film or tv show itself (an example is the score for the 1967 version of Casino Royale), but when all the elements come together perfectly, the result is superb.

In the movie world, I think of Roy Budd’s theme for Get Carter and John Barry’s haunting score for Body Heat as quite unbeatable. The mood of each film is set by the opening moments, in which the main theme creates a sense of unresolved tension and menace – on Jack Carter’s train ride to Newcastle in Get Carter, and the sinuous credits that precede our introduction to Ned Racine in Body Heat.

In the tv world, one of the best themes ever written was composed by Laurie Johnson, who wrote the music for The Avengers. It’s a great tune, which I loved as a boy and still much admire. Now a box set of Johnson’s work, including his masterpiece, and many other pieces of music written for the series (including ‘Return of the Cybernauts’ – not the easiest story to set to music) has been made available. Three CDs for under a fiver on Amazon can’t be bad.

Of course, as with so many box sets, some items are included which will not feature in anyone’s list of favourites. Johnson is a professional who has turned out a lot of good material in the course of a long career (other well-remembered crime themes of his include The Professionals) but I think most people will regard The Avengers as his greatest achievement.

The Serpent

One of the most intriguing features of The Serpent is that it is, apparently, a movie based on a book written by Ted Lewis. Now the late Ted Lewis is well remembered as author of Jack’s Return Home, which formed the basis of that brilliant Michael Caine film Get Carter. But his other work is much less renowned. I’d never heard of The Serpent, and a quick glance at Wikipedia suggests that the source work is, in fact, a novel called Plender.

I can’t tell how faithful the film is to the novel, but Plender is the name of one of the two central characters. He is a shady private eye with a penchant for blackmail. At the start of the film, his stunningly attractive sidekick Sofia seduces an ageing lawyer and compromising photographs are taken. But it proves, in the long run, to be an unwise plan.

The main protagonist is a fashion photographer called Mandel, who is going through matrimonial difficulties. His glamorous blonde wife is the daughter of a multi-millionaire, and his two young children are utterly charming, but for some reason he isn’t satisfied with his lot. Yet when Sofia turns up in place of his usual model, in suspicious circumstances, he resists her attempts at seduction. Neverttheless, she accuses him of rape, and although she drops the charges, when she calls him and offers to explain, he is naïve enough to invite her round to his studio. Big mistake.

I enjoyed this film, which turns out to be a revenge thriller. The latter stages are rather over the top, but the menacing first third of the movie, before the nature of the plot becomes discernible, are chilly and gripping. One of these days, I’d like to read the book.

On another note, lovely reviews of Waterloo Sunset and The Arsenic Labyrinth have just appeared on Eurocrime and Mysteries in Paradise respectively. Much appreciated.