Get Carter

Mike Hodges, UK 1971, 112 mins

Based on Ted Lewis' novel "Jack Returns", this is both scripted and directed by Mikes Hodges (who later brought you Flash Gordon!) and provides one of the best examples of British film noir with decaying northern industrial locations and street tough gangster characters.

The film stars Michael Caine and provides reminders - yes, he really was that good once - films such as Alfie, The Italian Job, The Man Who Would Be King and Get Carter are superb and almost compensate for the money spinning messes he made following his move to Hollywood. Get Carter is by far the darkest and most realistic of the four.

Caine plays Jack, a gangster who has made it big in London who returns back home to Newcastle after his brother's death to find out who killed him and to avenge his death. The film also stars John Osbourne (of Look Back in Anger fame), Britt Ekland and Coronation Street's very own roly-poly grocer - Alf Roberts (considerably younger and thinner here though).

The rhythm of the film criss crosses as first one group of gangsters and then another try to get Caine or stop him from finding why his brother was killed and how Caine's niece is involved in pornography and prostitution.

There are highly memorable scenes in the film - how could one forget that shotgun scene when Caine experiences a literal coitus interruptus and has to dispatch his unwelcome visitors of old Alfie boys road pizza experience (for those of you who enjoy soaps/Corrie as much as my good self).

Bleak in the extreme, this is a breath of stale smoke-ridden air but perhaps one of the best British gangster films ever made and arguably the best film of Caine's career.

Stephen J. Brennan
EUFS Programme 1998-99