Michael Week: Get Carter

Good day ladies and gents and welcome to the first day of Michael Caine Week. I thought it best to start us off with a real meat and potatoes role that gave Caine instant creditability and international stardom. Our movie today is gritty, dark and the first of its generation. To show the seedy underbelly of the criminal element and put you in the mindset the street justice seems fair enough. From the superb crime novel Jack Carter Comes Home by Ted Lewis This is Get Carter.

Fellas, you can now say you've seen a man picked up by his jewels.

Jack Carter: You know, I'd almost forgotten what your spoilers looked like. Still the same. Pissholes in the snow.

Our film opens on a party with the mob family Fletcher watching slides of pornography as mob enforcer Jack Carter (Michael Caine of Zulu, A Bridge Too Far, The Swarm, Beyond the Poseidon Adventure, The Island, Dressed to Kill, Deathtrap and Blame It on Rio) is planning to take the train in his expensive suit, wingtips and London Fog overcoat to hometown Newcastle and find out what really happened to his brother Frank who has passed away.

Heading back to Newcastle, he realizes he has not spoken to his brother in years as he attends his funeral he meet with Margaret (Dorothy White of The Professionals, Coronation Street, Crown Court and Flesh and Blood) , Frank's bird and her teenage daughter Doreen (Petra Markham of Albert and Victoria, Ace of Wands, After Julis, EastEnders and Plotlands) and sees that they are provided for and then he is off to find answers... by any means. The local crime families are on unease with Carter's arrival in town as he chats up an old acquaintance Albert Swift (Glynn Edwards of Zulu, Minder, Jack of Diamonds, Sweet Sixteen and The Seventh Sign) the pair come to blows as Swift has no information to share and seems genuinely terrified of Carter.

Clear off , you tossers!!

Looking further he interrupts a poker game of crime boss Cyril Kinnear (John Osborne of Look Back in Anger, The Entertainer, Tom Jones, Colonel Redl and Flash Gordon) has a go with him in a shouting match, gets sicced by a couple of Kinnear's men and gets info on a Brumby. As Carter continues knocking heads, beating men about he is finding out a lot more than he bargained for but sees to sick through it to the bitter end if he must.

Just a few comments on this movie now. This was director Mike Hodges directorial debut for a movie feature. When Carter enters Cyril Kinnear's home, there is a Zulu shield and assegais on the wall. An inside joke about Caine's first film success in Zulu. Originally rated X due to violence and loads of female nudity, the film was reclassified as R rating after a few crime dramas were equally or more bloodthirsty.

Filmed in only 40 days, Hodges described Caine as a complete dream to work with, Caine lost his temper once on set during a long and tense scene in Glenda's apartment, he yelled at the cinematographer for failing to capture the shot the first take, straightened up and apologized for his behavior.

With sucess of Afie, The Italian Job and Ipcress File, Hodges was suprised that Caine would even be interested in playing such a thoroughly unlikeable character when Caine explained that he could have ended up like Carter being from similar backgrounds. Make no mistake, folks this film pulls no punches and will shock and disgust on some levels and yet you have not seen Caine this intense before.

Travelling salesmen hate getting Carter's route.