Get back

FORTY years ago, Michael Caine’s gangster Jack Carter arrived by train at Newcastle Central Station on a revenge mission.

Yesterday, an early morning train brought another man, inextricably linked to Carter, from the capital.

Carter’s mission was brutally simple – revenge on those who’d killed his brother, Frank, causing him to perpetrate acts of chilling violence against the bleak North-East land and seascape.

The 78-year-old man who disembarked from the train yesterday has a more celebratory mission – to celebrate the 40th birthday of Get Carter, the British gangster movie that put the North-East in the cinematic history books.

He’s the film’s writer and director, Mike Hodges, guest of honour at the Tyneside Cinema’s weekend of Get Carter celebrations.

Hodges is attending one of the weekend screenings of the film, after which fans will tour the locations where the film was shot. Not all have survived. The Gateshead car park that came to symbolise the movie was demolished a few months ago, with the council selling pieces of concrete at £5 a time.

The film captures the region at a time of change, but watching Get Carter again today – even on a ropey DVD copy – it doesn’t look dated (how could it as the fashions have come round again). It remains a gripping, brutal gangster movie with Caine giving one of his best performances and the North-East locations used to brilliant effect.

Ted Lewis’ book on which the film was based, Jack’s Return Home, was set in Doncaster, but Hodges visited Newcastle and thought it suited the story better. “It was important that Jack Carter came from a hard, deprived background, a place he never wanted to go back to,” he explains.

“The only place that had survived the developers was Newcastle. The visual drama took my breath away. Seeing the great bridges crossing the Tyne, the terraced houses stepped up each side of the deep valley. We’d got there in time – but only just.”

An added dimension to Carter’s series of revenge killings was given by drawing on the real-life, so-called One-Armed Bandit murder of Angus Sibbet, in South Hetton in 1967.

Getting the film made wasn’t easy for Hodges. Distributor MGM wanted American actors alongside Caine to boost its chances in the US, but the director insisted on using Geordie actors, including Alun Armstrong in his film debut.

Today – and not just in this region – Get Carter, which was Hodges’ first film as a director, is highly regarded. In 1999, it made 16th place in the BFI top 100 British films of the 20th Century. Five years later, British film critics in a Total Film magazine survey chose it as the greatest British film of all time.

It wasn’t always like that, although it never suffered the abuse heaped on the dire 2000 remake which moved the action across the Atlantic and starred Sylvester Stallone with Caine misguidedly appearing in a small role.

Back in 1971, initial critical reaction was poor, with criticism of the violence, as well as the phone sex scene involving Britt Ekland writhing on a bed in her underwear. “Soulless and nastily erotic”, “sado-masochistic fantasy”

and “one would rather wash one’s mouth out with soap than recommend it” were among the comments. Over time, opinion has changed. Maybe it was ahead of its time with its frank depiction of the criminal underbelly.

The locations are undoubtedly among the stars. The most well-known is the Trinity Square multi-storey car park, from which Carter threw the character played by Bryan Mosley (later to become Coronation Street’s Alf Roberts) to his death. The ending where Carter pursues Ian Hendry’s chauffeur was shot on the blackened beach at Blackhall Colliery, near Hartlepool, where waste from the pit was tipped directly into the North Sea.

Other locations included Newcastle Racecourse, the ferry landing at Wallsend, Dawdon Colliery and the Hawthorn Leslie Shipyard.

After screenings of Get Carter on Sunday, fans will board a Routemaster bus for a tour of the locations, with a live band on board playing Roy Budd’s music from the film.

Behind the tours is Chris Phipps, a former producer of The Tube who launched music heritage tours Tyne Idols last year. “I developed a reputation for music documentaries but I’m equally enthusiastic about movies made in the North-East. I’m a big fan of Get Carter and thought it would be a ideal to devise a tour to tie in with the 40th anniversary,” he says.

Not all the locations survive, notably the Carter car park as it became known. Phipps holds no affection for it. “Personally, I’m glad to see it go. I think Gateshead deserves something better than concrete brutalism,” he says.

Still intact is the property in Coburg Street, Gateshead – the Las Vegas guesthouse in the film – where Caine enjoyed both bed and breakfast before emerging from the front door naked and brandishing a shotgun.

The West Road cemetery, where Frank’s funeral takes place, is another stopping point.

The pub where Frank’s wake was held, the Victoria and Comet, still exists opposite Central Station, now part of the O’Neill’s chain.

Further memories of the movie are featured in the Tyneside Cinema bar – The Art of Carter, an exhibition of posters, photos and memorabilia, and No Parking: Trinity Square, a video about the car park.

• More information on Carter Is 40 on 0845-2179-909 and online at tynesidecinema.co.uk