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Home , Britt Ekland, Bryan Mosley, George Sewell, Get Carter, Ian Hendry, Mike Hodges

October 23, 2018 (XXXVII:9) : (1971, 112 min.) Online versions of The Goldenrod Handouts have color images & hot links: http://csac.buffalo.edu/goldenrodhandouts.html

DIRECTED BY Mike Hodges WRITING Mike Hodges (screenplay), (novel) PRODUCED BY Michael Klinger, (uncredited) MUSIC CINEMATOGRAPHY Wolfgang Suschitzky FILM EDITING John Trumper PRODUCTION DESIGN Assheton Gorton ART DIRECTION Roger King COSTUME DESIGN Evangeline Harrison SPECIAL EFFECTS Jack Wallis

CAST Michael Caine...Jack Carter ...Eric Paice ...Anna ...Cyril Kinnear Tony Beckley...Peter the Dutchman ...Con McCarty Geraldine Moffat...Glenda (as Geraldine Moffatt) Dorothy White...Margaret MIKE HODGES (b. July 29, 1932 in Bristol, , UK) Rosemarie Dunham...Edna directed 26 films and television productions, including: World in Petra Markham...Doreen Carter Action (1964, TV Series documentary, 3 episodes), Tempo (1966, ...Keith TV Series, 1 episode),** The Tyrant King (1968, TV Series, 6 ...Cliff Brumby episodes),** ITV Playhouse (1969-1970, TV Series, 2 ...Albert Swift episodes),*** Get Carter (1971),* Pulp (1972),* The ...Thorpe Frighteners (1972, TV Series, 1 episode),* The Terminal Man Terence Rigby...Gerald Fletcher (1974),*** Flash Gordon (1980), Damien: Omen II (1978, ...Sid Fletcher uncredited),* Queen: Body Language (1982, Video short), Godfrey Quigley...Eddie Missing Pieces (1983, TV Movie),* Squaring the Circle (1984, Kevin Brennan...Harry TV Movie), (1985), A Prayer for the Maxwell Deas...Vicar (as Maxwell Dees) Dying (1987), Croupier (1998), I'll Sleep When I'm Dead (2003), Liz McKenzie...Mrs. Brumby Queen: Greatest Video Hits 2 (2003, Video documentary, John Hussey...Architect segment "Body Language"), and Murder by Numbers (2004, Ben Aris...Architect Documentary). Kitty Atwood...Old Woman (as Kitty Attwood) *Indicates films he wrote and directed Denea Wilde... Pub Singer **Indicates films he produced and directed Geraldine Sherman...Girl in Café ***Indicates films he wrote, produced, and directed Joy Merlyn...Woman in Post Office Yvonne Miklosh...Woman in Post Office (as Yvonne Michaels) MICHAEL CAINE (b. Maurice Joseph Micklewhite, March 14, Alan Hockey...Scrapyard Dealer 1933 in Rotherhithe, , England) left school at age 15 and Karl Howard... 'J' (as Carl Howard) took a series of working-class jobs before joining the British army and serving in Korea during the Korean War. After returning from combat, he worked as an assistant stage manager. Hodges—GET CARTER—2

On the advice of an agent, he adopted the name of Caine, taking After (2001, executive producer), The Double (2013, executive it from a marquee that advertised The Caine Mutiny (1954). He producer), and My Generation (2017, Documentary, producer). acted on stage, television, and small film roles before drawing attention for his role in Zulu (1964). The role of Harry Palmer in IAN HENDRY (b. January 13, 1931 in Ipswich, Suffolk, the spy thriller The Ipcress File (1965) and the title role in Alfie England—d. December 24, 1984 (age 53) in London, England) (1966), for which he was nominate for Best Actor in a Leading acted in 99 films and television series, some of which are: This Is Role at the 1967 Academy Awards, made Caine a star. In Show Business (1951, TV Series), Simon and Laura (1955), Up addition to starring in, he was an uncredited producer for, the in the World (1956), Room at the Top (1959), Sink the Bismarck! 1971 film Get Carter. Two years later he was nominated, again, (1960), In the Nick (1960), Children of the Damned (1964), for Best Actor in a Leading Role at the Academy Awards for co- Repulsion (1965), The Hill (1965), Secret Agent (1965, TV starring with Laurence Olivier in Sleuth (1972). A decade later, Series), Casino Royale (1967), Vendetta for the Saint (1969), he was nominated, once again, for Best Actor in a Leading Role, Journey to the Far Side of the Sun (1969), Cry Wolf (1969), The as a sentimental, alcoholic English professor who takes Adventures of Don Quick (1970, TV Series), Get Carter (1970), pedagogical and romantic interest in a young, working-class The Persuaders! (1971, TV Series), Tales from the Crypt (1972), woman in Educating Rita (1983). He won an Academy Award Theater of Blood (1973), Assassin (1973), The Internecine for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for Woody Allen’s Hannah Project (1974), The Passenger (1975), Village Hall (1975, TV and Her Sisters (1986). In 2000, he once again won an Academy Series), Intimate Games (1976), The New Avengers (1976, TV Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role for The Cider House Series), Damien: Omen II (1978), The Bitch (1979), The Enigma Rules (1999), and, in 2003, he was nominated for Best Actor in a Files (1980, TV Series), McVicar (1980), The Chinese Detective Leading Role The Quiet American (2002). (1981, TV Series), Smuggler (1981, TV Mini-Series), Bergerac He has been known to take acclaimed comedic turns in (1981, TV Series), Jemima Shore Investigates (1983, TV Series), films such as 1988’s screwball Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, opposite and (1984, TV Series). Steve Martin. He has also acted in beloved children’s films, such as 1992’s The Muppet Christmas Carol, where he played Scrooge. In the 2000s and 2010s, he has been a recurring actor in Christopher Nolan’s films, playing Bruce Wayne’s fatherly butler Alfred Pennyworth in the acclaimed trilogy of films beginning with Batman Begins (2005), a series of films thought to have elevated the superhero genre to be considered serious cinema. He has acted in 170 films and television productions. Here are some films and television productions he has acted in: Panic in the Parlor (1956), Hell in Korea (1956), The Adventures of Sir Lancelot (1956, TV Series), How to Murder a Rich Uncle (1957), The Vise (1958, TV Series), A Woman of Mystery (1958), The Key (1958), Dixon of Dock Green (1957- 1959, TV Series), Foxhole in Cairo (1960), The Compartment (1961, TV Movie), Gambit (1966), Funeral in Berlin (1966), Hurry Sundown (1967), Woman Times Seven (1967), Billion BRITT EKLAND (b. October 6, 1942 in Stockholm, Sweden) Dollar Brain (1967), The Magus (1968), (1969), acted in 72 films and television series, some of which are: G.I. Battle of Britain (1969), The Last Valley (1971), Kidnapped Blues (1960), The Happy Thieves (1961), The Commandant (1971), X, Y and Zee (1972), Pulp (1972), The Man Who Would (1963), The Prize (1963), After the Fox (1966), The Double Man Be King (1975), Harry and Walter Go to New York (1976), The (1967), Too Many Thieves (1967), The Night They Raided Eagle Has Landed (1976), A Bridge Too Far (1977), The Swarm Minsky's (1968), Machine Gun McCain (1969), Stiletto (1969), (1978), California Suite (1978), Dressed to Kill (1980), The Conspirators (1969), The Year of the Cannibals (1970), Deathtrap (1982), Blame It on Rio (1984), The Holcroft Tintomara (1970), Get Carter (1971), Percy (1971), Endless Covenant (1985), Mona Lisa (1986), Half Moon Street (1986), Night (1972), The Man with the Golden Gun (1974), Royal Flash Jaws: The Revenge (1987), Blue Ice (1992), Shiner (2000), Get (1975), Some Like It Cool (1977), Slavers (1978), Battlestar Carter (2000), Miss Congeniality (2000), The Actors (2003), Galactica (1978, TV Series), Return of the Saint (1979, TV Children of Men (2006), Sleuth (2007), Flawless (2007), The Series), King Solomon's Treasure (1979), The Love Boat (1980- Dark Knight (2008), Is Anybody There? (2008), Inception 1982, TV Series), Satan's Mistress (1982), Matt Houston (1982, (2010), Cars 2 (2011), The Dark Knight Rises (2012), TV Series), Fantasy Island (1980-1983, TV Series), Erotic Interstellar (2014), Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014), Youth Images (1983), Doctor Yes: The Hyannis Affair (1983), Scandal (2015), GivingTales (2015, Video Game), The Last Dunkirk (1989), Beverly Hills Vamp (1989), The Children (1990), and (2017)Witch Hunter (2015), Now You See Me 2 (2016), Going in Astrid in Wonderland (2013, TV Series). Style (2017), Dear Dictator (2017), Sherlock Gnomes (2018), and King of Thieves (2018). JOHN OSBORNE (b. December 12, 1929 in London, In addition to Get Carter (1971), he produced six other England—d. December 24, 1994 (age 65) in Shropshire, films: Pulp (1972, producer - uncredited), The Fourth Protocol England) skipped university to live with his mother while trying (1987, executive producer), Blue Ice (1992, producer), Forever to make it as a journalist. He was introduced to the theater while Hodges—GET CARTER—3 tutoring for a company of junior actors. His newfound interest 106 films and television series, such as: This Sporting Life led to a job as a stage manager and actor, eventually landing him (1963), Sparrows Can't Sing (1963), A Place to Go (1963), membership in Anthony Creighton’s provincial touring Underworld Informers (1963), Knock on Any Door (1965, TV company. With Creighton, he co-wrote his second play Personal Series), Kaleidoscope (1966), Deadlier Than the Male (1967), Enemy before he broke as a solo playwright with the epochal Robbery (1967), Z Cars (1965-1967, TV Series), Detective Look Back in Anger (1956), a realist, class-conscious play that (1968, TV Series), Horror House (1969), Journey to the Far Side focuses on the life and marital struggles of an intelligent and of the Sun (1969), Dixon of Dock Green (1966-1971, TV Series), educated but disaffected young man of working-class origin and Shadows of Fear (1971, TV Series), Long Voyage Out of War his equally competent yet impassive upper-middle-class wife. (1971, TV Series), Get Carter (1971), Crime of Passion (1971, The play generated the critical term "angry young men" to TV Series), Public Eye (1969-1971, TV Series), Paul Temple describe Osborne and those of his generation who employed the (1970-1971, TV Series), UFO (1970-1971, TV Series), Six Days harshness of Brechtian aesthetics in reaction to the escapism of of Justice (1972, TV Series), Born Free (1974, TV Series), 1975 the previous generation’s stage. This play has been filmed for Operation: Daybreak (1975), 1975 Barry Lyndon (1975), Tinker several television productions, including versions filmed in 1958, Tailor Soldier Spy (1979, TV Mini-Series), The Gentle Touch 1976, and 1989. In 1958, Osborne wrote The Entertainer, which (1980-1981, TV Series), (1988, TV Series), The Fix has been filmed for television productions, including versions (1997, TV Movie), The Detectives (1993-1997, TV Series), The filmed in 1960, 1968, and 1975. Bill (1994-2005, TV Series), and Casualty (2006, TV Series). In the 1960s, Osborne wrote a play based on the life of Protestant reformer Martin Luther, Luther (1961), which has been filmed for several television productions, including versions filmed in 1964, 1965, and 1974. Osborne won the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay for Tony Richarson's movie version of Henry Fielding's Tom Jones (1963). His other major play, the controversial A Patriot for Me (London debut 1965), focused on the blackmailing of the Austro-Hungarian officer Colonel Redl. The production of the play helped erode theatrical censorship in Britain. In exchange for an exhibition license, The Lord Chamberlain demanded multiple cuts, which would have resulted in the excision of half the play, due to its frank depiction of homosexuality. Osborne and The Royal Court refused, and -- denied a license -- the theater had to be turned into a private club in order to produce the play in London. He also dramatized ’s The Picture of Dorian Gray for the BBC Play of the Month television series in 1976, and he adapted ’s Hedda Gabler for a 1981 televised film. In addition to writing, he acted in fourteen films, televised plays, and television series: Billy Bunter of Greyfriars School (1952, TV Series), Robin Hood (1953, TV Mini-Series), BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (1955, TV Series), Thirty-Minute Interview: Mike Hodges on Get Carter (Celluloid Wickerman, Theatre (1966, TV Series), The First Night of 'Pygmalion' (1969, 1971). TV Movie), First Love (1970), Get Carter (1971), Tomorrow Mike Hodges’ debut feature film, Get Carter (1971), Never Comes (1978), Flash Gordon (1980), and A Better Class was one of the key shifts in British cinema of the period. With of Person (1985, TV Movie). its total lack of hope, an earnest presence of violence and a hugely detailed topography, the film is one of the definitive shifts TONY BECKLEY (b. October 7, 1927 in Southampton, to the more gritty, unremitting cinema produced in the early Hampshire, England—d. April 19, 1980 (age 52) in , Heath years alongside the likes of Stanley Kubrick’s A California, USA) acted in 42 films and television series, such as: Clockwork Orange (1971), Ken Russell’s The Devils (1971) and BBC Sunday-Night Theatre (1958, TV Series), A Song of Michael Tuchner’s Villain (1971). The film marks many Sixpence (1961, TV Short), The Saint (1963, TV Series), Dig differing shifts, whether for its main star Michael Caine, the This Rhubarb (1963-1964, TV Series), Chimes at Midnight portrayal of modern-day Britain, or how British cinema (1965), Sergeant Cork (1963-1966, TV Series), The Penthouse effectively conveys the character of power and violence. I spoke (1967), The Long Day's Dying (1968), The Lost Continent to Mike about Get Carter, its journey from page to screen and its (1968), The Italian Job (1969), Callan (1970, TV Series), Get subsequent revival as one of the UK’s key cinematic examples of Carter (1971), In the Devil's Garden (1971), Special Branch the post-war era. (1974, TV Series), Gold (1974), Diagnosis: Murder (1975), Celluloid Wicker Man: Get Carter was your first feature Doctor Who (1976, TV Series), Revenge of the Pink Panther film outside of television work. What was it that made you make (1978), and When a Stranger Calls (1979). the jump? Was it a natural progression and did the jump have anything to do specifically with wanting to make Get Carter? GEORGE SEWELL (b. August 31, 1924 in , London, Mike Hodges: It was a natural progression, Adam. England—d. April 2, 2007 (age 82) in London, England) acted in In those days there were only three television channels so the audiences were huge. Consequently your profile could (if all Hodges—GET CARTER—4 went well) be pretty high. Feature producers watched out for violent transition. It was a place that somehow captured the any emerging talents. Presumably because they were cataclysmic rupture slowly happening to British society but cheaper than established directors but also because there was not yet visible to most of its inhabitants. a certain kudos to finding new contenders. Michael Klinger, who spotted me, had earlier spotted who CWM: Moving on from that, the film is famous for its made his first English films consistently astounding cast. with him. Cul-de-sac & Firstly, however, there are many Repulsion. My two television stories of the studio, MGM, films (Suspect and Rumour) wanting much bigger names in that attracted his attention various roles such as Telly were both from original Savalas and . Was scripts and I’d always dreamt there this pressure from the of continuing on that studio? And how did you trajectory. It was not to be. manage to resist these casting When Klinger sent me Jack’s choices? Return Home, a novel by Ted MH: Yes, MGM wanted Lewis, and asked if I wanted big names in the film. to adapt and direct it as a Producers always do. For me, feature film, I couldn’t resist. the innocent, this was an CWM: What was it that anathema. When casting my you saw in it to make it television films no executive potentially into a film? And what aspects did you deliberately had ever asked me about the cast. That was simply part of change from the novel? my job. Like a painter choosing a particular palette. Now MH: It was a cracking novel. Sparse in every way. there was a star on board (Michael Caine) I realised I needed Not a sinew of sentimentality. Very much the way I like both to surround him with unknown faces. In that way, as with my literature and films. Initially I didn’t want to change planting him in Newcastle, I could root Jack Carter in his anything. It’s a long time ago but I think the first draft was own milieu. So I fought off each of those ridiculous casting much the same as Lewis’s original text. Probably because I’d suggestions by simply threatening to resign. It worked. never before adapted a novel and somehow felt obliged to the That’s because I meant it. original author. At some point I knew I had to free myself from that straightjacket and begin to think only in cinematic CWM: Though the marvelous Ian Hendry was terms. I abandoned the novel’s structure of flashbacks and eventually to play Eric Paice in the film, he was initially your settled on a straight narrative form; one that I felt happier first choice for Carter before Caine came into the picture thanks with for my first feature film. to Michael Klinger. What was it that initially brought Hendry to mind for the role and what was the result dramatically of having CWM: Another aspect that chimes with that is the some genuine rivalry between Hendry and Caine because of this? film’s presentation of just about every topographical possibility MH: The innocent again. I’d assumed no major star in regards to its setting, from a variety of different houses, would ever contemplate playing such a shit as Carter. It was buildings, roads, forests and its famous, final beach. What was an image problem every parasitic agent would advise against. the process like for finding these many locations? Did finding Ian Hendry, thought I, might just be interested in the role. such places effect the script and narrative in any dramatic ways? Whilst having had his moments among the gods in the Movie MH: The other major change to the novel was the Galaxy he was more of a shooting star. In the novel Carter is setting. Intuitively I decided to move the whole story into a much seedier character. It was only the glamour (if that’s territory I knew. My National Service (1954/6) was spent on right word!) brought by Caine to the role that moved it a minesweeper, part of the Fishery Protection Squadron. As towards the iconic. The fact that Caine’s career was in the a rating, an Ordinary Seamen, I was free to explore every ascendance while his was in reverse undoubtedly bugged Ian. corner of every impoverished fishing port around these Sad, because he was a wonderful actor. Islands. Clad in my bellbottoms, blue collar and white cap, I witnessed scenes of such Hogarthian depravation that I CWM: Much is made of John Osborne’s stunning experienced a sort of epiphany. From being a young Tory performance as the , Cyril Kinnear. How did this casting (and recently-qualified Chartered Accountant) I became a come about? Is it true that his performance was so quiet and passionate Socialist. While not sharing the psychopathology subtle during the card game sequence that the sound crew were of Jack Carter, I certainly shared his anger. having difficulty picking up his lines? In the process of revisiting the ports I’d sailed into MH: For me casting is a totally instinctive process. I some fifteen years earlier, I happened upon Newcastle. As never ask actors to read; only to spend time talking about soon as I saw those huge rust-coloured bridges stretching anything under the sun. Time enough for me to study them across the Tyne I knew this was Jack’s manor. Tough, and hopefully fit them into my canvas. I’ve often met actors ruthless and uncompromising. I moved into the city for a for one role and decided to place them in another. week or more and walked its streets looking for locations to Filmmakers are lucky because they have a vast repertory use. They came in an abundance. Gentrification was a word company to chose from. Casting villains can be tricky unknown in 1969. That said, I had happened upon a city in because their characters often amount to a bunch of clichés. Hodges—GET CARTER—5

(Witness any Bond film!). With Cyril Kinnear, whilst more acceptable. By then their rose-tinted glasses were off. desperate to come at him from a different angle, I wasn’t We no longer saw our country as a beacon of propriety, and having much luck. My agent at the time was also Osborne’s law and order. Our parliamentarians, police, press, the and, out of the blue, he suggested him. We met and liked whole damned edifice, had been found to be wanting. They each other. John’s talent for invective intimated that there all had their noses in the money trough. The cancer of greed was another side to him than the affable playwright. You’re had reached every organ of British society. Maybe, just right. Chris Wangler, my brilliant sound recordist, asked for maybe, Get Carter had been an accidental augury? John to project more. I resisted his pleas and simply moved Thanks the camera closer. John’s decision to speak quietly was clever. So mundane; so sinister.

CWM: In regards to this card playing sequence, much is made of the difficulty of the scene with a variety of important conversations happening simultaneously. It certainly sounds incredibly difficult to consider all of the different elements. How did you plan this sequence out and how did you manage to practically tackle it on the shoot? MH: It was the toughest scene I had to shoot. Boxing myself in by setting it in a bay window made it even harder for all concerned. I covered it to the best of my abilities, and being forced to move closer and closer on Kinnear, helped me in the end. That it worked so well was largely due to John Trumper, the best editor I ever worked with. Interestingly, some twenty years later I had to shoot another poker scene. In Croupier (1998). This time with six players. Not wanting to be caught out a second time, I devised a way of shooting it in one shot. Bliss! "Get Carter" is an iconic British cult thriller (The Spread) CWM: Back to the film’s many buildings, one account Michael Caine’s performance in Mike Hodges’ Get suggests the famous brutalist car-park in Trinity Square where Carter is among the most iconic in British film history. Peter several scenes take place (including Cliff Brumby’s untimely Larkin provides his analysis of the influential film. demise) was due for demolition before the film. How did you New Yorker critic once said “there’s manage to sway them to not go through with it (with the car-park nobody to root for but the smartly dressed sexual athlete and only being only demolished fully in 2010!)? professional killer (Michael Caine) in this English gangland MH: Getting the facts about Trinity Square has picture, which is so calculatedly cool and soulless and nastily always been a problem. It was rumoured as unsafe and erotic that it seems to belong to a new genre of virtuoso that’s why the penthouse had never been opened as a viciousness”. 44 years on, Get Carter is seen as one of the biggest restaurant. That said I don’t remember there being any British cult films of all time and one of Michael Caine’s most problem getting permission to shoot there. At the time I had iconic roles. no idea its architect was, in fact, a friend, one of a poker For his first feature film director Mike Hodges used party I used to play with. Poker again! Because the credited long-lens shots to create a documentary atmosphere which is architect was the firm not the individual, I had no idea especially evident in the crowd scenes. London gangster Carter Rodney Gordon was truly responsible for this terrific (Caine) returns to his hometown of Newcastle to investigate the building. Not until he died in 2008, when I read his suspicious death of his brother Frank. He reacquaints himself obituaries, did I realise this. Since then (alas too late) he’s with the local crooks and has questions for them. been applauded (especially by Jonathan Meades) as the In the opening shot we see Caine look out the large leading light in British Brutalism. window of his boss’ house in London, the opening bars of Roy Budd’s haunting score appropriately accompanying the definitive CWM: It’s a building that I definitely think defines the image of the film. Then the curtains close. Maybe it’s the film particularly well in its uncompromising but confident ‘soulless’ element that Kael refers to. nature. Finally then, with the film now considered as one of the When Carter arrives at a local bar in Newcastle, defining pieces of cinema made in Britain, what is it that you everyone is aware of him. Caine’s performance is amongst his think accounts for its resurgence and success? most subtle, his icy stare to his enemies is part of Kael’s MH: Soon after its release in 1972, the film was definition of Get Carter being a ‘virtuoso viciousness’ genre banished to the dark shadows of cult status. It was, after all, picture. Roy Budd’s jazzy funk score gives the film its early 70s not considered a very nice film here in the UK. But then feel of loss and soon reminds us of Carter’s longing to be free, as most of my films have been more appreciated beyond these he plans to leave for South America after he finishes business. shores, particularly in the US and France. That changed Carter is in nearly every scene; emphasizing the thriller when, in 2009, the BFI decided to release it again; albeit in a element, it is Hitchcockian. In one scene Hodges’ camera stands limited way. This time around I think British audiences static at the house of crime boss Cliff Brumby (Brian Moseley) found the endemic corruption intimated in its every frame where a party is crashed, and Carter just watches. Themes of Hodges—GET CARTER—6 parenthood are buried in the film’s subconscious, Frank’s an influential crime novel dwelt so deeply in the shadow of its daughter Doreen (Petra Markham) and Brumby’s daughter cinematic adaptation. In the wake of the movie’s success, the Sandra. They need guidance. book was quickly retitled Get Carter (which is how I’ll refer to Hodges’ close-ups of Caine’s sorrowful face are the it) and the main character forever associated with British actor essence of the film. Carter is not a family man; his sharp Michael Caine, then at the height of his preternaturally long intensity and rage over the death of his brother is enigmatically acting career, in a snappy suit and tie, grimly looking over the portrayed by Caine. The film’s ambiguity of his relationship with barrel of a shotgun. his brother is one of its strengths; there are no flashbacks. Carter Not that anything else Lewis wrote was particularly is very direct intimidating successful. As British crime most of the men he meets. writer Ray Banks observed in a One of Caine’s piece on the site The Rap major talents is the way he Sheet: “As far as forgotten uses very different speech books go, you could make a rhythms for the characters claim for pretty much anything that he plays, with Carter Ted Lewis wrote.” But what speaking low and very Lewis lacked in sales, his slowly, whereas Alfie Elkins books, particularly Get Carter, in Alfie (directed by Lewis made up for in the glowing Gilbert, 1966) speaks high praise of crime writers, nearly pitched and fast. all of it posthumous. Get Carter and its Caine’s subsequent prequels, Jack ruthlessness throughout the Carter’s Law (1974) and Jack film is unrelenting. Hodges frames Caine to the left of the shot as Carter and the Mafia Pigeon (1977), have recently been a woman, Glenda (Geraldine Moffat) takes a bath. He walks right rereleased by Syndicate Books, which marks the first time they towards the camera as he puts on his cuff link, and then explodes have been available in North America for 40 years. The blurbs at at Glenda and runs into the bathroom and attacks her. Hodges the beginning of the new versions represent a who’s who of uses wind on the soundtrack very effectively which emphasizes muscular crime fiction: Dennis Lehane, David Peace, Derek the loneliness of Carter and weariness of the apartment block Raymond, James Sallis, Stuart Neville, and John Williams. where Glenda lives. Williams, author of The Cardiff Trilogy, describes Get Carter as Hodges’ framing and timing between shots throughout “the finest English crime novel ever written.” Raymond and the film is noted. The contrast between Carter and Glenda in the Peace credit him not only with influencing their work but also car and in bed afterwards, and cuts between an after-party and with kick-starting noir fiction in the UK. Eric waiting by the docks reminds me how Nicolas Roeg cuts, Lewis, who trained as a commercial artist and wrote for the action going forward and back. Carter’s head must have had television (his Doctor Who scripts were deemed too dark for the similar thoughts on South America with his boss’ wife Anna show’s prime-time slot and never used), went from the success of (Britt Ekland). He refers to Anna as his fiancee to Doreen and Get Carter, his second book, to a poorly paying job drawing offers her to come with them. postcards for a local council within the space of a few years. He I first saw this film over ten years ago and have always died at the early age of 42, largely due to ill health associated wondered about Carter’s getaway to South America, how he with rampant alcoholism. He left a legacy of nine novels, most of could start a whole new life. It is unknown how long he has been which with the exception of Get Carter have remained out of away from Newcastle. Playwright John Osborne plays the local print. Syndicate Books is planning to rerelease all of them. crime boss Cyril Kinnear; he is suitably slimy and takes great Get Carter is set in 1970 and focuses on an enforcer for relish with his lines. Prostitute Margaret (Dorothy White) was a criminal organization, or “firm,” run by two brothers, Gerald close to Frank; her constant anxiety is a reminder of Carter’s risk and Les Fletcher. Carter leaves “the smoke,” a.k.a. London, and to deal with his brother’s death alone. travels back to the unnamed working-class industrial town in Get Carter is an iconic British , best northern England he grew up in to investigate the death of his remembered for Caine’s towering performance and its estranged brother, Frank. Drunk on whisky, Frank ran his car off definitively 70s feel from every edit, music cue and costume. It a cliff. Given his brother was relatively clean-living and never works well as a thriller because we find most things out as Carter touched hard liquor, Carter is suspicious. As he speculates at the does. Its ambiguity towards his sense of place in the world as a beginning of the book: “They hadn’t even bothered to be careful; man and as a gangster are left open. His goal towards clarity and they hadn’t even bothered to be clever.” freedom are at the very centre of the film. Carter dreams of a “They,” the organization that runs the town’s criminal better life even though he is not quite sure what it would truly activities, becomes the focus of Carter’s considerable destructive mean. capabilities as he attempts to find out who and what led to his brother’s death. A particular target of his attention is Eric Paice, Andrew Nette: “’Get Carter,’ Again” (LA Review of Books, an enemy from his youth, who now works for local crime lord 2014) Cyril Kinnear. Other notable characters include Frank’s mistress, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to discuss British author Ted Margaret, and his brother’s teenage daughter, Doreen. Doreen Lewis’s 1970 novel, Jack’s Return Home, without mentioning its and Margaret know more about Frank’s demise than they let on. better-known 1971 film adaptation, Get Carter. Rarely has such It is also clearly implied that Doreen is actually Carter’s Hodges—GET CARTER—7 daughter, the result of a drunken fling with Frank’s then-wife. None of this is to suggest the prequels aren’t worth reading, but The fling is just one possible reason for the two brother’s they’re nowhere as good as the first book. To be fair, given the estrangement. Carter’s memories of their youth together, the fact effusive praise for Get Carter mentioned earlier, how could they that Frank was law-abiding whereas Jack was destined from an be? early age to pursue the criminal life, and the conflicting emotions Lewis had a masterful ability to convey place. Take, for this creates in Jack’s mind all add dramatic pathos to the story. example, this passage from Get Carter: Jack Carter’s Law appeared in 1974. Much of it is set in We were in the middle of a dozen blocks of tall council Soho, then the cosmopolitan flats. They looked greyer than the vice capital of London and day. We walked across a dull wet the center of the Fletchers’ patch of grass and under one of the criminal organization. It is blocks, and turned left. There was Christmas Eve, and Carter is a lift, one of those aluminium- busy trying to track down a finish things that always smell of “grass,” or informant, who piss. We got in. She pressed Four has information that could put on the panel. She pushed her hands the Fletchers in jail. As is the in to the pockets of her short case in Get Carter, Carter is artificial-fur coat and leaned back carrying on an affair with against the wall and looked at me. Audrey, the wife of Gerald The door rattled shut and the lift Fletcher. Audrey and Carter moved. I threw my cigarette on the are plotting how they can get floor; the stink didn’t improve the as much of the brothers’ flavour. The girl kept looking at money as possible and escape me. England to somewhere warm. Carter would welcome the Or this description earlier of a bar opening and its sad opportunity to have Gerald and Les in jail were it not for the fact patrons in Jack Carter’s Law: that the informant could implicate him and half the Fletchers’ In the bar there is the usual after 11 A.M. crowd; the organization in criminal activities. Adding to the pressure to swell of drinkers who are all steamed and pressed and smelling locate the informant, rival firms are keen to use the situation to of aftershave, and except for the runniness around the rims of advance their own criminal ends. Without warning, Gerald and their eyes you’d never guess that they’d had to pour themselves a Les decamp for the safety of their Majorcan villa, leaving Carter sherry before they could get out of bed and most of them will to sort out the mess. have spent an hour shaking on the toilet (or over it) before Jack Carter and the Mafia Pigeon, the second prequel, restoring some kind of humanity to their bodies. was published in 1977. Business for the firm is good. So good, But there’s no shortage of crime writers who can craft a Gerald and Les want to show their appreciation to their chief good sentence. The reasons for Get Carter’s ongoing influence enforcer by sending him on a holiday to Spain. Unbeknownst to run deeper. As Mike Hodges, who directed the movie, writes in Carter, the Fletchers’ secluded villa is already occupied by a an introduction to the Syndicate Books rerelease: “It [the book] cowardly house steward, Wally, and a psychotic American arrived in the post, out of the blue, along with an offer to write gangster turned mafia informant on the run from his former and direct it. Its literary style was as enigmatic as the manner of colleagues. Carter is pissed off because he thinks his bosses have its arrival. Whilst set in England and written by an Englishman it sent him under false pretenses to safeguard the mafia informant. was (aside from the rain) atypically English.” The setting, the But the Fletchers have a far darker task in mind. The situation grimy industrial North, was different from that of most English becomes even more complicated by the appearance of Wally’s crime fiction. The plot and feel had more in common with hard- daughter, a precocious, sexually assertive 17-year-old, who has boiled noir American film and fiction. Indeed, in an epilogue to quit art school and fancies a cheap holiday in Spain. the third book, author Nick Triplow, who is researching Lewis’s Understandably, both prequels have the air of being biography, writes about how Lewis was a major fan of Lee written to cash in on the success of the first Jack Carter novel and Marvin, the personification of hard-boiled ’60s masculine cool. the subsequent movie, and feel particularly influenced by Caine’s Marvin’s performance in John Boorman’s 1967 movie Point role as Carter. Did Lewis write the prequels with Caine’s Blank feels as if it was a particularly prominent influence in performance in mind? Or having seen it, can we not help but Lewis’s work. envisage him as Carter? The answer is most likely both. Carter’s character was another major departure. He is Obviously, Carter is younger in the prequels, and there cunning, violent, ruthless, with an unfailing eye for human is more of a laddish swagger to him. While Jack Carter’s Law in weakness, willing to use and sacrifice anyone to get what he particular is full of descriptors of swinging London, all the wants. Cuckolding one of his bosses while scheming to steal as Tretchikoff prints, sunken lounge rooms, and modern Swedish much of their money as possible is only the most obvious furniture can’t hide Jack’s air of unsophisticated working-class example of his depravity. Even Doreen, possibly his own Englishness. Apart from having sex with Audrey, he seems most daughter, is not completely safe from his predatory instincts. happy with a cup of tea and a copy of the Daily Express. He “She was older than her fifteen natural years,” he thinks to hates leaving the familiar surrounds of London, and in Jack himself at one point in Get Carter. “I could have fancied her Carter and the Mafia Pigeon is reluctant to travel even to Spain, myself if she hadn’t been who she was. You could tell she knew never having flown before. The prequels also contain a strain of what was what. It’s all in the eyes.” The books are full of chilling black humor, something almost totally absent in Get Carter. observations like this. The first-person narration and Carter’s Hodges—GET CARTER—8 cold-blooded telling and decoding of events create a sense of Lewis had a shrewd eye for the shifting class politics of claustrophobia that conveys both the main character’s emotional late-’60s England, the point at which the austerity of the postwar memory and his mixed feelings toward Frank. years had melted away and prosperity was slowly creeping into The strongest aspect of Get Carter is Lewis’s surgical the regions, creating a new middle class. Carter’s efforts to analysis of the political economy of organized crime. “On the discover what happened to his brother involve him having to surface it was a dead town. The kind of place not to be left in on navigate the class politics of his hometown. His investigation a Sunday afternoon,” is how Carter first describes his hometown. begins in working class pubs and bedsits, the familiar haunts of He continues: his youth. But the closer he gets to But it had its levels. the people who run the town’s Choose a level, present the illegal activities, the people who right credentials and the town can tell him what happened, the was just as good as anywhere more contact he has with its upper else. Or as bad. And there classes. was money. And it was This is demonstrated when spread all over because of the Carter follows Paice to the casino steelworks. Council houses run by Paice’s employer, Kinnear. with a father and a mother As Carter enters the casino, he and a son and a daughter all quickly analyzes the clientele, working. Maybe eighty quid farmers, owners of chains of cafés, a week coming in. A good contractors, builders, “the new place to operate if you were a gentry,” as he calls them. governor who owned a lot of I looked around the room and small time set-ups. The small saw the wives of the new Gentry. time stuff took the money Not one of them was not from the council houses. And overdressed. Not one of them there were a lot of council looked as though they were not houses. Once I’d scrawled for a betting shop on Priory Hill. sick to their stomachs with jealousy of someone or something. Christ, I’d thought, when I’d happened to find out how much They’d had nothing when they were younger, since the war they took in a week. Give me a string of those places and you they’d gradually got a lot, and the change had been so surprising could keep Chelsea. And Kensington. If the overheads were they could never stop wanting, never be satisfied. anything like related to what that tight bastard I’d been working The Fletchers are obviously based on the real-life Kray for was paying me. brothers, Ronald and Reginald, powerful who ruled Get Carter successfully transplanted a central trope of London’s East End through a combination of robbery, arson, American noir fiction and film to England: the corrupt, crime- protection rackets, and murder, before finally being arrested, infested urban space and the alienated stranger whose motives tried, and convicted, with great media fanfare, in 1969. Lewis lead him to inhabit it and to get into direct conflict with those portrays them as thoroughly nouveau riche. “Gerald in his who control it. The anonymous industrial town of Carter’s youth country hounds tooth and his lilac shirt, sitting at his Cintura- is similar to Personville, or “Poisonville,” as the locals describe it topped desk, the picture window behind him […] and Les sitting in Dashiell Hammett’s 1929 classic, Red Harvest. Hammett’s on the edge of the desk, in his corduroy suit, thumbing through a description of Personville could apply word for word to the copy of Punch.” Carter, meanwhile, is more akin to a hungry setting of Get Carter: entrepreneur of the type that would thrive as Britain progressed The city wasn’t pretty. Most of the builders had gone in through the up to the election of the fiercely conservative for gaudiness. Maybe they had been successful at first. Since Thatcher government in 1979. His politics are in sync with the then the smelters whose bricks stacks stuck up tall against a hard right: his sexism and casual homophobia, his description of gloomy mountain to the south had yellow-smoked everything foreigners as “wogs,” the disdain with which he describes his into uniform dinginess. The result was an ugly city for forty brother Frank’s ex-wife and her leaving him for a Pakistani thousand people. immigrant. Carter’s hometown is one in which criminal elements Get Carter was made because film producer Michael hold sway; the police are completely absent in Get Carter. Klinger was looking for a vehicle to capitalize on the immense Carter’s whole reason for revisiting the town he grew up in, a interest generated by the Kray brothers’ trial. With the exception place he loathes, is to investigate his brother’s death, something of two Roman Polanski films — Repulsion in 1965 (for which he the authorities have failed to do. The only evidence of law was uncredited) and Cul-De-Sac (1966) — his CV mainly enforcement in any of the Carter books occurs in Jack Carter’s consisted of youth exploitation movies capitalizing on the sexual Law: a corrupt cop, one of many on the Fletchers’ payroll. hijinks of Swinging Sixties London, with titles such as Primitive Get Carter also captures the social changes underway in London (1965) and The Penthouse (1967). Klinger bought the Britain as the 1960s came to an end. As Hodges writes: “Britain rights to Jack’s Return Home and chose Mike Hodges, who until in the ’60s was, for some of us, a hopeful and exciting time when then had only worked in TV, to bring it to the screen. radical ideological dreams seemed realizable. We were fooling Hodges, who also wrote the script, kept the narrative ourselves. The fault line of class and privilege fracturing British spine of Lewis’s book and much of the dialogue, but jettisoned society […] proved impossible to breach. By the time Ted’s book most of Carter’s backstory and changed other key elements of the was published those delusional dreams had evaporated.” novel. The town with no name became the fading industrial Hodges—GET CARTER—9 center of Newcastle (or , as it is now noir cinema: Joseph Losey’s film The Criminal (1960, otherwise known). Carter’s potential relationship with Doreen is only known as Concrete Jungle), a gritty story of a man (Stanley hinted at. Most radically, whereas Carter’s fate in the book Baker) serving a prison sentence for a racetrack robbery who is remains inconclusive, in the film he dies, killed by a hit man, subject to intense pressure to disclose where he has hidden the presumably dispatched by the Fletchers, whom we glimpse proceeds; Cy Endfield’s Hell Drivers (1957), about a truck traveling in the same train carriage as Carter in the film’s driver’s efforts to expose the corruption of the company he works opening scenes. for; ’s Hell Is a City (1960), shot partly in Manchester; If anything, the film is even more hard-boiled and bleak Peter Yates’s ultra hard-boiled 1967 dramatization of the Great than the book, as Hodges infused it with his experience as a Train Robbery, Robbery. Even some of the caper films produced conscript in the in the late 1950s. He spent two years during this time, such as The League of Gentlemen (1960), aboard minesweepers, regularly docking at gritty port towns in provide a hard kick and a sharp satirical take on England’s all- the North, where he witnessed a pervasive class system. side of life he didn’t know That’s not to say the existed. The experience blasted fingerprints of Get Carter aren’t away his secure middle-class visible on numerous British outlook. As he puts it in his films that followed, including forward: “The poverty and Michael Apted’s underrated depravation I witnessed in those The Squeeze (1977), The Long hell holes blew the scales off Good Friday (1980), and The my bourgeois eyes forever. Hit (1984). It has also been From now on I would be no credited as a key influence stranger to the sleazy milieu behind the popular British Ted’s novels occupied.” television crime show The Get Carter was a lean, Sweeney (1974–’78), which economical film, shot in 40 days starred two police detectives at a total cost of 750,000 US called Jack Reagan and George dollars. What the film doesn’t Carter, both of whom had a owe to Lewis’s book is made up by the presence and star power tendency to break rules. of Caine as Carter. “I researched [the role] very In terms of broader cultural ripples, MGM thoroughly,’”Caine noted. commissioned director George Armitage to give Get Carter a I know a few gangsters and I talked to them about the make-over. The resulting 1972 movie, Hit Man, sort of man he is. You find actors often know gangsters — involved a man who travels to Southern California for the funeral maybe they have a lot in common, when you think about it. Jack of his brother and becomes obsessed with tracking down the Carter is based on someone I know — dress, attitude, frame of individuals responsible for his death. Get Carter was also mind, talk — even the walk. unremarkably remade in 2000 starring . Although the movie received a lukewarm critical With the possible exception of his 1998 film Croupier, reaction upon release, it is now viewed as having had the Hodges would never again do anything as good as Get Carter. equivalent impact on cinema that Lewis’s book had on crime That it has enjoyed a second lease on life as a cult hit is largely literature. The fact that Get due to the co-option of UK Carter was not set in London but ’60s gangster chic by the in a heavily working-class “Cool Britannia” movement regional area was indeed in the 1990s. The best- unusual. Much like Lewis’s known manifestation of this novel, it also addressed the end is ’s 1998 film of one decade and the beginning Lock, Stock and Two of another, a much harder and Smoking Barrels. Ritchie’s far less optimistic period, with film spawned a legion of all the associated changes in mostly forgettable movies, mood and style. The gangsters in all mimicking the style and Get Carter carry firearms. The cadence of Britain’s 1960s violence is more frequent and underworld. more visceral. A number of The most bizarre scenes in the film, for example example of gangster chic when Jack throws a businessman from the car park was a CD released in 1999, Products of The Environment, that (demolished a few years ago), still have the capacity to shock. featured notable underworld figures from the 1960s, including A more sober assessment is that, while it is an important former associates of the Krays and Great Train Robber Tom film, Get Carter represented a shift rather than a radical break Wisbey, doing spoken word to the music of British rapper with the conventions of British crime cinema. Starting with Tricky. Just like Jack Carter, Britain’s 1960s criminals were Richard Attenborough’s turn as the vicious hoodlum Pinkie always alert to a new opportunity to extend their influence and Brown in the 1947 adaptation of Graham Greene’s 1938 novel make a few quid. Brighton Rock, postwar British cinema produced a body of solid Hodges—GET CARTER—10

“’Get Carter’: Why Mike Hodges’ Uncompromising Ganster because it pulled some sentimental chords in him: Caine thought Film Gained Cult Following” (Cinephilia & Beyond) of the titular character as someone he himself might have become Intent on making a great British , producer if, in the crime-ridden circumstances of his coming of age, he Michael Klinger purchased the rights to Ted Lewis’ novel Jack’s hadn’t chosen a different career path than a good deal of his Return Home and, captivated by the filmmaker’s work on the acquaintances had. Caine felt gangsters in British films were 1969 television film Suspect, immediately decided Mike Hodges portrayed dishonestly and misleadingly—they were always was the man to run the project. The cult British Get stupid or funny, he says—and he was keen on fixing this. His Carter, a brilliant revenge tragedy resulting from an inspired Jack Carter is a man of no remorse set on a doomed road of collaboration of the three Michaels—Klinger, Hodges and Caine, revenge, he disposes criminals and their partners without all the a big film star at the time, was not only one of the best British unnecessary and impractical distractions, his violence is quick, films of the year, or even best gangster films of the decade; due direct and efficient, far less pornographic than the audience’s to a combination of rather ambivalent initial reactions from the were used to witness in films of this genre. By setting the film in critics and the very nature of the film’s gritty, realistic, almost the contemporary criminal world of Newcastle, Hodges made use documentary approach to crime, violence and morality, Get of his experiences in making documentaries, more often than not Carteracquired a cult following and its reappraisal in the nineties opting for a naturalistic documentary feel, especially in the came partly as a direct consequence to filmmakers Quentin scenes where hundreds of extras were used, the chance Tarantino and Guy Ritchie’s publicly declared appreciation for bystanders who happened to appear on the streets of Newcastle at Hodges’ masterpiece. the time of the filming. Mike Hodges, who wrote the screenplay and directed the feature, envisioned a new kind of a gangster film, caring Note: This C&B entry has video interviews and the full script: more about the substance than the flash. He received a lot of https://cinephiliabeyond.org/get-carter-why-mike- support from Michael Caine, who was won over by the script hodges-uncompromising-gangster-film-gained-cult-following/

COMING UP IN THE FALL 2018 BUFFALO FILM SEMINARS SERIES 37 OCT 30 DAVID LYNCH, THE ELEPHANT MAN, 1980 NOV 6 KRZYSZTOF KIESLOWSKI, THREE COLORS: BLUE, 1993 NOV 13 ALAN MAK AND WAI-KEUNG LAU, INFERNAL AFFAIRS, 2002 NOV 20 MARTIN SCORSESE, THE DEPARTED, 2006 NOV 27 TOM MCCARTHY, SPOTLIGHT, 2015 DEC 4 JOHN HUSTON, THE MAN WHO WOULD BE KING, 1975

CONTACTS:...email Diane Christian: [email protected]…email Bruce Jackson [email protected] the series schedule, annotations, links and updates: http://buffalofilmseminars.com...to subscribe to the weekly email informational notes, send an email to addto [email protected] cast and crew info on any film: http://imdb.com/ The Buffalo Film Seminars are presented by the State University of New York at Buffalo and the Dipson Amherst Theatre, with support from the Robert and Patricia Colby Foundation and the Buffalo News.