Get Carter 

(This post is part of the Rule, Britannia Blogathon hosted by A Shroud of Thoughts)

In Get Carter (1970), London gangster Jack Carter (Michael Caine) returns to his hometown of Newcastle to investigate the sudden and mysterious death of his brother. When he finds that his brother was murdered and his niece (who may be Carter’s daughter) was steered into making a pornographic movie, Carter relentlessly and violently tracks down everyone involved. (And without giving away too much, Carter the hunter has no idea that he’s also being hunted). 

“British gangsters were seen as silly or funny in the movies, and I knew from my background that all of the above wasn’t true,” said Caine. Carter may have a subtle sense of humor, but he’s also uncompromising, with a slow-burning temper that builds quickly into sudden violence. Immoral, as you’d expect from someone in his profession, but with a strong sense of family honor. 

Filmed on location, Newcastle’s rowhouses, outdoor plumbing and beach blackened with coal waste provide a grim setting. As Carter travels there by train, director Mike Hodges shows fleeting glimpses of the countryside, including several nuclear power plants, signaling that the glory days of Newcastle, once the center of a huge coal mining area, are vanishing. 

Back in Newcastle, Carter throws money around to smooth over any problems and shows off his slick metropolitan ways at the local pub when he orders a pint of bitter, then hesitates, adding “in a thin glass.” When his niece tells him she’s left school for a job at Woolworths, his deadpan, “That must be very interesting,” says it all about his contempt for his past life. 

Caine’s strong supporting cast included several actors with pedigree status in British popular culture. John Osborne, the original Angry Young Man, launched the British social realism with his play, Look Back in Anger (1956). Ian Hendry, who was under consideration to play Carter, starred in the first version of The Avengers (1961). Britt Ekland, maybe best known for her active social life, was in The Wicker Man (1973). 

Roy Budd’s soundtrack in jazzy and groovy with occasional Indian tabla percussion, and director Hodges allows some ambient noise, a ship’s horn, wind, to filter into some scenes, adding to the realism.

One moment in Get Carter easily overlooked is one of product placement: a copy of the Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed album in a scene that also triggers the film’s bloody final act (see below). Released in late 1969, the record – like Carter – feels like it has a lit fuse burning through it, about to blow up what was left of the Swinging Sixties. To echo the final song on the record, You Can’t Always Get What You Want, Carter will get what he needs, but ultimately not what he wants. 

Get Carter was released in the U.S. on a double bill with Frank Sinatra’s awful Dirty Dingus Magee. “We were in the toilet in two weeks,” Caine later said, crediting cable TV with introducing Carter to a larger audience. 

If gritty realism, urban settings, a true anti-hero and intricate plotting all count for something, Get Carter owes as much to the British kitchen sink social realism movement as it does film noir, making it the quintessential British crime film. 

As Caine said when marking the 50^th anniversary of Get Carter: “If you’d told me (then) that I’d still be talking about it now, I might not have believed you. Some films are special.”

A Jersey City lunchtime moment shared 

It’s probably true of all major metropolitan regions, but New York City TV weathermen differentiated themselves with their own, often quirky, brands and approach. 

Tex Antoine on ABC had a David Niven mustache and drew cartoons illustrating the current or forecasted weather. One got the sense that his first drafts were done on a cocktail napkin that afternoon. NBC’s Dr. Frank Field had head of the high school science department gravitas. Mr. G on CBS was the nice Jewish bachelor all the older women were trying to fix up on dates with their unmarried daughters. Roberto Tirado on PIX was smooth and stylish; you pictured him dancing the Latin Hustle with the top buttons of his shirt undone. 

WOR’s Lloyd Lindsay Young’s appeal was his corny, everyman exuberance. He had a booming voice and began each of his spots by loudly acknowledging a local city or town with his trademark “Hellooooo (insert name here)!” 

Young: “That all started by accident. I was working in Idaho Falls in television, and one day—and I don’t know what possessed me—but I knew there were viewers up in Wyoming, so I just blurted out “Hello Jackson Hole!” A bunch of people called the station. I thought, wait a minute, I might be on to something. The next day: “Hello Pocatello!” and a bunch of people called in again. The rest is history.” 

He carried it over to WOR, and it became something that people tuned into and talked about. What town would it be today? Greenwich? Farmingdale? Bushwick? Edison? Maybe your hometown! 

Dad comes home from work and the kids greet him. “Daddy, Lloyd Lindsay Young said Piscataway today – that’s where we live!” “That’s great. Is dinner ready yet?”

I was reading the electric and gas meters in a Jersey City bar. It was noontime and the place was packed with construction workers, guys in hardhats working on the office towers and apartment houses going up along the Hudson River waterfront at the time. 

The meters were accessed through a trapdoor behind the bar, and while I waited to get the bartender’s attention – the hardhat horde stood three deep, and he was kind of busy – Young’s weather segment came on the big TV mounted to the wall. 

The room became suddenly quiet. No doubt there were guys there from all over New Jersey and the five boroughs. One of our hometowns was surely going to be selected in the day’s Lloyd Lindsay Young lottery. 

On this afternoon, Young held the note, stretching out his hello seemingly forever, while everyone in the bar was suspended in mid-air holding our collective breath. 

When he finished with “Jersey City,” it was as if we’d all chipped in on a lotto ticket and won. The place erupted with a liquid lunch roar. It may have been my imagination, but I’m sure there were guys hoisting their beer mugs saluting Young, while others hugged and clapped each other on the back. It was Bastille Day, V-E Day and V-J Day all at once. 

For all I know, some of them may have filed out into the street to kiss the first stranger they came across. 

Construction worker home from the job. “Honey, Lloyd Lindsay Young said Jersey City today.” “That’s great. Dinner’s ready.”