Friday, 26 March 2021

Get Carter at 50: 10 more Tyneside then-and-now location shots from the classic film

 

It's one of the greatest British films of all time - and it was released 50 years ago, enjoying its European premiere at Newcastle's Haymarket cinema on Sunday, March 7, 1971.

Get Carter tells the violent tale of London gangster, Jack Carter, who returns to his home city, Newcastle, to avenge the death of his brother.

Starring Michael Caine, and with a budget of £750,000, the critically acclaimed movie was shot in the North East and used the people and places of the region as a dramatic backdrop to the action.

Half a century on we've returned to some of the locations used in the film and photographed the same scenes today.

Some have been transformed beyond all recognition, while some are relatively unchanged.

The first in our three-part series of 10 then-and-now photographs was published recently. This is part two. Part three will follow.

The media historian and broadcaster Chris Phipps was an authority on Get Carter. Sadly Chris died in August 2019.

He said of the film: "Michael Caine steps off a train at Newcastle, orders a drink and walks into cinematic history.

“Get Carter coldly documents his portrayal of mobster Jack Carter who investigates the mysterious death of his older brother and uncovers a web of corruption and vice in Newcastle.

“The plot unfolds - a hybrid of The Count of Monte Cristo and The Terminator - as Carter plans and literally executes a violent campaign of revenge in the name of his family.

“Caine’s portrayal of Jack Carter is iconic and revolutionary. Here is a real gangster exacting real revenge - not a flashy comical spiv that had generally populated British post-war films.

“It was perhaps a reflection of the psychopathic Kray twins who had been sentenced in the late-1960s as a dark conclusion to swinging ‘60s London.

“Caine shares the screen with the city of Newcastle. Ted Lewis’s original novel was set in his native Humberside. Get Carter director Mike Hodges had instead chosen Newcastle as the gritty, corrupt and changing backdrop that had shaped Jack Carter.”

Chris continued: “Hodges' background in documentary and current affairs brought an authenticity to the story which gives it an edge decades later. Roy Budd’s economic eerie score completed the effect.

“Caine’s co-stars featured a fledgling Alun Armstrong and an uncredited Jimmy Nail. Get Carter immortalised the span of the High Level Bridge and the brutal concrete heights of the Gateshead Trinity car park.

 “1971 was a watershed year for crime on the big screen. It gave us the amoral cops of Dirty Harry and The French Connection and put Jack Carter in good company.”

The action aside, Get Carter captures the region at a unique time in its history, depicting a vision of Tyneside, much of which has vanished.

See the 'then and now' images via: -

https://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/history/gallery/carter-50-10-more-tyneside-20066259

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