Gangster Movies: (ca. 1971) A vicious London gangster, Jack Carter, travels to Newcastle for his brother’s funeral. He begins to suspect that his brother’s death was not an accident and sets off down a complex path of lies, deceit, cover-ups and backhanders through Newcastle’s underworld, leading, he hopes, to the man who ordered his brother killed. Because of his ruthlessness, Carter exhibits all the invincibility of the android in Terminator, or Walker in Point Blank, and he and the other characters in the film are prone to sudden, brutal acts of violence.

This is one of Caine’s best roles and one of the greatest gangster movies ever made. It is unrelentingly harsh, gritty and bleak in offering a window into the nasty world of Carter.Few characters are truly likable or admirable, including Carter, and this helps to lend an air of realism to this sullen, understated masterpiece.

When Carter (Michael Caine) enters Cyril Kinnear’s house, there is a Zulu shield on the wall. This is an in-joke about Michael Caine’s first screen success in Zulu (1964).

The stock of the shotgun carried by Michael Caine for the majority of the movie has the initials “JC” (Jack Carter, Caine’s character) and “FC” (Frank Carter) scratched into it.

In the first shot in the long bar, the second local man to stare at Jack Carter actually has five fingers and a thumb. This was a genuine abnormality of the ‘extra’ who played the part. It can be seen as he raises his glass of beer to drink.

Mike Hodges had ‘Ian Hendry’ in mind for the part of Jack Carter. According to Hodges, Hendry never forgave Caine for usurping him in the role and this caused resentment between the two stars on the set, resulting in the undisguised friction seen on the screen.

The scene featuring Jack Carter and Eric Paice at the horse race was shot in one take.

Attempts to demolish the multi-storey car-park, used several times as a meeting place, were met with protests. “Get Carter” made it one of the few famous buildings in the Gateshead, the borough across the River from Newcastle.

The studio wanted Telly Savalas to play Cliff Brumby.

In 2004 this was selected as the #1 British movie of all time by the British magazine Total Film.

The white Cadillac in the film was Michael Klinger’s (producer) personal car.

There are two sound tracks for the US and UK releases of the film. At the start of the movie, Carter is with some Cockney gangsters watching a porn film. The voices of the Cockney gangsters were re-dubbed for the US market as the US distributor believed the accents would be too heavy for the American audience to understand.