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Get Carter

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M200289
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Get Carter (1971)

Additional Information

Additional Information
The original gangster is back.

What happens when a professional killer violates the code? Get Carter!

Get Carter stars Michael Caine as Jack Carter, a powerful British gangster out for blood. His brother has been murdered in Newcastle, prompting Carter to declare a one-man war on other racketeers. Carter must also get his niece out of the life she is leading as an actress in pornographic films. Now that he is a loose cannon, Carter must be eliminated. Get Carter is typical action fare of the 1970s in that there are virtually no "good guys" -- in fact, the assassin is probably the most likable character in the piece! Originally rated X for violence and female nudity, Get Carter was reclassified as an R after subsequent crime films became even more bloodthirsty.

Get Carter is a 1971 British crime film directed by Mike Hodges and starring Michael Caine, Ian Hendry,[4] Britt Ekland, John Osborne and Bryan Mosley. The screenplay was adapted by Hodges from Ted Lewis' 1969 novel Jack's Return Home. Producer Michael Klinger optioned the book and made a deal for the ailing Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) studio to finance and release the film, bringing in Hodges and Caine. Caine became a co-producer of the film. Get Carter was Hodges' first feature film as director, as well as being the screen debut of Alun Armstrong. MGM was scaling back its European operations and the film became the last project approved before the American company closed its Borehamwood studios. The film is set in North East England and was filmed in and around Newcastle Upon Tyne, Gateshead, and County Durham.
The story follows a London gangster, the eponymous Jack Carter (Caine), who travels back to his hometown to discover more about the events surrounding his brother Frank's supposedly-accidental death. Suspecting foul play, he investigates and interrogates, getting a feel for the city and its hardened-criminal element; with vengeance on his mind, the situation builds to a violent conclusion.[5]
Caine and Hodges had ambitions to produce a more gritty and realistic portrayal of on-screen violence and criminal behaviour than had previously been seen in a British film. Caine incorporated his knowledge of real criminal acquaintances into his characterisation of Carter. Hodges and cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky drew heavily on their backgrounds in documentary film. This, combined with Hodges' research into the contemporary criminal underworld of Newcastle (in particular the one-armed bandit murder) and use of hundreds of local bystanders as extras produced a naturalistic feel in many scenes. The shoot was incident free and progressed speedily, despite a one day strike by the Association of Cinematograph Television and Allied Technicians. The production went from novel to finished film in eight months, with location shooting lasting 40 days.
Get Carter suffered in its promotion, firstly from MGM's problems and secondly due to the declining British film industry of the period, which relied increasingly on US investment. Initial UK critical reaction to the film was mixed, with British reviewers grudgingly appreciative of the film's technical excellence, but dismayed by the complex plotting, the excessive violence and amorality, in particular Carter's apparent lack of remorse at his actions.[2] Despite this the film did good business in the UK and produced a respectable profit. Conversely, US critics were generally more enthusiastic and praised the film, but it was poorly promoted in the States by United Artists and languished on the drive in circuit while MGM focused its resources on producing a blaxploitation remake, Hit Man. On its release the film received no awards and did not seem likely to be well remembered. However, despite its lack of availability on home media until 1993 it always maintained a cult following. Endorsements from a new generation of directors such as Quentin Tarantino and Guy Ritchie[6] led to a critical reappraisal which saw it recognised as one of the best British movies of all time. In 1999, Get Carter was ranked 16th on the BFI Top 100 British films of the 20th century; five years later, a survey of British film critics in Total Film magazine chose it as the greatest British film of all time.[7] Get Carter was remade in 2000 by Warner Bros. under the same title, with Sylvester Stallone starring as Jack Carter, while Caine appears in a supporting role. This remake was not well received by critics in the USA and was not given a UK theatrical release.

hibnall has established that the film was shown on LWT in 1976 and 1980 "in a bowdlerised version", (which edited out Britt Ekland's phone sex scene[82]) and once on Westward Television, but it was not shown nationally and in its entirety until a post-watershed BBC broadcast in 1986.[88] It was finally released on home media in 1993 by MGM/UA as part of its "Elite Collection". Chibnall says "There was no advertising to suggest a significant event had occurred. It was simply a part of the long process of exploiting MGM's back catalogue in the run-up to Christmas". Despite this the release was given a five star review in Empire where it was described as "one of the best British films of the 70s". Chibnall notes "it did not, however, find a place in Empire's top fifty videos of the year".[88]
Warner Brothers reissued the film in a special edition on DVD in October 2000 in its original 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Extras included three trailers; the international trailer, an introduction by Michael Caine to the people of Newcastle, and a third featuring Roy Budd playing the opening theme. Also included was commentary from Caine, Hodges and Suschitzky, constructed from separate interviews with the three. The soundtrack was presented in 1.0 mono Dolby Digital[89]
The film was bundled in the 2008 "Movies That Matter – 70's Classics" DVD set with Deliverance and Dog Day Afternoon.[90] It is available from the Warner Archive Collection as a Made on Demand (MOD) DVD-R or a download, with the same extras as the 2000 release, although with only two trailers and this time in 16:9 ratio.[91]

Describing the initial critical response to the film, Steve Chibnall wrote "Initial critical vilification or indifference establishes the conditions in which a cult can flourish. Get Carter had to make do with ambivalence".[92] He thought the general stance of British critics "was to admire the film's power and professionalism while condemning its amorality and excessive violence".[93] Geoff Mayer observed that "Mainstream critics at the time were dismayed by the film's complex plotting and Carter's lack of remorse".[94] In Sight and Sound, Tom Milne said the film was well constructed and had good characterisation, but lacked the mystery and charisma of the earlier American crime films it attempted to emulate. He found Carter's motivations were inconsistent – either being an avenging angel or an "authentic post-permissive anti-hero, revelling in the casual sadism".[95][96] In contrast Nigel Andrews found the characters to be clichéd archetypes of the criminal underworld, such as the "homosexual chauffeur, bloated tycoon, glamorous mistress", describing the film as "perfunctory".[97] Richard Weaver in Films and Filming praised the realism of the film, describing it as "crime at its most blatant",[95][98] whilst George Melly writing in The Observer confessed to vicarious enjoyment of it, but admitted it was "like a bottle of neat gin swallowed before breakfast. It's intoxicating all right, but it'll do you no good".[99]
Steve Chibnall writes that "America was rather more used to hard-boiled storytelling" and that reviewers there were "more prepared than British criticism to treat Get Carter as a serious work",[100] Pauline Kael admiring its "calculated soullessness"[101] and wondering if it signalled a "new genre of virtuoso viciousness".[102] US publication Box Office gave a cautiously approving review, describing the film as "nasty, violent and sexy all at once". It predicted that "It should please in the action market, but won't win any laurels for Caine although his portrayal of the vicious anti-hero impresses".[103] The reviewer also opined that "Tighter editing would help considerably". Roger Ebert was less reserved in his praise, writing that "the movie has a sure touch". He noted the "proletarian detail" of the film which is "unusual in a British detective movie. Usually we get all flash and no humanity, lots of fancy camera tricks but no feel for the criminal strata of society".[104] Of Caine's performance he wrote, "The character created by Caine is particularly interesting. He's tough and ruthless, but very quiet and charged with a terrible irony". Judith Crist in New York magazine gave a glowing review, saying "Michael Caine is superb, suave and sexy" and describing the film as "a hard, mean and satisfying zinger of the old tough-tec school done in frank contemporary terms".[105] Variety also praised the film saying it "not only maintains interest but conveys with rare artistry, restraint and clarity the many brutal, sordid and gamy plot turns".[106] However, Jay Cocks writing in Time was disparaging, calling the film "a doggedly nasty piece of business" and comparing it unfavourably to Point Blank.[107] The film appeared on several US critics' lists of best films of the year.[80]
In Michael Klinger's Guardian obituary in 1989, Derek Malcolm remembered the film as "one of the most formidable British thrillers of its time".[108]
As of 2012 the film has a rating of 89% "Fresh" on review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 27 reviews. It also has an audience rating of 82% from 16,096 ratings.[109] On IMDb Get Carter's average rating is 7.6 based on 12,329 user votes.[110] In 2003 Steve Chibnall observed a large gender imbalance in voting on the film up to April 2002, with less than 6% of votes cast (where the voters gave their gender) by women (53 out of 947). He also noticed a substantial increase in women voting on the film in the eight months leading up to April 2002.[93] However, although by 2012 the number of votes cast had increased tenfold, the ratio of female to male voters had not changed greatly, falling slightly from 2002, dropping to nearly 5% (526 out of 9566 voters who gave their gender were women

Get Carter was a financial success, and according to Steve Chibnall its box office takings were "very respectable". On its opening week at ABC2 cinema at Shaftesbury Avenue, London, it broke the house record, taking £8,188. It out-performed Up Pompeii which was showing in the larger ABC1. It also performed strongly when moved to the ABCs in Edgware and Fulham Road. On its general release in the North of England, Chibnall notes it had a "very strong first week", before an unseasonal heatwave damaged cinema attendance. Chibnall writes that "Interestingly, although [the film's] downbeat and unsentimental tone is now thought to express the mood of its times, the mass cinema audience preferred Love Story (Arthur Hiller 1970), which remained the most popular film in Britain throughout Get Carter's run".[100] It was the sixth most popular "general release" movie at the British box office in 1971

Release Date: March 3, 1971


Distrib: MGM

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Get Carter (1971)
Release Year
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502546
Primary Distributor (If not listed, select "OTHER")
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106 mins (PAL)
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