Ted Lewis on the set of Get Carter, 1971
BBC4 Radio documentry on life & career of Ted Lewis, click image to enlargeGet Carter with Michael Caine stands as one of the best noir - revenge films ever. I first saw it on video in the early '90s when college roommate Wallace Stroby included it with a couple Chow Yun-fat gangster flicks in what the ex-wife called, 'Wally Mail.' Carter was the far better picture and it got me thinking about how many awful revenge films are out there and why Carter was so different.
Every Mel Gibson picture, from Mad Max (which is pretty darned good) to the American Revolution disaster, The Patriot, are all revenge pics. Mel has a big family. Family gets killed when Mel isn't looking. Bad guys mess up Mel. Mel gets mad and boom, you're in Act III, Mel kills bad guys, roll credits.
Get Carter has a professional hit man in London (Caine) who comes home (Newcastle) to find out who killed his brother. That's a pretty standard setup. But it never goes where you expect it to and like the best noir, you're not so sure you wanna go with it. Stark and dark but there's beauty here too. Get Carter is about as beautiful as you're gonna see and hear in a revenge pic.
The words came from writer and artist, Ted Lewis (1940 - 1982) who wrote the book, Jack's Return Home, that the film is based on. Thanks to noir guy, Wallace Stroby, I learned of a 28 minute radio program on BBC4 (here) about Lewis and his very short life and career. The program is available on line for six more days. Sadly, Lewis's books are barely available at all (prices here) but BBC 4 presents the first radio episode of, Jack's Return Home tonight at 11:00 PM GMT / 6:00PM EST with the second episode to air at the same time on 4 September (here).
The exchange below between Caine and Ian Hendry as Eric Paice, is a good example of the poetry Lewis created. I suppose it helps that Caine, whose career was soaring, and Hendry, whose career was tanking, didn't like each other. But it was Ted Lewis that gave 'em the poetry.
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9 comments:
still have not seen this.
have you seen the long good friday and/or any of jean pierre melville's movies?
Dallas- Loved Long Good Friday. Closest I've come to Melville is The Good Thief with Nick Nolte based on Bob le flambuer.
that is like saying the closest you've come to a woman is playboy
Dallas- It ain't real but it's close.
One of the things that makes the revenge aspect of CARTER more interesting is that (in book & film both), he never liked his brother much (and in fact slept with the brother's wife). He's only seeking revenge because he feels he's been disrespected by the other gangsters.
Great photo and excellent film. I remember it too for its use of natural light and fluid camera throughout.
-DB
Thanks for passing along the link to the radio documentary--really fascinating stuff. Get Carter was doubly intriguing for us in The North: growing up in the 70s, it always seemed anything and everything happened in the south (and later I couldn't wait to escape to London) but here was grubby Newcastle with a co-starring role. My last visit there (before moving to Detroit) was for my mum's funeral; surprised to find we were following the hearse into the West Road crematorium--instantly recognizable as the setting for Jack's brother's sparse funeral...
MG- Working mostly with guys from London, they'd always make mention of a northerners accent. Always struck me odd as big city types.
The author of The road to Perdition obviously saw this film
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