Eric Paice: So, what're you doing then? On your holidays?
Jack Carter: No, I'm visiting relatives.
Eric Paice: Oh, that's nice.
Jack Carter: It would be... if they were still living.
I had just completed my third year at Grammar school when the making of the film ‘Get Carter’ took place in and around Newcastle in the summer of 1970. The film company used the house of the parents of a friend of mine for a couple of days of filming. It gave the lad Kudos with his classmates and his parents £500 from the film company.
If you’ve not seen the film, it’s a gritty thriller that centres around a London gangster, Jack Carter (played by Michael Caine), who travels back to Newcastle to discover more about the events surrounding his brother Frank’s 'accidental' death. Suspecting foul play, Carter investigates and runs into the city’s hardened-criminal element. I was fifteen when I first saw it at the cinema. Underage for its classification but used the ‘girlfriend’ trick to get in.
These were the days before ID, so an underage boy wanting to see an 18-certificate film would persuade a girl to accompany them. Even if the girl was only fifteen, once made up, they could pass for much older, so the ticket seller would assume she and, therefore you, were the appropriate age. Of course, it could occasionally cost you the price of the girl’s ticket, but at least you got into the cinema.
‘Get Carter’ revitalised British crime drama, bringing a realism absent from the movies of the previous decade. It became something of a cult classic in the northeast. It was a cracking film and showed a city and area rarely seen as the backdrop to a movie on the big screen. It remains a cult movie today. There is a pub that masquerades as the one that Carter first walks into on arriving in Newcastle. It’s not. That pub, The Long Bar, is long gone (sorry!), demolished a year after the making of the film. On the site, there are now various eateries and shops. As sort of tribute to Carter, I ate in one of them, an ‘authentic’ Neapolitan pizza (it wasn’t) restaurant, the night before I moved into my new home.
At its making, the film captured Newcastle before its full post-industrial development, making the most of the dock workings, old brick tenements and even a few of the new brutalist developments slowly making their mark. Yet many hold the film in such fondness that even though several locations have changed out of all recognition (such as the Long Bar), it hasn’t stopped entrepreneurs from offering a ‘Get Carter’ tour of Newcastle.
Indeed, I jumped at the chance when the opportunity came up last week to see a remastered version at an independent cinema in Newcastle.
The cinema in question was 'The Tyneside'. Unprepossessing from the outside. Very unprepossessing. Down a small alley off one of Newcastle's main streets. An alley adorned with graffiti as far as the eye could see. On arriving at the cinema entrance, I confess to misgivings at what I would find inside.
This photograph was what I found—Nineteen-thirties splendour over four floors. Pictures and posters bedecked the walls, and there was even a display of movie cameras. One of which captured the signing of the Japanese surrender in 1945. The cinema also boasts a bar, restaurant, and coffee bar. The staff are pleasant, helpful, and knowledgeable. My visit was a real treat, and I will return.
As for ‘Get Carter’? Well, it was a fantastic cinematic wallow for a couple of hours ….
I’m glad you have found a replacement for the Little Theatre!