Get Carter - Ted Lewis

 GET CARTER - TED LEWIS

It's a classic film but is it a classic book? First published in 1970 as Jack's Return Home but then republished in 1992 as Get Carter, it's the book on which the film is based and what is apparent from the start is that it's impossible to read it without envisioning Michael Caine as the main character. The dialogue spoken can only be imagined as being spoken in Caine's unique manner and tone of voice. Caine owns the role. He made it his own. 

Though it's a fast-paced and easy read, written in a very clipped and to the point style, you still need to pay attention to it as it's always one step (or one chapter, even) ahead of itself. For example, in one chapter the Michael Caine character (Jack Carter) talks to someone on the phone (though it's unclear who it is) and asks 'Is Doreen at the house?' It's only until the next chapter that we find out that Doreen is the daughter of his dead brother and the house is where his body is laying in state before being buried the next day. It makes sense in the end.

What is also apparent is an underlying sense of violence, made manifest by the Jack Carter character who exudes a supreme confidence and sense of purpose. Up from London and back in his hometown of Scunthorpe in the north of England for his brother's funeral, he's armed not only with a shotgun but a calm demeanour, a steady eye and the obvious ability to wield extreme violence if necessary. It's almost like a game of poker being played out between northern small town mafia and London gangland mafia. Jack Carter's a good poker player and the Scunthorpe gangsters are no amateurs either, so it all makes for a good game where the stakes are constantly being raised.

The plot is actually very simple. Jack Carter's brother has been found dead in a crashed car at the bottom of an old quarry, having apparently been drinking whisky beforehand. Jack has returned home from London for the funeral but he also wants some answers because he knows full well that his brother's death was no accident. Which means if it was no accident and wasn't suicide then it could only mean one other thing: He was murdered - and Jack intends to find out by whom and for what reason?

It all makes for a very good book but so it should do seeing as the book is the source material for the very good film. A lot of it has been translated from the book to the film verbatim although there are also some very significant changes, particularly with the ending. One noticeable change is in the scene where Jack gives one of the northern gangsters a slap (Alf Roberts, from Coronation Street, actually) and in the film famously says 'You're a big man but you're in bad shape. With me it's a full-time job. Now behave yourself'. In the book he says 'You're a big bloke - you're in good shape. But I know more than you'. The film's version is obviously better. The book is also missing the other famous quote from the film about eyes like 'pissholes in the snow'. Unlike the film, however, the book unexpectedly contains a very liberal amount of swearing which at the time of being first published must have been quite shocking, especially with the use of the 'C' word as we call it nowadays.

In hindsight, the influence of Get Carter is easy to see, particularly within cinema. There are a large number of films that spring to mind that are obviously in its shadow and classic films at that: The Long Good Friday, The Sweeney television series, Villain, Dead Man's Shoes, and so on. In fact any British gangster film you could care to mention. In hindsight, it's also easy to see where Ted Lewis' book was coming from and that's the British 'kitchen sink' genre that included Kes, Saturday Night And Sunday Morning, This Sporting Life, A Taste O Honey, etc, etc. All books that realistically depicted northern, working class life. 

So, it's a classic film but is it a classic book? The answer is 'yes', absolutely.

John Serpico

Hammer Of The Gods - Stephen Davis

 HAMMER OF THE GODS - STEPHEN DAVIS

There are some books whose reputation goes before them and arguably one of those could well be Hammer Of The Gods by Stephen Davis, the unauthorised biography of Led Zeppelin. The section it's most infamous for, of course, is The Shark Episode where it describes a groupie being tied down on a bed and sexually assaulted with the nose-part of a still-live shark. Each to one's own, whatever floats your boat, consenting adults and all that but there's something about this particular anecdote that doesn't sit right, confirmed by further tales of backstage excess strewn liberally throughout the whole book.

There's also The Dog Act to contend with, involving a groupie and a Great Dane. Then there's The Dog Act again but with added baked beans. And then there's Cynthia Plaster Caster being gang-banged in a tub of baked beans. Then there's the near-rape of Life magazine reporter Ellen Sander whom the band had at first placed bets on as to who would have her first? Nobody won, so on the last night of her being on tour with Led Zeppelin she was set upon and had her clothes torn off, only to be saved at the last minute by manager Peter Grant intervening and pulling people away from her.

Over time, these tales took on a life of their own to the point at which the shark became a dead octopus and that Ellen Sander was actually raped and murdered. These embellishments had originally started with Jimmy Page's interest in the occult and the rumour that Led Zeppelin had early on in their career made a pact with the Devil. Page's enthusiasm for Alistair Crowley has been well documented so it's not hard to see where such 'pact with the Devil' rumours came from. I suspect, however, Crowley's influence upon Page was far more earthly and more along the lines of influencing his moral compass and retuning his judgement, particularly in regards to Crowley's dictum 'Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law'.

'Crowley didn't have a very high opinion of women and I don't think he was wrong,' Page is quoted as saying. Which might go some way in explaining Led Zeppelin's quickly acquired taste for abusing groupies. If Page was the leader of Led Zeppelin then Crowley's philosophy sounds like it was being used as a way of justifying some extremely dubious antics and that's without even getting started on Page's taste for 'tumescent girls on the young side'.

I've said it before but when it comes to pop stars and pop bands I don't want them to be whitewashed bland or circus vaudeville - I want them to be out there. I want them to be fat and bloated Elvis Presley style, shooting at the television with a golden pistol whilst overdosing on Quaaludes. I want them locked in permanent childhood Michael Jackson style, riding their own private rollercoaster at midnight and having sex with their pet monkey. I want them in full-blown fucked-up mode a la Sid Vicious, heroin tracks down their arms, on stage with a bloody nose and 'gimme-a-fix' carved into their chest. I want my pop bands to be ideological puritans, strict of vision like Crass. I want them to be council estate loop-the-loop like Tricky, or feral slum city squatters like Disorder. Etc, etc, etc. For all that, is there at some point a line in the sand that is drawn where you say 'Enough'? Well, yes there is. Which brings us to Jimmy Page's 14-year old girlfriend, Lori Maddox.

Peter Grant and everyone else within the Zeppelin entourage knew the relationship was wrong and subsequently tried to keep Maddox hidden. They all knew that if the authorities found out Page was seeing a minor that he'd be deported from America immediately which wouldn't be good for business for a start, so they kept her locked away in hotel rooms where Page would visit her. 'He was the most gentlest lover' Maddox said of Page 'He even met my mom. She knew I was doing it anyway, so she figured if I'm gonna be doing it, then who better with? He had money.' 

To Page's consternation, while Mick Jagger was able to parade his wife around before the world's media, Page had to hide his 14-year old concubine from the law. Though at least Page wasn't beating on women unlike fellow band member John Bonham who at one point in the book is said to have lurched up to a woman in a night club and roared 'What the fuck did you say?' All she had done was to smile at him but for this he punched her in the face, sending her sprawling to the floor. 'Don't ever look at me that way again' Bonham said as he headed back to the bar to continue his drunken binge.

What possible excuse could there be for this kind of behaviour? That Bonham was drunk? No. Oh but he was a brilliant drummer. No. There simply is no excuse. Bonham was a monster. Not 24-hours a day 7-days a week but like a Jekyll and Hyde character he would turn and subsequently become very dangerous - towards women. In comparison, Led Zeppelin's gun-toting manager Peter Grant and their London gangster security chief John Bindon were practically angels.

It's all here in Stephen Davis' book but it does make you wonder who his sources were? I'd wager he's taken a lot of artistic license but I'd also wager that Richard Cole, Led Zeppelin's tour manager is a major source, particularly of some of the more lascivious tales. The whole book in many ways is one long stag do, so does that mean so too was Led Zeppelin's career? Rather than living fast, dying young and leaving behind a good looking corpse, however, Led Zeppelin grew old. So much so, in fact, that by 1976 they were veritable dinosaurs not helped in any way by the advent of punk rock.

Interestingly, Davis first identifies punk rock upon the horizon through the desolate cityscape of slum housing and tower blocks as depicted on the cover of the Led Zeppelin IV album 'where no doubt the future Clash fans were growing up'. Led Zeppelin were suddenly deemed to be boring old farts, 'reviled for their success, their wealth, their outmoded vulgarity, and for pandering to America. Worst of all, they were called junkies, drugged-out millionaires who had no relationship or rapport with the kids they were playing for'. The light that burns twice as bright burns half as long, however, and punk soon became a burned-out memory of what it might have been. Bought-up, cleaned-up, souped-up, just another cheap product for the consumer's head.

'You've always been my idol', Sex Pistols guitarist Steve Jones is quoted as saying to Jimmy Page and from thereon the nails being hammered into Led Zeppelin's coffin were prised loose and their paedophilia and violence against women forgiven. To such an extent, even, that they would years later be invited to play at Live Aid and also be inducted into the Rock'n'Roll Hall of Fame. But such is life it seems because after all and by all the evidence - it's only rock'n'roll...

John Serpico

Under Exmouth Skies (Part 53)

 UNDER EXMOUTH SKIES (Part 53)

Plain sailing through to dusk...