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