Noirvember: Get Carter (1971)

Written and directed by Mike Hodges, based on a book by Ted Lewis, Get Carter is a cool and gritty gangster movie that features arguably the most iconic performance of Michael Caine’s career, couched in a film that easily jostles for a top spot when discussing landmarks of British cinema.

Caine plays Jack Carter, a London gangster who heads up to Newcastle to investigate the sudden death of his brother. There are a number of people who don’t want him poking around in their business, including the menacing Eric (Ian Hendry), but that just makes Carter more determined to find out the truth about the death of his brother. His instincts are right, but more people start to try and send him back to London, at the very least, as he gets ever closer to something very unpleasant. There seems to be a reckoning on the way, but who will be left at the end of it?

Get Carter is one of those films that always impresses, however many times you watch it. If you have never seen it, please do so immediately. If you haven’t watched it in a while, please treat yourself to a revisit. It is just one of those classics that has everything mixed together perfectly in a way you could never replicate nowadays (just ask Sylvester Stallone, although I am sneerily dismissing his remake without having actually seen it yet). The atmosphere, the landscape of Newcastle at that time (dominating the narrative as much as any of the main characters), Caine being cool and ruthless, the supporting players, the Roy Budd score, every technical aspect, and the script and direction from Hodges. This is a perfect film, and even the scenes that aren’t necessarily needed to push the story along provide moments and images worthy of your time.

It’s also worth noting, although I am not entirely sure how to put this, that Get Carter wins a prize for being the most sustained selection of unsexiest sexy exchanges, whether it is a naughty phone conversation that creates a triangle of Caine, Britt Ekland, and Rosemarie Dunham, the aftershock of an encounter between Caine and Geraldine Moffat, or even the oft-depicted image of Caine striding nakedly out of a house while he keeps a shotgun pointed at some ill-prepared henchmen. Everything has a frisson to it, but also a layer of grime and nastiness, and it adds to an overall sense of the film being very much a one-off.  

Saying Caine is great in the lead role is like saying water is wet. It’s a given. This IS the role he feels born to play. Which is unlucky for Hendry, who was also in the running for the lead, but makes the bitterness between them all the more palpable. The aforementioned Dunham is excellent, Ekland and Moffat bring a touch of glamour to the whole thing, no matter how fleeting their screentime, and there are excellent performances from Alun Armstrong, Bryan Mosley, and John Osborne, to name just a few standouts.

This and The Long Good Friday remain the peak of British crime movies. They have moments that are cool, that are incredibly cinematic and memorable, but they also focus on the cruelty, showing how the main characters are shaped as much by the events and people around them as they are by their self-created position of power. These are the films that everyone should watch, that entertain even as they look at the morality of things from all angles. And it’s why many film fans become upset when something like Rise Of The Footsoldier 7: Footsoldiers Go Footballing In Ibiza becomes the latest British crime film that casual viewers rate as a great night in. I implore you not to check out any of those films until you have seen this.

10/10

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Theatre Of Blood (1973)

Vincent Price stars as a wronged Shakespearean actor, named Edward Kendal Sheridan Lionheart, in this comedic horror that brilliantly heaps the macabre upon the macabre with every subsequent sequence, and also allows Price to portray a number of roles from many of those classic Shakespeare plays.

It all starts with the death of a critic, a single murder that the police investigate with little idea of the motive. When other critics start to die, however, it quickly becomes clear that all of the people have something in common. They all have their own little clique, and they've all greatly upset (to say the least) an actor they thought had died some time ago. But Lionheart isn't dead, and his flair for the theatrical means that those critics are going to help him realise perhaps his greatest repertory season yet.

Directed by Douglas Hickox, Theatre Of Blood benefits enormously from the fun script by Anthony Greville-Bell and the magnificence of such a great ensemble cast. That's not to take anything away from Hickox, who shows such great judgment in the way he treats the material, leading viewers deeper and deeper into territory that becomes surprisingly unpleasant in tone while also making it all just bearable enough to amuse and horrify in equal measure.

Price is the star of the show, and oh how he shines. He gets to recite many famous lines, dress up as a variety of characters, and simply revel in the inspired lunacy of his character in a way that's infectious whenever he appears onscreen. Diana Rigg is lovely and suspicious in the role of his daughter, a woman who resents all those who she thinks drove her father to his death. And Milo O'Shea and Eric Sykes are both enjoyable enough as two of the main police officers trying to stop more brutal murders on their patch. But it's in the casting of the critics that the film gains more bonus points. Michael Hordern, Robert Morley, Arthur Lowe, Coral Browne, Jack Hawkins, Dennis Price, Harry Andrews, Robert Coote and Ian Hendry all prove to be great entertainment, portraying a bunch of smug, nasty critics who don't seem entirely undeserving of their fates. Hendry is the man who pieces everything together, and helps the police to see just what's going on, but everyone gets at least one great scene apiece.

Price considered this film a personal favourite and it's not hard to see why. He always wanted to stretch his wings a bit more, but was so solidly typecast in the prime of his career that it wasn't to be. This film allowed him to stay within the genre that had won him such a loyal army of fans, while also letting him deliver so many great speeches that he would otherwise not had the chance to perform onscreen. It's a win win situation for the star and his fans, making this a film that you won't want to miss.

9/10

This is the disc I recommend purchasing - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Theatre-Blood-Blu-ray-Vincent-Price/dp/B00IJE1QU2/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1411828432&sr=1-1&keywords=theatre+of+blood

Tales From The Crypt (1972).

It’s an anthology horror movie from Amicus (contrary to popular belief the studio DID make other types of movies  but they will forever be tied to their portmanteau legacy) and based, of course, on the popular E.C comics of yesteryear. As well as Tales From The Crypt, the movie also takes some story ideas from The Vault Of Horror, another popular title, but I couldn’t tell you which story comes from which source as I am far from an expert in comic books.

What I can tell you is that Freddie Francis once again directs from a screenplay by Milton Subotsky, as was the case with Dr. Terror’s House Of Horrors, and the results are almost as enjoyable.

The framing story concerns a number of people who get lost while wandering around a crypt area, funnily enough, but the fun is to be had in the separate, twisted tales that The Crypt Keeper (Ralph Richardson) reveals.
Story 1 – Joan Collins plays a nasty woman who bumps off her hubby on Christmas Eve but then finds herself trapped and unable to call the police when a madman dressed as Santa comes prowling around the house.
Story 2 – Ian Hendry plays a husband about to secretly leave his wife and kids until fate intervenes.
Story 3 – The ever-brilliant Peter Cushing plays an old man who upsets his affluent neighbours by not selling up his house, looking after a number of noisy dogs and being loved by the local children for the re-conditioned toys that he gives out to them. The affluent neighbour plans to spoil everything for the old man but things, inevitably, go too far.
Story 4 – A fun, knowing take on the classic horror tale, “The Monkey’s Paw”, that revolves around a husband and wife who may have found a way to make wishes come true.
Story 5 – Last, but by no means least, is the tale of Maj. William Rogers (Nigel Patrick), a man who becomes the head honcho at a care facility for the blind and who ends up causing so much upset that the residents (led by Patrick Magee) plan a particularly nasty bit of revenge.

Tales From The Crypt is one of the better anthology movies from this period thanks to it’s decent cast, the choice of tales and the fact that five stories are crammed into it’s 90-odd minute runtime so you’re never far away from either an enjoyable set-up or gleefully nasty punchline. The script and direction are acceptable, if unspectacular, but the main plus point here is in the delight the film takes in it’s own nastiness. This is a horror anthology movie a step or two ahead of the more austere entries in the subgenre and anyone meeting a sticky end meets a very sticky end indeed. Which makes for a lot of fun.

7/10. 

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