Get Carter is certainly no holiday brochure advertisement for tourism in the North East of England. Set in Newcastle in the early seventies, the locations featured are interminably drab and insipid, but they helped to weave a thread of realism into a genre renowned for false stereotypes.
Gangster films are often criticised for glamourising the criminal underworld. The same could not be said of Get Carter which sought to expose the dark underbelly of crime. The locations certainly help to achieve this, and put Get Carter in common with Scorsese's Taxi Driver in terms of presenting fiction with an element of social realism.
Although not exactly unrecognisable to modern viewers, it should of course be emphasized that the bleak backdrop of Get Carter is a million miles away from the vibrant city of culture Newcastle-Gateshead has now become. Despite this, many fans still remain interested in the dirty old city portrayed in the film.
Trinity Street Multi-Storey Car Park
Undoubtedly one of the most iconic buildings featured in the film was the monstrous Trinity Street multi-storey car park in Gateshead. It was where Michael Caine, as the brutal and thuggish Jack Carter, threw Cliff Brumby, played by the late Bryan Mosley, to his death.
Brumby had, in earlier scenes in the film, conducted a tour of the car park for Carter, elaborating on his plans to convert the roof top into a restaurant. This had indeed been penciled into the actual developers plans when they built the car park. Their vision had been to construct a practical, modernist building with a top floor cafe offering views across the city. Unfortunately, before it was even completed the ugly 'brutalist' style of architecture had gone completely out of fashion. The cafe failed to attract business tenants and subsequently never opened.
The Demise of the Get Carter Car Park
The car park became famous thanks to its appearance in Get Carter, but was generally thought of as an eyesore by local residents. Other more attractive, covered shopping centres opened up and new bus and metro transport links led to the Get Carter Car Park, as it was known, sliding into disrepair. Despite several noble attempts to revitalise the building, for instance as a modern art gallery space, it eventually became dangerous for purpose, and was closed. The derelict site is currently owned by supermarket giant Tesco, who plan to demolish it and build a new supermarket. Work is underway in the area, traders have been moved on, and the Get Carter car park is expected to be bulldozed in November 2008.
Further Reading: A modern day overview of the best gangster film ever produced can be found here – Classic British Film: Get Carter.
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