A restored 4k version of Geordie crime drama Get Carter is to be screened at Tyneside Cinema just days after the death of its director Mike Hodges.
The Newcastle cinema will be showing an enhanced version of the 1971 film on January 5 which is a chance to see the classic film in peak condition. The remastered version with better sound and picture quality - made possible by a partnership between The British Film Institute and Warner Bros - made its debut last year and the Tyneside decided to host the special afternoon screening as part of its 'best of 2022 season'.
And it is now set to prove a fitting tribute to Hodges who died on December 19 at the age of 90. At the time Tyneside Cinema also paid tribute on its Facebook page calling Hodges a "prolific, trailblazing director of film, theatre and television" and referring to Get Carter as a "timeless favourite" at the cinema.
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The iconic film, starring Michael Caine as Jack Carter, was actually Hodges' first. He shot it around the North East over just 40 days in 1970. The story of a London hardman out to discover the truth about his brother's death, was based upon Jack’s Return Home, a novel by Ted Lewis which had been inspired the infamous 1967 one-arm bandit case.
This case involved two London gangsters who were convicted of killing a business associate in Newcastle over a row about siphoning off cash from nightclub fruit machines. Although the book was vague about location, Hodges, also the film's scriptwriter, decided the North East was the ideal place to set it.
In an interview with the Chronicle some years ago, he told how he had visited the region during his National Service and thought that the locations he remembered would make a perfect backdrop. And he was proved right.
Caine, a newly-established star at the time, is seen travelling north by train and arriving in Newcastle at the start in the film where local back lanes, terraced houses, pubs and clubs help make for memorable scenes as he is immersed in a murky tale of corruption, porn, drugs and murder.
Local actor Alun Armstrong made his screen debut in Get Carter, joining names such as Ian Hendry, Britt Ekland and John Osborne, who played Northern crime boss Kinnear, and the result - which made Hodges just £7,000 - was a classic of the genre, which Quentin Tarantino apparently described as "the greatest British gangster film ever".
The 4k version of Get Carter will be showing on the Roxy screen at Tyneside Cinema on January 5 at 3.10pm . To book tickets see here.
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