Why the real Jack Carter hated Michael Caine’s depiction of him in the movie ‘Get Carter’
It’s no secret that many actors draw from real-life experiences when taking on roles; in fact, that would likely be page one in the actor’s handbook. Adding elements of real experience often allows a character to become more layered and believable, no matter how far those characters might be from the personalities of the actors playing them. Michael Caine has played an endlessly broad range of characters over the years, from comic book butlers to cold-blooded killers, virtually all of which were bolstered by elements of his real-life experiences.
Although Caine got his start in film back in the 1950s, it was the 1960s which really established him as one of Britain’s defining screen actors. It was the decade that brought him iconic roles like Zulu, Alfie, and The Italian Job. Inevitably, these films led Caine to be offered a much wider range of roles than might be afforded to a lesser actor. In 1971, for instance, he appeared as the vengeful gangster assassin Jack Carter in the classic crime flick Get Carter.
Based on the novel Jack’s Return Home by Ted Lewis, the film follows the tale of Carter returning to his hometown of Newcastle from London to avenge the mysterious death of his brother. In many ways, the film is a classic story of gangland revenge, and Caine plays the titular character with effortless grace and sophistication. In order to take on the character of this hardened criminal, however, the actor had to find a real-world character to incorporate into his performance.
Reportedly, Caine’s beloved performance as Jack Carter was rooted in his experiences rubbing shoulders with mysterious characters in London’s underbelly. Speaking at an event hosted by The Telegraph in 2018, the actor shared, “I based it on a man I knew at the Elephant and Castle.”
Continuing, Caine remembered, “He’d never been charged with murder – but he killed about 11 people.” Similarly, Jack Carter ruthlessly murders various people while investigating and avenging the death of his brother, even throwing one from the top of a multi-storey car park, in one of the film’s most memorable moments.
Unsurprisingly, Caine never outright told this murderer that his character traits had been used in a successful feature film. However, he was once given the chance to find out the killer’s thoughts on his performance. “I was in a discotheque one night, and I saw him there,” Caine recalled. “He came over to me and said, ‘I saw that film of yours, Get Carter.’ I said, ‘What did you think?’ He said, ‘Biggest load of crap I’ve seen in my life.’”
By anyone’s standards, Get Carter is a masterclass of a film. Perfectly capturing the gritty gang violence of 1960s Newcastle and featuring a particularly commendable performance from Caine, the film still goes down as one of his all-time greatest roles. Perhaps the real-life killer was simply too jaded by his own life of crime to find the tale of revenge as gripping as ordinary audience members.
Either way, the mysterious man from Elephant and Castle did not seem to hold anything against Caine, as he lived to star in a plethora of films in the years and decade following the release of Get Carter. Over five decades after its original release back in 1971, the film still remains a firm fan favourite among Caine’s incredible filmography, beloved by all except the very person that his performance was based upon.
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