RARA-AVIS: Get Carter

Mark Sullivan (ANONYMEINC@webtv.net)
Thu, 25 Mar 1999 23:59:03 -0500 (EST) I saw the movie Get Carter long before I read the book. I saw it
several times, albeit in a taped in the middle of the night, full of
commercials for 900 numbers version. When I eventually found the book
(with the movie tie-in cover) I was very impressed. That was a long
time ago. In the interim, I've read several other Lewis books (let me
repeat, get GBH).

When Get Carter came up for discussion, I ordered a copy of the movie; I
wanted to see if I had missed anything in the TV version. This time,
however, I decided to read the book first. And while I can't help
picturing Michael Caine as Jack Carter, I must say the book holds up
very well. If you haven't read it yet, Bill, you should enjoy it. It
is of the man comes into the town of his youth and tries to clean it up
sub-genre. Of course, the twist is Jack Carter is a bad guy himself.
So Ted Lewis masterfully manages to have it both ways. Just like the
frontiersmen in westerns, he has the skills of the bad guys, after all
he is one himself. You've gotta love the scene where he walks two
gunmen out of the house wearing nothing but a shotgun. So this bad guy
manages to take the high ground, while knowing every rock to look under.
Not even Jack, himself, is unaware of the irony of this, that if it had
been anyone but his brother who was killed, or SPOILER ALERT anyone but
his niece who had made the porno film, it could have been Jack himself
doing the killing or the pulling. As it is, he is the outsider who
comes in and tilts the fine balance of the town, just like Red Harvest
or Yojimbo (along with its two remakes, Fistfull of Dollars and Last Man
Standing).

I'm looking forward to watching the movie again. Didn't someone
recently say Get Carer was being remade by Steven Soderbergh? I
couldn't find any info from imdb.com, which does list a couple of his
upcoming projects. Does anyone have confirmation of this?

Mark

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