During the making of Get Carter, one young man found himself among real-life gangsters, as DAVID WHETSTONE learns from film-maker and writer Tony Klinger

LOTS of things have been written and said about Get Carter – widely regarded as one of the best British gangster films – but few can rival Tony Klinger’s inside knowledge.

Tony’s dad, Michael, was the producer of the film, having sent the novel Jack’s Return Home, by Ted Lewis, to director Mike Hodges, asking if would be interested in making a movie out of it.

Hodges’ direction, the masterful performance by Michael Caine in the starring role and a gloriously hard-bitten and drab North East backdrop contributed to the enduring – even escalating – appeal of Get Carter.

“I was there when we found the director and when we cast Michael Caine and I was in Newcastle for some of the filming, although I was making my own film at the same time and I was supposed to be in Glasgow,” says Tony Klinger.

A man whose own ideas and enthusiasms burst forth in an amiable torrent, he describes the making of Get Garter as “like kismet”, which is to say fate played a hand.

As an example he cites one of the earliest scenes when Jack Carter, played by Caine, is seen in London, drinking with sinister colleagues in a residence positively dripping with gangster chic.

Here Carter outlines his plan to return to Newcastle to avenge the death of his brother.

Great set, you might think, imagining the reek of whisky, cigars and other ill-gotten gains, and imagining what the walls could tell you if walls had ears.

That, reveals Tony Klinger, was no film set. Like the now demolished multi-storey car park in Gateshead, another Get Carter location, it was a slice of real life.

“I was dating an American girl in London at the time. I suppose I was about 19 or 20. She said, ‘Do you want to come back to the flat I’m staying at?’

“I went back to this flat near Lancaster Gate and it was just as you see it in the film. The girl’s uncle was a big time gangster and I knew it would be perfect for the film. We wouldn’t need to change a thing. I said, ‘My dad’s looking for a flat’.”

A deal was struck between Michael Klinger and the girl’s uncle.

As Tony remembers: “All he wanted was to have dinner with Michael Caine and a picture taken of them together.

“I think everyone takes it for granted that the scene was shot in a studio set but I can assure you it wasn’t.”

It ended in tears as far as Tony Klinger was concerned. His girlfriend’s gangster uncle, deciding he enjoyed the buzz of the movie business, offered to finance Tony’s own next film.

His first had cost £2,000. Tony and his partner, still a little green and not really knowing much about film finance, plucked a projected budget of £35,000 out of the air.

His would-be benefactor, perhaps knowing even less about film finance, was unfazed. “He said, ‘OK. Will it be less if I give you cash?’ I didn’t know what he meant so I said, ‘No, it’ll cost just the same’.