Let it bleed: Get Carter is dark rock and roll

If you're paying attention (or just have eyes) you get to see this glimpse of the Rolling Stones' Let It Bleed album cover about two-thirds of the way through Mike Hodges' much-praised film Get Carter, which your humble correspondent has just rewatched. Yeah man, anything to try to pick up a few tips on how to acquire some Michael Caine hardman cool (you're a big man, but you're in bad shape etc). 

All mod cons: Glenda's flat, complete with the latest sounds

The album's only there as set dressing, really, you don't get to hear a blast of Gimme Shelter or You Can't Always Get What You Want. Then again, watching the film after many years it's surprising to me how "swinging sixties" Get Carter actually is. Sort of. It's also chock-a-block with casual 60s sexism, the dark underside to a supposedly swinging decade. But yes, there's a certain understated zing to Get Carter. Everyone remembers the dour Newcastle setting - old-fashioned pubs, betting shops, bingo halls, back-to-back terraces, the bleak County Durham coastline with coal waste being tipped into a grey sea - but there's quite a bit of hip modern stuff as well. The woman in bed with Caine in this shot is Glenda, a racy "gangster's moll" who's got the then-pretty-new 1969 Stones LP in her stylish new-build flat. The film, released in early 1971, was shot in mid-1970. The set designers for this scene must have thought, "OK, what's a pretty cool new record we can put by the side of the bed in this?" Looking closely, I also noticed there's a record actually spinning on the turntable during this scene but you don't get to hear what it is - the Stones with the volume turned right down? It appears to have a deep-blue label so, as any self-respecting Stones head would probably tell you, it's quite possibly the stereo version of Let It Bleed that Decca released in (I think) late 1969/early 1970. Meanwhile there are frequent shots of women in mini-skirts and knee-length boots in the film, plus partying features quite prominently - not just a crooner in an old man's boozer (which we also get, a bawdy scene ending in a full-on, rolling-around-on-the-floor brawl), but also two large and rather chaotic parties in big sprawling houses. There's also that obligatory 60s film staple - a shot of a big high street dance hall full of jiving youngsters (think Billy Liar and Twisterella but here a bit more revved-up). It's not louche hippy-fied Stones stuff, more a boozy semi-wildness where the men still dress in suits but the women look fairly striking and people are getting down to 60s pop music. Altogether it's pretty happening, albeit that much of the look and feel of the Newcastle locations is predominantly one of old-industry grime, with cinematographer Wolfgang Suschitzky's background in documentary a major factor. But still, it's not exactly flat caps, roll-ups and whippets either. For example, there's the London gangster "Peter the Dutchman" (played by Tony Beckley) with his long tan leather coat and peroxide-blond hair, looks-wise a sort of refugee from Performance. And, best of all, the excellent Ian Hendry as slippery chauffeur-crim Eric Paice, with his silky voice and perma-shades. Is the sun that dazzling in Newcastle? Caine's character acidly asks Eric whether he's appearing in a Martini advert, but he looks more like he's trying to get himself hired by a local rock band - maybe Roxy Music?

Ian Hendry paints it black in every scene  

So yeah, though it's mostly known - music-wise - for its Roy Budd minimo-jazz soundtrack (especially the excellent train journey scene early on), it's evident that Get Carter is also a distinctly sixties-influenced film and a sort of gritty neo-realist counterpart to Donald Cammell and Nicolas Roeg's Performance, another film about a London gangster being hunted down by his own gang. Of course we don't get to see Mick Jagger doing his freaky burnt-out rock star turn in a druggy Notting Hill basement, but we still get some canny Rolling Stones product placement. Never mind overweight Coronation Street actors getting thrown off multi-storey car parks, the extremely dark (if convoluted) story at the heart of Get Carter is of teenagers being raped in home-made sex films. As Jagger sings in Gimme Shelter, Rape, murder / It's just a shot away / It's just a shot away, yeah ...