YMMV / Get Carter (1971)

• Adaptation Displacement: This was based upon the novel Jack's Return Home by Ted Lewis. Not a lot of people know that.
• Awesome Music: Many bands have covered the title music ("Carter Takes a Train") including The Human League.
• Fridge Brilliance: Watch Carter's train journey again. If you look, you'll see the assassin, who is none other than J himself, suggesting that Carter was being tracked right from the start.
• Harsher in Hindsight: Carter extracts his revenge on Eric by Force Feeding him whiskey. In Real Life, Ian Hendry had a drinking problem that not only cost him the role of Jack Carter, but contributed to his premature death at 53.
• Memetic Mutation: Apparently, barmen in Newcastle got sick of being asked for drinks "In a thin glass".
• Moral Event Horizon: When Carter kills Margaret, though she was hardly an innocent victim.
• Narm: When Carter whispers, "I fancy you." during the phone sex scene.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Alun Armstrong makes his film debut.
  • An architect is played by Ben Aris, who would later be best known for playing Julian Dalrymple-Sykes in Hi-de-Hi!.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • One of the most dating parts of the film is the porn movie: it is on film, silent, in black-and-white, and Carter watches it on a clattering projector. VHS reached the UK in 1978, less than ten years after the film's release.
  • Names go in and out of fashion. Names like Doreen and Glenda were reasonable names for young women to have in 1970, but five decades on, they are old lady names.
• Vindicated by History: In the UK, the film got mediocre reviews but did pretty well financially. In the US, it got better reviews but was poorly marketed and didn't do much business. It took a couple of decades before its reputation started to build, and today it's regarded as one of the best British films of all time.
• The Woobie: Keith. The lad is dragged into unwittingly helping Jack with his sordid schemes and is badly beaten for his trouble. The poor lad spends the next day in bed with his face bloody and to make matters worse, his girlfriend is coming that evening from Liverpool. Jack doesn't show Keith much sympathy which makes the viewer feel even more sorry for the guy.

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