Carter's Car Park (Get Carter)

• 
• 
• 

Photo by flickr user Gee Bee

Get Carter (Dir: Mike Hodges, 1971).

Gateshead Car Park, Trinity Square, Tyne and Wear, England.

This grim film’s locations are equally grim, dirty, 70’s northern England staples. Dingy pubs, grey beaches, moldering B and Bs, greasy greasy spoons and of course the crumbling concrete monolith, the car park tower block. Over the last ten years most of these locations have been regenerated, but the few that have survived are worth visiting because they really give you a feel of what the north must have been like for Jack Carter and his brother. The West Road Crematorium on Silverhill Drive, where Jack’s brother was buried has endured (as most graveyards and crematoriums do), as have Newcastle’s bridges, the Swing Bridge walkway is where Jack meets Margaret. But the best place to re-visit this film has to be the Gateshead Car Park where Jack meets Brumby who is planning to build a restaurant on the top level and Jack ends up throwing him off (the top level). In the film they’re already talking about demolishing this great ugly concrete lump, but it’s still here and definitely worth a pilgrimage (they‘ll knock it down eventually but it‘s probably the most famous building in Gateshead.). This is one of my favourite films and it was one of my first film pilgrimages, so if you haven’t seen it watch it then go to Gateshead and see what you think.

Written by  Film Fan.

Comments, reviews and questions by other travellers

There are no posts. Why not be the first to have your say?