Cast
Michael Caine as Jack Carter. Mike Hodges wrote the screenplay with Ian Hendry in mind for Carter, but learned that Michael Klinger had already signed up Caine for the role. With the backing of a major studio, Klinger was keen to secure a big name for the lead, and Caine was very prominent at the time, having starred in Alfie, The Italian Job and The Ipcress File. Hodges was surprised that a star of Caine's stature would want to play such a thoroughly unlikeable person as Carter. Giving his reasons for wanting to be involved with the film, the actor said: "One of the reasons I wanted to make that picture was my background. In English movies, gangsters were either stupid or funny. I wanted to show that they're neither. Gangsters are not stupid, and they're certainly not very funny". He identified with Carter as a memory of his working-class upbringing, having friends and family members who were involved in crime and felt Carter represented a path his life might have taken under different circumstances: "Carter is the dead-end product of my own environment, my childhood; I know him well. He is the ghost of Michael Caine". He made subtle changes to Hodges's depiction of Carter in the script, cut out pleasantries and gave him a cold, hard edge; closer to Lewis's original envisioning of the character. Although he is not credited as such in the film, Caine has been acknowledged in retrospect as a co-producer. By a strange coincidence, Caine's stand-in on the film was a man called Jack Carter.
Ian Hendry as Eric Paice. Hendry had previously been cast by producer Klinger in Roman Polanski's Repulsion, and was Hodges's first choice to play Carter, but by 1970 his career was rapidly declining. Hendry's alcoholism and poor physical condition were apparent on set in Newcastle, and his envy at the success of his contemporary Caine was exacerbated by his drinking. Hodges was concerned that the character's physical exertion at the film's climax may have been too much for Hendry, and so he arranged for it to be the first sequence shot as a precaution, so that he would not have to re-shoot the rest of the film if it were necessary to replace Hendry. Hodges and Caine used his animosity towards Caine to their advantage to create extra tension in the scenes between Carter and Paice.
John Osborne as Cyril Kinnear, Jack's main adversary. Osborne, a famous playwright, was an unusual choice of actor; he was suggested by Hodges's agent. The writer enjoyed the change, and saw it as a way to erase the image in the public's mind of him as an angry young man. Osborne had never played card games before and practised poker before the shoot to lend realism to the gambling scene. Osborne's portrayal was a contrast to the description in Ted Lewis's novel Jack's Return Home of Kinnear as an uncultured, corpulent spiv, giving him an urbane and relaxed demeanour, his delivery being so relaxed and quiet that it was difficult for the sound recordist to pick up, but Hodges liked the "menace in that quietness".
Britt Ekland as Anna. Ekland was cast as the leading lady of the film, as she was a prominent sex symbol of the time and would have already been familiar to US audiences through her work in The Night They Raided Minsky's and Stiletto. Accordingly, her minor role in the film was overemphasised in the publicity. Ekland was afraid of becoming typecast, having already played two gangster's molls before Carter in Stiletto and Machine Gun McCain. She was also reluctant to take the part as she did not want to take her clothes off; however, she had financial problems at the time as a result of bad investment decisions by her accountant. She was later happy that she had been involved with the project.
Bryan Mosley as Cliff Brumby. MGM executives initially wanted Telly Savalas for the part of the "big man", but were impressed by Coronation Street actor Mosley's performance in fight scenes in Far from The Madding Crowd. A devout Roman Catholic, Mosley was concerned about taking part in such a violent film with depictions of criminal behaviour, and consulted his priest over the moral implications.
George Sewell as Con McCarty. Sewell was the man who introduced Barbara Windsor to Charlie Kray. He grew up in working-class Hoxton and had come to acting late when, in 1959, he joined Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop. A well-known face on British television in the 1960s, his sandblasted features and shifty, haunted looks made him ideal for playing villainous characters or hard-bitten detectives. He seemed ideally cast as a London gangster colleague of Carter's. After Carter, Sewell became more known for playing policemen rather than villains.
Tony Beckley as Peter the Dutchman. Lewis depicted Peter as a misogynistic homosexual in his novel; these elements were not emphasised in the film, although the character is flamboyant and camp. Beckley had developed a specialism of playing sadistic criminals, so his part in Carter was somewhat similar to his role of "Camp Freddy" alongside Caine in The Italian Job.
Glynn Edwards as Albert Swift. Like Sewell, Edwards was an apprentice of Joan Littlewood's Theatre Workshop who had come to acting in his 30s. He had previously appeared alongside Caine in Zulu and The Ipcress File. After the film Edwards found work as a character actor and appeared regularly in the TV show Minder.
Alun Armstrong as Keith Lacey. This was Armstrong's screen debut. The themes of Get Carter echo to a certain extent those of Armstrong's better-known role 25 years later in BBC drama Our Friends in the North. He wrote a letter to MGM when he learned it was making the film in Newcastle, and he was invited to meet director Mike Hodges, who wanted to cast local actors.
Bernard Hepton as Thorpe. Bradford-born Hepton was cast by Hodges as Kinnear's nervous messenger.
Petra Markham as Doreen Carter. Petra Markham was a 24-year-old experienced theatre actress when she was asked to play the role of Carter's 16-year-old niece. Her appearance in only four scenes in the film meant she could balance the film work with appearing at the Royal Court and her role in the television series Albert and Victoria. She went on to play the unfortunate Rose Chapman in EastEnders.
Geraldine Moffat as Glenda. Moffatt was an experienced actress who had trained at the Bristol Old Vic Theatre School. She attracted Hodges's attention not just for her good looks, but for her work on Alun Owen's television plays for Half Hour Story (Stella) and Play of Tomorrow (Doreen).
Dorothy White as Margaret. White had a successful career as a television actress and was particularly well known for Z-Cars, but the part of Margaret was her first credited cinematic role (the only other being a part in the 1955 film Touch & Go). She had previously worked with Mike Hodges on the ITV Playhouse installment Suspect.
Rosemarie Dunham as Edna Garfoot, Carter's landlady. Although she had appeared in The Avengers and A Family at War on television, this was Scottish-born Dunham's film debut.
John Bindon as Sid Fletcher. He was the son of a London cab driver who was discovered by Ken Loach in a pub. As a young man Bindon had been in and out of borstal, and spent most of his adult life associating with criminals, so he was ideally suited to play a gangland boss, despite being young, having intimate knowledge of that world. In the late 1970s his career suffered as he became entangled in accusations of protection racketeering in Fulham and was acquitted of murder at the Old Bailey.
Terence Rigby as Gerald Fletcher, one of the London crime boss brothers. Rigby was another actor Hodges cast from his familiarity in television police drama.
Mike Hodges recruited a band of experienced character actors to play the small supporting roles. Godfrey Quigley was cast as Eddie Appleyard, a colleague of Frank Carter's. Kevin Brennan appears as Harry the card-player. Ben Aris, who plays one of the architects, had previously appeared in such films as if...., The Charge of the Light Brigade and Hamlet.
Carl Howard's character of the assassin, "J", is only identified by the initial on his ring, in his only film role, and an appropriate mystery surrounds his real identity. His name does not appear on the credits of some prints. Mike Hodges explained that Howard was an extra in his ITV Playhouse installment Rumour, and the director gave him a line to say, but another extra was wrongly credited. Hodges promised he would make it up to him and cast him in Carter, but his name was missed off some of the original prints. If you look closely, the assassin also appears briefly in the same train compartment as Jack approaches Newcastle. When the film credits were printed in the Radio Times and TV Times, Howard was also trimmed. Hodges said in 2002 that "Carl and credits don't seem destined for each other".
