David Parkin on a big movie in good shape

HAPPY Birthday Jack Carter.

I’m not sure that the brutal, vengeful central character from one of the grittiest British gangster films ever made would take kindly to be wished many happy returns of the day.

I read the other day that Mike Hodges’ classic crime film starring Michael Caine is 50 years old this year.

It was actually released in March 1971 and so I’m a bit late with my well wishes.

I remember first watching it in the 1980s on a family half term break. My Dad allowed me to stay up to see its bloody conclusion.

I’ve watched it countless times since and, like all great movies, I see something new every time.

It is a simple enough plot.

A London gangster returns to his native Newcastle to investigate the suspicious death of his brother.

Director Mike Hodges had previously made documentaries for World in Action and captures the sights and sounds of early 1970s Newcastle quite brilliantly.

The smoke-filled pubs, greasy spoon cafes, marching bands and outside privies are as memorable to me as the earthy cast of British character actors including Glynn Edwards (Dave from the Winchester Club in Minder) and a rare film appearance by brilliant playwright John Osborne.

Many remember the scene where Michael Caine throws businessman-gangster Cliff Brumby off the top of a multi-storey car park.

Brumby was played by Brian Mosley who became best known for his role as grocer Alf Roberts in soap opera Coronation Street for almost 40 years.

Here’s something you might not know which I discovered while researching a press release for a recent property deal.

Bryan Mosley was born in Leeds in 1931 and attended the City of Leeds School on Woodhouse Lane opposite what is now the Merrion Centre.

One of his fellow pupils at the school was Sir Edwin Airey whose company built tens of thousands of prefabricated houses in Britain after the Second World War.

This information probably isn’t relevant to my story, but at least it means it hasn’t just been buried in an unused press release.

I remember on my first visit to Newcastle being as impressed by seeing the car park standing across the river in Gateshead as I was Newcastle United’s St James’ Park towering above the city.

I later wrote about the car park when it was listed for demolition in the early 2000s.

There was a huge project to regenerate Gateshead and the car park was one of many old buildings that were to be cleared.

Fans of Get Carter were understandably up in arms that one of the iconic buildings from the film was due for demolition.

They started a campaign to save the car park and one of those who lent his support was Hollywood actor Sylvester Stallone who had starred in a risible remake of Get Carter.

One of the property companies involved in the redevelopment was Leeds-based Evans Property Group and I wrote a light-hearted diary piece on the back page of the Yorkshire Post’s business section describing Evans managing director John Bell as the toughest man in Yorkshire.

Well, not only was he taking on Jack Carter but also Rocky and Rambo.

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YOU’LL have read, listened to and watched enough already about the investigation into the BBC interview with Princess Diana so I’m not going to add my opinion to it.

What I will say is that I’ve always been puzzled by Martin Bashir, the unknown reporter catapulted to fame when he conducted the Panorama interview with the Princess.

Bashir later went on to do a TV interview with the late pop superstar Michael Jackson and gained lucrative jobs with US news networks.

He appeared as one of the speakers at Mike Firth’s Yorkshire International Business Convention some years ago.

The audience of 1,500 senior business leaders waited in anticipation for the journalist to tell them about his experiences interviewing two of the most iconic figures of our times.

Instead he came on stage and gave some cod-motivational speech and ended it reading extracts from now-disgraced drug cheat cyclist Lance Armstrong’s autobiography.

It was quite bizarre.

Did Bashir really think that we were all there to listen to him recount his own career experiences or to inspire us with the words and achievements of others?

Clearly he thought it was the latter.

Or perhaps by that point had he simply decided that he should no longer be capitalising on the interview that made his name?

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HAVE you been inside a restaurant yet?

I’ve been in two already this week and I can’t tell you how excited I was.

It is a far cry from the days when I would spend so much time in such establishments that I’d be relieved to get out of them.

How times change.

On Monday evening I was at the Dakota Hotel’s grill restaurant for a film club I’m part of.

Six of us gather every month (lockdown permitting) to have dinner, a glass of wine or two and watch a film chosen by one of the group.

This week PR guru (I call anyone in public relations a guru if they can get journalists to use their press releases) Nathan Lane chose an Alfred Hitchcock film made in London in 1972 about a serial killer who strangles women using his own ties.

It was a well made movie with glimpses of old London such as the Covent Garden fruit market and showed that ‘Hitch’ hadn’t lost the skills that made him one of Hollywood’s most celebrated directors, even though this was made years after his heyday.

I gave the film a mark of eight-and-a-half out of 10.

The high mark wasn’t so much for the elaborate plot or fine acting as the killer’s sharp tailoring and lustrous silk and wool ties.

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IF you’d have asked me where I would need to scan in, have my temperature taken and be escorted by staff I’d have said probably the Kremlin in Moscow, not Restaurant Bar & Grill in Leeds.

But that is the reality of life if you want to socialise these days and it isn’t a huge price to pay to protect other people’s safety and health.

It was worth it to catch up with Richard Bright of entrepreneurial Leeds accountancy firm Murray Harcourt.

Having recovered after catching Covid at the start of the year, Richard has been busy on a variety of projects for a wide range of growing companies.

Before we went for lunch I met Richard at the firm’s impressive offices in Queen Street and I asked after his colleague, veteran accountant Colin Glass, who I have known for many years and who helped me when I launched TheBusinessDesk.com.

Anyone who knows Colin knows what a ferociously energetic networker he is.

I said I imagined that lockdown had put paid to Colin’s business networking escapades.

But I’m pleased to report that he is fully Zoomed up and cutting a swathe through the online world of building business contacts.

Over lunch Richard and I reminisced about the days of long business lunches in La Grillade with white, rose and red wine, flame-grilled steaks and a trolley groaning with cheeses.

In the winter months you could go for lunch at the basement establishment in Wellington Street run by patron Guy Martin-Laval and often emerge after dark.

To be honest, I think I did that a few times in a summer as well.

Those were the days, we agreed, as we finished our salads, drained our sparkling waters and went back to work.

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DURING a brief trip to Manchester last week I was shocked at how many empty shops there were on King Street, the city’s premier retail strasse.

Let’s hope for a positive bounceback after a year like no other, retail, hospitality and the economy needs a real shot in the arm.

In Leeds this week I was pleasantly surprised to see evidence of some new hospitality venues which have recently opened.

The Mowgli Indian street food restaurant is now on Boar Lane and looks a smart addition to the city’s dining attractions.

Down the road I saw a new bar named The Banker’s Cat.

It is certainly an unusual name.

I wonder if it is an innuendo?

But then again I don’t think it can be because I can’t think of a rude word that rhymes with banker or another word for cat that might be offensive.

Have a great weekend.

 

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