A FAMILY home known to millions of film fans as a macabre murder mansion is up for sale at a price of £1.75m.

More than 30 years after it was the backcloth to some of the most dramatic scenes in the 1971 cult movie Get Carter, Dryderdale Hall, near Hamsterley, is about to start a new chapter in its colourful history.

In the film, the Grade II listed house was where two of the biggest stars of the 1970s clashed on screen. As the film's hero, Jack Carter, Michael Caine travelled from Newcastle to the house to take his revenge on his brother's killer Cyril Kinnair, a seedy gang boss played by John Osborne.

Dryderdale was the setting for a wild party. Carter confronted Kinnair during a card game in the lounge, the body of a woman was dragged from a pond in the grounds and police descended on the house to arrest Kinnair and his henchmen.

During the Get Carter era, Dryderdale was owned by Vince Landa, a flamboyant fruit machine tycoon with his own underworld connections.

Ravaged by fire a few years later, it was eventually restored to the baronial grandeur envisaged by original architect Alfred Waterhouse when he built it for the wealthy Backhouse banking family of Darlington in 1872. Waterhouse also designed the Natural History Museum.

The present owners, Michael and Dot Morley, who took over in 1991, have found it the perfect family home. They are selling up to move to a smaller property as the six bedrooms and 20 acres of woodlands, parkland and gardens are too much for their needs.

The couple hope they will find another family to move in, and do not imagine whoever buys their home will necessarily be a Get Carter fan.

Mrs Morley said: "I won't watch the film. It is too violent, and what it showed is nothing like the house we know. It is a very peaceful place and we love it. It is large but it is still a comfortable family home.

"The layout has not changed very much since the film was made, but other things are different because of the fire. It will be very hard to leave when the time comes."

Estate Agent Gordon Carver, of Nick and Gordon Carver Residential, believes the house will attract national and international interest.

Gordon Carver said: "Properties like Dryderdale Hall rarely come on to the market and I would expect strong interest from both the national and international marketplace.

"The market for country houses with land is still relatively buoyant and appears to be unaffected by the reported credit crunch."