TCM Pick O’ The Day: Sunday, January 11th
by John Nolte
1pm PST – Alfie (1966) – A British womanizer refuses to grow up until tragedy strikes. Cast: Michael Caine , Julia Foster , Millicent Martin , Shelley Winters Dir: Lewis Gilbert C-114 mins, TV-14
Jude Law’s painful 2004 remake didn’t fail because, well, remakes usually do, it failed because present-day Hollywood wasn’t about to “remake” what makes the original so timeless. Michael Caine’s Alfie is practically a platinum cardholder in The Club Of Social Conservatism.
Produced in 1966, just as the swinging sexual revolution was getting under way (especially in London), Caine’s Alfie was a sign of the times - a reckless libertine ready to bed any woman willing, including the wife of a sick man he meets during a stay in the hospital. Consequences be damned, Alfie charms, cheats, lies and breaks hearts because this is how he defines himself and measures his self-worth.
At first there’s a vicarious thrill in watching our working class bloke make his way through “the birds,” but before long it becomes clear that what we’re really witnessing is a pathetic, hollow man whose relentless pursuit of self-indulgence is doing nearly as much emotional damage to himself as to his conquests. Eventually, as the tragic fallout of his lifestyle piles up, Alfie has a very real and consequential moral awakening. And it all begins with what James Bowman calls ‘one of the great moments in cinematic history:’
…the scene in which Michael Caine breaks down on seeing the dead fetus an abortionist (Denholm Elliott) has left in his kitchen. Lewis Gilbert’s film version of Bill Naughton’s play allowed us to watch as this jaunty Lothario who’s got it all figured out suddenly and unexpectedly acquired a conscience. Afterwards, Caine’s Alfie treats his emotional lapse as a curiosity. “I don’t know what I was expecting to see,” he says to the camera; “certainly not this perfectly formed being.” He “expected it to cry out. It didn’t of course; it couldn’t have done. Still, it must have had some life.” And then there comes, like “praying or something,” his moment of insight when an “it” becomes a “him”: “‘You know what you done?’ I says to myself. ‘You murdered him.’”
Obviously, Big Hollywood’s 2004 incarnation refuses to go anywhere near this or to even criticize reckless sexual behavior. Instead, Jude Law’s Alfie has a very special awakening about the importance of friendship.
And the movie flopped because the movie’s meaningless.
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21 Comments
Great insight into a great movie.
Anyone who hasn’t seen the real ALFIE, curl up in front of the flat screen and view as a double feature with its almost contemporary GEORGY GIRL.
You’ll see a magnificent Charlotte Rampling give us the female Alfie.
If you want to complete the trio of 1960s swinging London movies, throw in the beguiling BLOW UP to finish the trilogy.
The Sonny Rollins score is tops. Also note that in the credits the abortionist is also called “abortionist.” Amazing!
As I recall, being 11 years old at the time, the Catholic Church condemned the film. Years later, when I did see it, I thought that this should be required viewing in Sex Ed classes. It shows the horror of abortion and the emptiness of the sexual revolution.
A bit of the old DHP is necessary from time to time to ward off withdrawal symptoms. Will this be a regular Sunday feature?
I treasure these rare moments of complete cinematic accord. Excellent post DH. This movie is all you said, and it remains one of Caine’s best performances. If I ever had the chance to interview the great man, I would like to ask him for his thoughts about this movie’s intense morality, since like most good-looking, successful actors in London at the time he was swingin’ along with the rest. He was living with Terence Stamp in a flat and tried to persuade Stamp to accept the title role in Alfie, but didn’t succeed. Caine says he still has nightmares where Stamp takes his advice.
And I also agree with Jack Bauer, it would make an interesting double feature with Georgy Girl. But I think that, rather than Blow-Up (although that movie also brings up the consequences of reckless hedonism) I might throw in “Poor Cow” for the triple.
I haven’t seen the remake, but I suspect any softening up of the moral consequences of Alfie’s womanizing would indeed rip the guts out of the story.
I’m of the mid-twenties generation that saw the trailers for Jude Law’s Alfie in 2004 and thought hey, maybe there’s something decent there. Even if it’s just a guy realizing that sleeping around is crappy behavior.
I didn’t even know Caine’s version existed, and haven’t heard anything about the abortion scene until I just now read this article. I’m sure that has something to do with an intense effort by cinema buffs to deny the existence of this film.
My respect for Michael Caine was grand before, but this…this puts it through the roof. I’m going to track this movie down.
Thanks BH.
campase — interesting out-take…
The 2002 (?) Caifornia set flick THE LIMEY starring Terence Stamp was made partly with flashbacks to him as a younger version of his character, and they used scenes from POOR COW!
Campase:
Welcome to BH and thank you for the comment — but even more so, thank you for the “Poor Cow” reference!
Graham:
I think that like The Dark Knight, Alfie crept up on leftist critics and they discovered oops! this is illiberal! before they could pull their good reviews. Now they just refuse to talk about it.
After Gene Hackman retired all my delegates went to Michael Caine. I have no idea what I’m going to do when Caine retires. Maybe he’ll live forever. I’m praying.
Of course 33 years later Caine would play an abortionist in The Cider House Rules.
I think that was enough for the liberals to forgive him for Alfie.
I’ve found that many movies in the 60s had more depth than modern pieces, and it didn’t matter what genre. Dramas, Thrillers, Westerns, Horror, all had more “layers” and most can stand the test of time better than any “important” movie from the 80s on. I always blamed a shift in what we considered artful with the rise of post-modern academics, but as I get older I see more and more that this shift from movies as art to movies as media meant to reinforce ideas is a purposeful suppression of art by political hacks.
If you think modern movies are bad you should see passes for poetry nowadays.
I used “Alfie” and “La Dolce Vita” in a class I taught on the Sixties a few years ago and we had fascinating discussions following both movies with many students coming away, I think, with quite a different perspective than what they had before they saw the movies. Caine, like Marcello Mastroianni in La Dolce Vita, gave an exquisite performance of an essentially morally and spiritually bankrupt and empty individual with both movies reflecting very well the downside of the free for all sixties.
A powerful film and a powerful actor.
Well put, John. I am looking forward to your review of “San Pedro,” a conservative indie classic directed by Jason Apuzzo and starring Govindini Murty as the positive immigrant maid.
Obviously, I need to finally see Alfie. I was way young for it when it came out, and should catch up with it.
Another 60s movie I’m very eager to see is the very much disappeared “Love with the Proper Stranger.” Steve McQueen, Natalie Wood, multiple Academy Award nominations, very well reviewed and has it not been released on DVD or shown on cable. The mystery alone tells me I need to see this.
Just checked out The Wrestler. Outstanding performances and deeply moving. Yes, there’s a message, too, about the perils of narcissism and hedonism. But be warned: it’s intensely violent in places. Very raw, not for kids. Marisa Tomei is mostly naked throughout, and I must say, she looks great.
CAMPASE
“since like most good-looking, successful actors in London at the time he was swingin’ along with the rest”
Absolutely. Never mix the character the actor is playing with the actor. Except the swinging Alfie was Caine, in that aspect of his behavior.
Here’s another quote from Stamp about the renowned “shagger” Caine of the early 1960s.
Stamp was the son of a tug boat worker on the Thames. Caine’s background was equally working-class, and even poorer.
STAMP: Had the 60s not happened I would never have been able to spend the night with a young countess because I would never have met her. And as the great Michael Caine once said to me, “You can’t shag anyone you don’t meet.” Rather Aristolelian logic.
And, of course, Caine backhandedly salutes his earlier screen incarnation in the Austin Power’s sequel, Goldmember.
Another good thing about the movie is the title song sung by Cilla Black. Being 10 years old at the time it was the only thing I knew about the movie until I saw it in college. Bacharach and David wrote some great songs.
Caine is one of those men who gets better-looking as he gets older. As a woman, I would just like to point that life is NOT fair.
[/Frivolous]
Here’s a double feature for you:
_Alfie_, and _Get Carter_.
Both have had remakes that I’m afraid to see…
(I wonder if there was any temptation to wink back when Caine was cast as Alfred for the Batman movies… Given the cover Bruce Wayne needed to keep as a self-centered callous playboy..)
(ps: any other Mike Hodges fans out there? _Get Carter_, _Croupier_, _Flash Gordon_ probably my favorites of his, _Morons from Outer Space_ not so much…)
Ronsonic and all: “Love With a Proper Stranger” has been shown on TCM. The boy and girl, as they were called in those days, really grow up in the course of the movie – AND that is shown as a good thing!
I keep reading how “Mad Men” and “Revolution Road” show the phoney, trapped and stifled people of the 1950s and early 1960s – before the wonderful 1960s freed everybody from a repressed culture. These young TV and movie writers should take a look at the movies mentioned in this thread – made contemporaneously with the times depicted. Truth is lots of people were harmed by the ’60s excess.
Another play/movie that fits here is “Hair”. Remember the song “Easy to be Hard”? It’s sung in the play by an ignored young hippy woman in a menage a trois; in the movie it’s sung by a cast-off unwed non-hippy mother whose guy abandons her & their child to help out an unwed hippy mother he barely knows whose child is not his.
How can people be so heartless
How can people be so cruel
Easy to be hard
Easy to be cruel
How can people have no feelings
How can people ignore their friends
Easy to be proud
Easy to say no
Especially people who care about strangers
…care about evil and social injustice
Do you only care about the bleeding crowd
How about a needing friend
I need a friend
Find Jennifer Warnes singing it on YouTube.
I love this blog. thank you, thank you, thank you
And, that’s the lovely and talented Jane Asher, pictured above with Michael Caine.
Paul McCartney’s one-time love, columnist in 60’s teen mags, sister to Peter Asher (Peter&Gordon, music producer). Played Celia Ryder in the original Brideshead Revisited, among countless other roles.
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