Alfie (1966)

In this extremely grim comedy, Michael Caine plays a ne'er-do-well who never does good. The rakish Alfie moves from woman to woman with the emotional maturity of Bill Clinton, and even less morality. Alternately talking up to the camera and talking down to his sexual conquests, Alfie maneuvers through the minefield of emotions by remaining aloof, until of course, he is left alone. A fine performance by Shelley Winters as the wealthy woman Alfie seeks to court rounds out this well-aimed attack on the lady's man lifestyle. Nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award. --James DiGiovanna Amazon.com essential video

The best of Michael Caine

This is the movie that caused Michael Caine to be shunned by filmmakers for quite a long time after it's release. He is SO good as Alfie, the penultimate seducer - and deserter - of women, that he became associated with the character to the extent that many people - women especially - despised him for years. Enough time has passed now to be able to just enjoy a particularly fine movie. Even though the role of women has progressed beyond Alfie's "birds", and we have attained a status that precludes being referred to as "it", this is still a timeless and brilliant movie. April 29, 2008

Grandest Batchlor of Them All

Watching this DVD makes me understand why some of us love the single life.

Michael Caine is just perfect in the role of Smoothie, Alfie. Talking to the camera about his private thoughts while entertaining a lady adds much interest to his activities.

Narcissistic, handsome and very charming Alfie is confident even stealing a girl away from a buddy. Concerned, as he picks up one of his girlfriend's hand and tell her he doesn't want her hands getting ruined as she washes his floors on hands and knees, he doesn't want her making him "puffed" from the kidney pies she bakes for him, after his friends tease him about his appearance.

Heartbreaker Shelly Winters is his psychological twin. Playgirl doesn't want love, just a little fling.

The horrible scene of his debilitated friend's wife's pregnancy is why I skipped 5 stars.

It end with Alfie walking and concerned, ego broken by Winter's affair with a very young guy.

Lastly, the song "What's it All About" is great. July 9, 2007

The original Alfie

Based on the play by screenwriter Bill Naughton, director Lewis Gilbert's "Alfie" is a black comedy of mores and manners about a naïve womanizer who wonders, as in the title song, "What's it all about?" Caine, in a star-making role, is sensational as the charming but emotionally clotted Alfie, whose hilarious asides to the camera leaven the film's heavier moments. Just as good is a brassy Shelley Winters as Ruby, a seductive vixen who turns Alfie inside out. Even today, Gilbert's unsparing riff on the emptiness of sexual conquest still resonates, and the film also benefits from the palpable electricity of London in the swinging sixties. June 27, 2007

Charming Misanthrope

It took me a number of years to finally catch up with "Alfie" and, boy, did I have a misconception about the film. I thought Alfie was a free-spirited dandy who loves and leaves the ladies. Little did I know that he's a self-loathing misogynist.It's a brilliant device to have Alfie address the audience. Alfie may think he's pleading his case but instead he digs a deeper hole for himself. Unlike the angry British young men of a few years prior social conditions don't seem to have effected his mindset. Nope, Alfie was probably always a louse. Credit Michael Caine for making this cretin if not sympathetic at least palatable. I also found the film's decidedly pro-life stance refreshing. The irony is that the case for the sanctity of unborn life is delivered most compellingly by of all people an abortionist played by Denholm Elliott. This film is an interesting counterpart to the 2004 remake. Jude Law's gives a more sympathetic rendering of Alfie even though the character is no less of a cad. June 11, 2007

Alfie Knows Very Well What It's All About

"Alfie," released in 1966, is considered one of the most famous, influential movies of that decade. It's credited with being a classic study of the 60's, and introducing London to the world, just as it began to swing. Also with making a big star of its star, Michael Caine, although by this time Caine had already starred in "The Ipcress File," and stolen "Zulu," a dandy war movie, out from under Stanley Baker. No matter, "Alfie" is still considered the sexy, handsome young Caine's star-making turn. The part, that of a London cockney lad about town, is one he was born to: he was, in fact, born to be a Covent Garden barrow boy (that is, a man selling fruits and vegetables from a wheelbarrow in the open-air market), as was his father before him.

Alfie (Caine) is a London limo driver, a job that enables him to meet girls, girls, girls, and he does. Uses them, abuses them, moves on. The movie's based on the stage play of the same name by Bill Naughton, who adapted it for the screen, and was directed by Lewis Gilbert. It won five Oscar nominations, seven other awards, and 16 more miscellaneous nominations. Terence Stamp, cockney himself, and possibly the handsomest man alive at that time, was playing the title role on Broadway, but refused the movie, as he thought it "too immoral." Filmed on location in London and environs, Naughton "opened up" the play by adding many Thamesside scenes, making the mighty river another, mood-setting, reminding-us-of-eternity, character. Denholm Elliott has one unforgettable scene; Sydney Tafler and other cockney types provided Caine with excellent support; some of the women in Alfie's life were played by Shelley Winters, Jane Asher, Shirley Anne Field, Vivien Merchant, and Eleanor Bron.

When the movie first opened, it was accompanied only by a jazzy Sonny Rollins score. To sweeten things up a bit, the famous, award-winning song, "What's It All About, Alfie," was commissioned from Burt Bacharach and Hal David. The song, done by Cher for the American market, and Cilla Black for the English, was spliced into the movie. (Of course, Dionne Warwick had the big hit with it, on both sides of the Atlantic.) The song, however, is not an accurate summation of the movie, as it is generally considered. The song famously asks, "Is it just for the moment we live? Are we meant to take more than we give?" Well, Alfie, as Caine plays him, knows that he's been trying to live only for the moment, and that he's been taking far more than he's been giving, and he knows where it's gotten him.

He knows that he dislikes women -- calls them "birds," and occcasionally, jarringly, "it." But he knows their power. He knows he has no education, money or position, and a woman such as the doctor Eleanor Bron plays has no interest in him. He knows he's alone, and getting older; were he to forget, Shelley Winters, in the part she was born to play, a rich American, is there to remind him. He knows that he's lost two sons, one by a second-stringer of his who married a nice man to get the support she needed. One by the character played by the greatly-admired Vivien Merchant, a married woman who feels an abortion is necessary.

The scene where Alfie recognizes just what abortion means is the most powerful in the movie. "You reap what you sow," is the lesson he's forced to relearn, and it's a painful one. At the end of the movie, he stands and faces the camera, says he's gotten the better of the many women in his life, and yet, they've moved on, presumably to happiness, and he has nothing, not even his "peace of mind." Our Alfie has been forced to learn what it's all about. May 8, 2007

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