We’re talking about the original 1966 film Alfie, not last year’s example of how Hollywood generally can’t leave well enough alone. The broad strokes are the same, except this one’s set in London and stars Michael Caine, still young enough to be on the barely muscular side of pretty boy pretty. Another difference, and this is important, is that 1965 London is filled with people just barely over the recovery from World War II and into an economic boom. Class is still important but not so much that Caine can’t bluff his way around it.
Everyone knows the punchline to the theme song: “What’s it all about, Alfie?” That’s also the theme of the movie, the journey which Caine’s character takes. Women can barely resist Alfie’s charms, despite the harsh, careless way he treats them, but the less pleasure he takes from them. One woman loves him so much she has his child, cooks and cleans for him, though he never marries her or makes a commitment to the boy and eventually walks away.
Director Lewis Gilbert (who also helmed three James Bond flicks) shows Alfie often enough what he’s missing through all this. A father’s love for a son, a husband’s love for his wife, a wife’s heartbreak over betrayal, but all Alfie wants is the pleasure. One can only presume that as a child his parents or father left him (died in the war?) but Bill Naughton’s script, adapted from his stage play, never goes there. To me this is fine, we can infer what we like and aren’t spoonfed every little detail that might matter. Even the ending leaves us unsettled, Alfie standing on a bridge looking off into the distance.
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