Michael Caine made several good films in the sixties and early seventies, such as "Zulu", "The Ipcress File" and "Get Carter", but in my opinion "Alfie" is his best from this period, and only equalled among his later films by "Hannah and Her Sisters" and "Educating Rita". It is set in what might be described as the kitchen sink end of swinging London. The anti-hero, Alfie Elkins, is a young working-class Cockney who works as a mechanic and driver for a car-hire company. In some respects the film looks back to the social-realist school of the late fifties and early sixties. Alfie is in some ways a very traditional character. He lives in the sort of drab, seedy flat familiar from "kitchen sink" realist films and hangs out in old-fashioned East End pubs rather than discos. He dresses smartly but conservatively, at one stage even sporting an RAF blazer. Not for him the long hair, sideburns, bell-bottom jeans, loud shirt and kipper tie which constituted the uniform of the sixties trend-setter.
In one respect, however, he is very different to the traditional social-realist hero. The "angry young men" from films such as "Look Back in Anger", "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner" and "Room at the Top" were characterised by anger and resentment against the Establishment. Resentment is an emotion quite alien to the happy-go-lucky Alfie, whose main preoccupation is not settling scores with "the system" but rather scoring with women. He is a practised seducer, and the film introduces us to a number of his conquests. The nearest thing he has to a steady girlfriend is Gilda, the mother of his young son Malcolm, but even she tires of his infidelity and refusal to commit to her. Eventually she leaves him to marry her long-time admirer, bus conductor Humphrey. Humphrey is everything Alfie is not; he is far from handsome, but is caring, faithful and deeply in love with Gilda. Alfie suffers a setback when he is taken into hospital with a suspected lung infection, but he is soon well enough again to go back to his old ways, taking advantage of Lily, the wife of a fellow-patient. Among his other victims are unhappily-married Carla, home-loving Northerner Annie, and wealthy older woman Ruby.
"Halliwell's Film Guide" describes the film as a "garish sex comedy", which strikes me as a misconception. Despite a certain superficial similarity in plot to the likes of "Confessions of a Window Cleaner", the film is actually a deeply serious one. Certainly, Alfie himself is a bit of a comedian who sees life as one big joke, always endeavouring to look on the bright side. Cheerfulness can in some cases be an admirable attribute, but in Alfie's case it goes hand-in-hand with a crass insensitivity to the problems and emotions of others. What he wants out of life is commitment-free relationships which will enable him to find sexual satisfaction with as many women as possible. Perhaps the most telling detail about his character is that he habitually refers to women as "it" rather than "she".
Only at the end of the film does it start to dawn on him that there might be more to life than a series of one-night stands, and he starts to ponder the question "What's it all about?" (The question is enshrined in the famous song which we hear at the end of the film as Alfie stands by the Thames pondering his future). There are three key moments in Alfie's gradual enlightenment. One comes when he wanders into a church where Gilda and Humphrey are having their first child baptised, and he realises that he is missing out on family life. Another comes when he discovers that Ruby has dumped him in favour of an even younger toyboy. For the first time he is being used in the way he uses others, and he doesn't like it. The most moving comes when, after Alfie has bullied Lily, whom he has got pregnant, into having an illegal abortion, he is shocked by the sight of his dead unborn child.
Caine gives one of his best performances as the cheerfully immoral hero, and he receives good support from a number of others, especially Vivien Merchant as the tragic Lily, Alfie Bass as her invalid husband Harry and Denholm Elliott as the cynical abortionist.
The film is firmly rooted in the working-class London of the mid-sixties, and reflects the Zeitgeist of that period. It was a time when the Pill was a recent invention, when the sexual revolution was just beginning but when older, conservative, attitudes towards sex were stronger than they are today. Although Alfie's conquests are played by some of the best-looking British actresses of the period, such as Shirley Anne Field, Julia Foster and Jane Asher, they are not mini-skirted dolly-birds, but basically old-fashioned girls, conservatively, even dowdily, dressed. All of them, except the sluttish Ruby, are looking for love rather than sex, and he is smart enough to know this and cynical enough to exploit it.
In some respects the film was a progressive one for its period, both in its stylistic devices, such as having the hero speak direct to camera, and in its frankness about sexual matters, especially the highly controversial topic of abortion (still illegal in Britain in 1966, although it was to be legalised the following year). In its view of social matters, however, it is more conservative; its attitude towards abortion, for example, is more pro-life than pro-choice. The film can perhaps be seen as a critique of the sexual revolution, showing how greater sexual freedom was giving irresponsible philanderers like Alfie more opportunities to seduce women. The irony is that Alfie ends up ruining his own life as effectively as he has ruined theirs. Beneath its permissive surface, "Alfie" is a devastating exposure of the dark side of the sexual revolution. 9/10
In one respect, however, he is very different to the traditional social-realist hero. The "angry young men" from films such as "Look Back in Anger", "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning", "The Loneliness of the Long-Distance Runner" and "Room at the Top" were characterised by anger and resentment against the Establishment. Resentment is an emotion quite alien to the happy-go-lucky Alfie, whose main preoccupation is not settling scores with "the system" but rather scoring with women. He is a practised seducer, and the film introduces us to a number of his conquests. The nearest thing he has to a steady girlfriend is Gilda, the mother of his young son Malcolm, but even she tires of his infidelity and refusal to commit to her. Eventually she leaves him to marry her long-time admirer, bus conductor Humphrey. Humphrey is everything Alfie is not; he is far from handsome, but is caring, faithful and deeply in love with Gilda. Alfie suffers a setback when he is taken into hospital with a suspected lung infection, but he is soon well enough again to go back to his old ways, taking advantage of Lily, the wife of a fellow-patient. Among his other victims are unhappily-married Carla, home-loving Northerner Annie, and wealthy older woman Ruby.
"Halliwell's Film Guide" describes the film as a "garish sex comedy", which strikes me as a misconception. Despite a certain superficial similarity in plot to the likes of "Confessions of a Window Cleaner", the film is actually a deeply serious one. Certainly, Alfie himself is a bit of a comedian who sees life as one big joke, always endeavouring to look on the bright side. Cheerfulness can in some cases be an admirable attribute, but in Alfie's case it goes hand-in-hand with a crass insensitivity to the problems and emotions of others. What he wants out of life is commitment-free relationships which will enable him to find sexual satisfaction with as many women as possible. Perhaps the most telling detail about his character is that he habitually refers to women as "it" rather than "she".
Only at the end of the film does it start to dawn on him that there might be more to life than a series of one-night stands, and he starts to ponder the question "What's it all about?" (The question is enshrined in the famous song which we hear at the end of the film as Alfie stands by the Thames pondering his future). There are three key moments in Alfie's gradual enlightenment. One comes when he wanders into a church where Gilda and Humphrey are having their first child baptised, and he realises that he is missing out on family life. Another comes when he discovers that Ruby has dumped him in favour of an even younger toyboy. For the first time he is being used in the way he uses others, and he doesn't like it. The most moving comes when, after Alfie has bullied Lily, whom he has got pregnant, into having an illegal abortion, he is shocked by the sight of his dead unborn child.
Caine gives one of his best performances as the cheerfully immoral hero, and he receives good support from a number of others, especially Vivien Merchant as the tragic Lily, Alfie Bass as her invalid husband Harry and Denholm Elliott as the cynical abortionist.
The film is firmly rooted in the working-class London of the mid-sixties, and reflects the Zeitgeist of that period. It was a time when the Pill was a recent invention, when the sexual revolution was just beginning but when older, conservative, attitudes towards sex were stronger than they are today. Although Alfie's conquests are played by some of the best-looking British actresses of the period, such as Shirley Anne Field, Julia Foster and Jane Asher, they are not mini-skirted dolly-birds, but basically old-fashioned girls, conservatively, even dowdily, dressed. All of them, except the sluttish Ruby, are looking for love rather than sex, and he is smart enough to know this and cynical enough to exploit it.
In some respects the film was a progressive one for its period, both in its stylistic devices, such as having the hero speak direct to camera, and in its frankness about sexual matters, especially the highly controversial topic of abortion (still illegal in Britain in 1966, although it was to be legalised the following year). In its view of social matters, however, it is more conservative; its attitude towards abortion, for example, is more pro-life than pro-choice. The film can perhaps be seen as a critique of the sexual revolution, showing how greater sexual freedom was giving irresponsible philanderers like Alfie more opportunities to seduce women. The irony is that Alfie ends up ruining his own life as effectively as he has ruined theirs. Beneath its permissive surface, "Alfie" is a devastating exposure of the dark side of the sexual revolution. 9/10