Caine is Alfie, an unrepentant ladies man who gets close to and uses several women before tossing them away at the slightest sign of complication. He eventually learns that his actions have consequences and that he faces increasingly diminishing options along the path he's chosen. Not exactly a deep film, but one that's elevated by Caine in his career defining performance. Caine walks a very thin line, never letting the audience forget that he's really a creep while simultaneously charming the pants of them with a running narration pitched directly to the audience in 4th wall breaking asides. He pretty much carries the film. It seems like Kubrick must have studied this one while preparing "A Clockwork Orange".
