Alfie (1966)

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.

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.

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.