Alfie (1966)

Michael Caine earned his first Best Actor Oscar nomination in the title role. The film’s about a morally bankrupt British playboy who realizes just enough about who he is and what he’s doing to feel guilty about it. Along the way he seduces and/or encounters several women he dubs “birds” including Millicent Martin who even wants to introduce Alfie to her husband (?!) Shelley Winters a financially comfortable older woman who loves Alfie’s youthful sexual energy (because it matches her own) Jane Asher Vivien Merchant (who also earned an Oscar nomination) and Julia Foster with whom Alfie has a son before she realizes the example he’s setting for her child; she chooses the more stable postal worker (Graham Stark) who is willing to marry her. Merchant plays the wife of a man Harry Clamacraft (Alfie Bass) who Alfie meets in a hospital’s extended stay recovery room. Clamacraft is not doing so well whereas Alfie’s recovery from a spot on his lung per his chain smoking is only long enough such that he has time to seduce his nurse (Shirley Anne Field?) and then Merchant. In the latter case Denholm Elliott plays an abortionist illegal at the time whose cold professional nature along with the reality of the situation finally cause Alfie to realize the nature of his own beast. Peter Graves appears uncredited.

One thing that makes this film unique is the fact that throughout it Caine’s character talks to the audience the moviegoer telling his thoughts feelings and “motivations” behind his actions. In that way he’s an on-screen narrator. Of course the action “stops” such that the other characters don’t see or hear his interactions with “us”. Directed by Lewis Gilbert and written by Bill Naughton based on his play (both received Oscar nominations) and featuring the Academy Award nominated title song written by Burt Bacharach & Hal David (Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969)).

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