Lack of good storyline.

Highly Overrated But Still Good

disgusting, overrated, pointless

Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.

Though the 1966 film has a moral point, the repetitive story line seems a little too flat for the two-hour runtime. After all, how many hook-ups with girls does it take to show that lover-boy Alfie only cares about himself. In fact he brags about it to the audience. Surprisingly for the period, Caine's character keeps up a running commentary on his actions the entire runtime. It's that breaking down of the so-called 'fourth wall' by addressing the camera directly that really distinguishes the film. Alfie's a working class bloke who's main activity whether on the job or not, amounts to seducing young women. Because of his good looks and confident manner, he has little trouble. Among his conquests are a delectable Jane Asher (Paul McCartney's real life sweetie), an aging Shelley Winters (a perfect cynical match for Alfie), and a pathetic Vivien Merchant (her plight confuses the overconfident seducer). Moreover, as Alfie's conquests mount so do the human consequences-- abortion, abandonment, etc. So the audience gets to compare at the same time the cad's selfish carelessness with its human cost to others. This, I gather, is the movie's main point. Looks to me as though the flick's an extension of the British cinema's 'kitchen sink' period when working class themes came to predominate. Certainly, Alfie's bad grammar and Cockney accent reflect such background. Anyway, Caine's perfect in the role, which he has to carry through in most every scene. Unsurprisingly, his career got a big boost as a result. I saw the film on first release when it got a lot of bally-hoo, and liked it. Now, I'm not so much engaged probably because the many aspects are no longer cutting edge, leaving the repetitive theme foremost. Also, the dumb barroom brawl now appears a clumsy contrivance aimed at working some action into an otherwise talky narrative.Anyway, the movie's moral may remain a perennial one; but, unfortunately, the narrative has lost much cutting edge over time.

Alfie Elkins (Michael Caine) is an irresponsible womanizer. He gets Gilda pregnant but even the birth of his son can't straighten him out. He complains constantly. Gilda decides to marry a bus driver for stability and keeps her son from Alfie. A health checkup finds two shadows on his lungs. He breaks down and spends time in a recovery home. He sleeps with the nurses and befriends his neighbor Harry who misses terribly his wife Lily. Harry sleeps with Lily getting her pregnant and is horrified by the abortion. He continues with various women but he wonders "What's it all about? You know what I mean." This takes London's swinging 60s to a darker place. It's not free love. In fact, Alfie is selfish and the women are often left in the dust. Breaking down the 4th wall is important because it allows the audience into Alfie's mind. He's not mean-spirited but he is self-obsessed. He excuses his antics with no malice. This is one of Michael Caine's great early performances. The abortion scene is shocking and there's no way modern mainstream movies would ever do that today.

It was interesting to learn that Alfie had its origins on stage with a play because the way it was brought to the screen clearly showed author Bill Naughton's bow to Eugene O'Neill's influence. The play and film are about cheerful hedonist Alfie Elkins who wants nothing more in life than to kanoodle with as many women as he can. As apparently he does not believe in condoms that creates several problems for him, a couple of which would never have occurred with use of same.Michael Caine plays Alfie endearing cockney charm and all and as he goes through various sexual entanglements all in the spirit of fun and pulls aside as in Strange Interlude and talks about the 'birds' and his philosophy of life which changes as he changes as the film progresses. Caine creates a memorable character worthy of the Best Actor nomination he got.The women are pretty memorable as well. Jane Asher plays a runaway who Caine steals from a truckdriver who picked her up. Shelley Winters is as cheerful a hedonist as Caine is and a bit more experienced. Winters put down of him is devastating.Most memorable is Vivien Merchant who got a Best Supporting Actress nomination playing the wife of a fellow patient of Caine's while Caine is in a hospital for a short stay. He seduces Merchant, the mother of three and gives her a fourth. The guilt for this indiscretion that Merchant bears brought her that nomination.Also in that hospital is Dr. Eleanor Bron who is the only woman seemingly immune to Michael Caine's charms. Perhaps because she looks at him from a clinical perspective only.Alfie also got nominations for Best Picture and Best Original Song for the 60s classic What's It All About Alfie. Bill Naughton also got a nomination for Best Adapted Screenplay. Naughton also did another fine film from that decade, The Family Way. I recommend you see both.

Crumbs. I was expecting a light period vehicle for the carousing Michael Caine. Instead I got tough social realism, with no small amount of satire. It's also a technically interesting film with Caine addressing the audience directly by speaking into the camera. He remains in character, speaking in soliloquy rather than stepping outside the drama. It's effective, at once establishing the link of charm with the audience that might otherwise have been at a distance between characters, and makes the pain of the weave of stories all the more vivid.Alfie is not an unreconstructed Lothario. He's just self-deluded, mixing up his own, genuine growing pains with a warped, self-centred logic. Equally, the film isn't a proto-feminist tract. Although the women involved are independent characters the drama isn't ideological but domestic. Though the behaviour of the women from the contemporaneous London film Blow-Up is similar the two films are polar opposites in terms of their reach, Antonioni making a sublime thriller, Lewis Gilbert going inside, looking for the dramatic gemstone in the kitchen sink.He finds it, too. Caine is strong in Alfie (justly Oscar-nominated), notably when faced with the fall-out - literally - of another of his casual conquests. The support acting is mixed. Shelley Winters, Julia Foster and Vivien Merchant stand out from the women, with Denholm Elliott making a short but heavyweight appearance at the crucial juncture. London also features nicely too, although it still has a Dickensian gloom, not least with many shots with Thames-side industry for a backdrop (something that the enterprising Antonioni manages to escape). 6/10