In the year when England were winning the world cup English film makers were releasing Alfie. Starring Michael Caine, Millicent Martin, Julia Foster, Jane Asher, Shirley Anne Field, Vivien Merchant, Eleanor Bron & Shelley Winters. It did very well in the box office as every other example is in dollars I will continue in the same vein – a budget of $800,000 produced $18m at the box office which cannot be bad. Even IMDb has it 7.0/10 and the Tomato mob has it at 96% so I must have missed something to give it just 72%.
The story unsurprisingly revolves around the main character Alfie played by Michael Caine. He is a womaniser and the story follow his relationships. He breaks off an affair he is having with a married woman and then gets his girlfriend pregnant. His girlfriend wants to keep the child probably in the hope of keeping her man. This doesn’t work as Alfie is not a man for settling down and continues sleeping around. He falls for a rich promiscuous rich American. When his son is born Alfie still shows little attention for his girlfriend or his son. He has an x-ray which shows a shadow on his lung and ends up going into a convalescent home to come to terms with his own mental health issues. He meets Harry there and they make friends until one day Alfie points out that whilst in there his wife is probably having an affair and the friendship breaks up rapidly. He pops back to the home after being with the American and tries to speak to Harry again. Harry then asks him to take his wife home as a favour and both are really not keen on the idea but finally give in and head off to eventually have a one-night stand that leaves her pregnant as well. They decide organise a backstreet abortion to keep the one nightery from Harry. Is this finally the thing that makes Alfie realise that life should be more than just sleeping around?
This is a black and white movie from ’66 and a very well-loved movie by many people unfortunately I wasn’t one of the mega-fans that this gathered behind this movie. There are plenty of quips from Michael directly to the camera but for me I wanted this to be more than it was which is probably because it was hyped up before I watched it. So maybe I didn’t give this movie a fair crack and it should be much higher in the list than it actually is, but for now its stays at number 320.
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