Lewis Gilbert had his triumphs and his setbacks, as a director, but Alfie (1966) ranks among the two or three films for which he'll be most remembered.

Historical Background: British director Lewis Gilbert was born on March 6th, 1920, in London. He worked as a child actor on the London stage and in films. During World War II, Gilbert worked in the film unit of the U.S. Air Corps. Toward the war's end, he began directing documentaries. After the war, he turned to feature films, beginning with a children's film, The Little Ballerina (1947). Gilbert gained a reputation during the fifties making war dramas, including most notably Sink the Bismarck! (1960). He had success as well with The Greengage Summer (1961), which was released in the United States under the title Loss of Innocence. It was the commercial success of Alfie (1966), however, that earned Gilbert a string of big-budget assignments that included three of the James Bond films: You Only Live Twice (1967), The Spy Who Loved Me (1977), and Moonraker (1979). Gilbert also had successes such as Educating Rita (1983) and Shirley Valentine (1989), interspersed with some fiascoes, including The Adventurers (1970) and Stepping Out (1991), the last of which was a Liza Minnelli vehicle. For Alfie, Gilbert was both director and producer.

The Story: Alfie Elkins (Michael Caine) is a young man in London during the swinging sixties. He's a handsome charmer who speaks with a cockney accent. He likes women but dislikes commitment. "I'm what you call a free agent," he says to the viewing audience. As the story begins, Alfie is enjoying a quickie in a parked car with a married woman, Siddie (Millicent Martin). He explains to the audience that the secret to winning the favors of married women is to make them laugh. Alfie is presently living with Gilda (Julia Foster) and is a bit alarmed when it becomes apparent that their "special friend" (her period) did not arrive as scheduled. He suggests getting the problem taken care of but she wants to have the baby and give it up for adoption to a "rich lady." Later, she changes her mind and Alfie plays weekend daddy to little Malcolm Alfred Elkins. Alfie's prepared to play along as far as part-time daddy, rather enjoying it in fact, but has no interest in becoming a fulltime husband. Gilda has a devoted suitor in the form of the plain but dependable Humphrey, and ultimately decides that security with Humphrey, whom she doesn't love, is preferable to the day-to-day uncertainty of living with Alfie.

Alfie is diagnosed with lungs spots that are likely early signs of tuberculosis. He's concerned enough to accept the advice of The Doctor (Eleanor Bron) for a rest cure at a country sanitarium. There he continues his string of conquests with a willing nurse, Carla (Shirley Anne Field), who knows just the thing to help Alfie get to sleep at night. He also acquires something of a friend in the sickly Harry Clamacraft (Alfie Bass), whose one joy in life is the visits paid to him by his wife, Lily (Vivien Merchant). When Alfie is discharged, he agrees to give Lily a ride back to London. Along the way, they stop for tea. One thing leads to another and Alfie and Lily have a go at it, Alfie motivated as much by pity for her as by his own hormones.

While working as a tourist photographer, Alfie meets and extracts a phone number from a lusty American writer, Ruby (Shelley Winters). Later, while working as a chauffeur and driving a limousine, Alfie picks up the lovely, red-haired Annie (Jane Asher) at a truck stop, deftly stealing her away from a lecherous truck driver named Frank (Sydney Tafler). Alfie takes up residence with Annie, who slaves away trying to win his affection. Meanwhile, Alfie is also bonking Ruby on the side. Alfie ousts Annie when he feels that she is becoming overly domestic.

Alfie discovers that his independent, self-centered lifestyle is not without its drawbacks. One painful lesson emerges when Lily discovers that she's pregnant. Alfie arranges an abortion for her, which is performed by a sleazy, back alley Abortionist (Denholm Elliott), since abortion was not legal in England during the sixties. It's a painful, unpleasant business for Lily. Even Alfie is distinctly shaken when he sees the dead fetus. "As it lay there so quiet, so still, it quite touched me," he later tells his best friend, Nat (Murray Melvin). Alfie is also moved when he sees his biological son being baptized, with his parents, Gilda and Humphrey, happily in attendance. Alfie decides that a steady relationship with Ruby, who he imagines to be a stable alternative to the difficult younger women, might be just the ticket for a while. Alfie pays a surprise visit to Ruby's apartment with a bouquet of flowers, only to discover that he's been replaced by a younger fellow who plays a guitar. Turnabout is fair play.

Alfie takes a lonely walk and says to the audience, "It seems to me if they ain't got you one way, they got you another," meaning that if you're not hitched to a woman you're longing for one. A stray mongrel runs up to Alfie and the two experience an immediate kinship.

Themes: Let me say flat out that I adamantly disagree with most of what has been written about this film and its protagonist, Alfie, by other reviewers, both here at Epinions and elsewhere. That consensus view is that Alfie is an amoral, insensitive cad, even if he is so irresistibly charming that the women in the film (and viewers) can't help being attracted to him and sympathizing with him. On the point of his caddishness, here are some representative quotations: "He is selfishness personified." "He's a man too detached from reality, too caught up in his own world of sexual amusement." Alfie's a "materialist 60's man who sees no need to look beyond his own desires, so far as morality is concerned." "A vision of the cheapness of self-indulgence." "A charmingly amoral sort who believes in temporal pleasures instead of anything long-lasting and concrete." "Incurable addiction to girls" "Wasted opportunities to settle down" "Flight from commitment" "A compendium of male selfishness" "Alfie is a cruel, merciless, and heartless man. He is self-absorbed, utterly insensitive, and totally domineering." "He deserves our hatred, loathing, and utter contempt."

All of that ugly moralizing is predicated on a viciously narrow idea about how individuals should approach life and relationships. I, too, believe that there are moral issues that apply to relationships, not to mention issues of psychological health. On the other hand, it is oppressive, in my opinion, to attempt to stamp all people and all relationships with one rigid and somewhat arbitrary view of what comprises a moral relationship. An insistence that only committed, monogamous relationships are moral is every bit as narrowly prejudicial, in my opinion, as asserting, for example, that only heterosexual or same-race relationships are moral.

There is nothing inherently immoral about a person who prefers independence and detachment to commitment and attachment. Suppose, for example, a person is so fully committed to a career or a cause that he recognizes that a marriage and/or family would constrain his freedom of activity more than he wants to abide. Suppose a person recognizes that he or she could not make a good spouse or parent and quite decently opts for a lifestyle as a single person. I might look at that person, from the vantage point of my own priorities, and feel some regret on their behalf that they have chosen to go without the joys of family life and commitment to a primary relationship. I would not, however, conclude that the person was morally defective or psychologically unhealthy.

If a person makes the choice to avoid commitment in relationships, does that mean that they are not entitled to maintaining casual friendships or to have sexual liaisons? It would be ridiculous to say so. If two people of the same or opposite genders, each having chosen to retain independence, also choose to satisfy one another's sexual needs, why is that immoral? Certainly, if a person misrepresents their availability, intents, or expectations as part of a seduction routine, it is immoral. If, on the other hand, a person makes an honest representation of what they have to offer and another person accepts that offering, however limited the offering might be, there is nothing immoral about it.

If refusing to enter into a committed relationship is not immoral, is it perhaps psychologically unhealthy? Is the person, for example, in "flight from commitment?" Is it not possible that the person is making a positive choice for independence over attachment? The test for those questions is whether the person is fundamentally comfortable and happy with his choice. Does the person's chosen lifestyle meet his needs better than another lifestyle might? No doubt, there are tradeoffs in choosing either a committed relationship or a life of independence. If you choose commitment, you lose a degree of freedom to come and go as you please, to organize your space precisely as you like it, and to operate almost entirely on the basis of your own goals and objectives. If you chose independence, you lose the security of having a caretaker on hand in the event of illness, you lose the comforting presence of a supportive love relationship, and possibly ties with children. Neither choice, however, is inherently psychologically unhealthy, anymore than it's inherently amoral.

One moral standard that I invariably apply to relationships is honesty. One reviewer claims that Alfie is essentially dishonest: "Alfie constantly talks to the camera, explaining himself, letting us in on his little larcenies, and justifying his essential dishonesty." Quite the contrary! He is honest to a fault. When Gilda tries to coax Alfie into telling her that he loves her, he insists on limiting the profession to "I like you very much." "It don't do to get dependent on nobody in this life," he says. "I don't know what love is the way you birds talk about it," he says. Alfie knows what he believes and articulates his philosophy of life to anybody who wants to listen.

Alfie says to his friend Harry, "I never meant to hurt anybody." Harry replies, "But you do." Is it always immoral to cause another person hurt. The first girl I ever fell in love with, when I was a lad, had no interest in me. That hurt me. Was she being immoral? Of course not! If a woman goes after Alfie because he's handsome and charming, knowing full well that he has no interest in commitment but hoping to "reform" him and convert him into "good husband" material, she should anticipate a high probability of getting hurt.

There's also a bit of sexism inherent in the blame that reviewers place on Alfie, as though the women who he slept with did not have the intelligence or freedom of choice to make their own decisions in relation to Alfie. In no case did he force himself on a woman, make false promises, or misrepresent his intents. Gilda preferred Alfie to Humphrey because Alfie was more attractive. Humphrey was devoted and dependable but oafish. Isn't that shallow on her part? She hoped to change Alfie into the man that she wanted him to be. She pretended to accept him as he was but was actually engaged in a pattern of entrapment. When she became pregnant, he offered to help her get it "taken care of" (i.e., arrange an abortion). When she stated her preference to have the baby and give it up for adoption, he acknowledged her right, as a woman, to precedence in making that decision. When the child was born, she changed her mind and chose to keep it. He urged her to reconsider the adoption option, but went along with her choice, in the end, even becoming a pretty good father. Finally, when she indicated her desire for her child to have a legitimate father (i.e., married to its mother), he even stepped aside so that she could marry Humphrey. He went the whole nine yards except refusing to enter into a committed relationship with her, which he knew to be contrary to his fundamental nature.

Of all Archie's partners, Carla, the nurse, had values most compatible with Alfie's. Her interest in him was the same as his in her: a few quickies. Ruby was even more of a "manizer" than Alfie was a womanizer. Annie hoped to make herself indispensable to Alfie, by working hard to tend to his needs (scrubbing floors, washing his clothes, cooking his meals). That was her agenda, not his. Lily was more in need of Alfie than he was in need of her. When she became pregnant, Alfie stuck with her to the point of seeing her through the abortion. It takes two to make an unwanted pregnancy and both are equally culpable and responsible.

As the film draws to a close, Alfie confronts some of the negative aspects of his chosen lifestyle – the rootless, carefree existence. The same reviewers who moralize about this lifestyle imagine that the movie suggests that Alfie is beginning to grow and to question the morality of his approach to life. In my opinion, he has simply experiencing the cons that go along with the pros of his lifestyle. When, in the end, he walks off with the mongrel, my interpretation is that he and the mongrel will continue to behave as they always have. Male dogs don't form committed relationships with one particular bitch. They simply take their opportunities where they can.

Certainly, Alfie's lifestyle is not for everyone. Many would find it devoid of some of the "deeper" elements of living. It's a matter of taste and personal preference, however, not morality or psychological health. I will say, however, that one aspect of Alfie's behavior for which I'll make no excuses is his dehumanizing vocabulary in relation to women, calling them "birds" and even "it." In one respect, Alfie was less sexist than many men. He was distinctly egalitarian in his readiness to bed both young and older women, women of mousy personalities, or average looks.

Production Values: The screenplay for Alfie was written by Bill Naughton, based on his own play and novel. One of the most remarkable aspects of this film is the interspersing of the action with frequent monologues (of a confessional nature) by the protagonist, aimed at the camera. Many films have used the device of breaking the fourth wall on an occasional basis, but I've never seen another film that did so with such regularity. Caine makes the device work, switching fluidly between the narrative mode and the story. There's one extended scene in which Alfie is being examined by a doctor in which most of his conversation is directed to the audience, only to be occasionally interrupted by the Doctor's questions. It's highly effective. It is really the monologues that carry the weight of the thematic content of the film, more than the internal action.

The soundtrack for Alfie is outstanding. Most of it consists of a jazzy score by Sonny Rollins. There's also a song performed by pub singer Queenie Watts. The highlight, however, is the intriguing theme song, "Alfie", sung by Cher, which became a top-ten hit.

Michael Caine is so much a part of the success of this film that it is hard to imagine this film working had he not been the lead actor. It's a bravura performance. Although it was not Caine's first film performance, it is the one the elevated him to star status. He's utterly captivating. It is Caine's performance that elevates this film from three-stars to four. Caine appeared elsewhere in such films as Zulu (1964), The Ipcress File (1965), Alfie (1966), The Italian Job (1969), The Man Who Would Be King (1975), A Bridge Too Far (1977), Educating Rita (1983), The Whistle Blower (1986), Hannah and Her Sisters (1986), Death Becomes Her (1992), The Cider House Rules (1999), and Austen Powers in Goldmember (2002).

Caine is not the only delight in the film, however. There're strong performances by several of the women. Shelly Winters didn't impress me all that much, but Millicent Martin, Julia Foster, Jane Asher, and Vivien Merchant were excellent. Vivien Merchant was a stage actress and wife of Harold Pinter. Jane Asher had been engaged to Paul McCartney shortly before this film was made. Julia Foster had previously appeared in The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner (1962). Jane Asher's other work includes The Masque of the Red Death (1964) and Deep End (1970).

Bottom-Line: Alfie received five Oscar nominations, though no trophies. It was nominated for Best Picture, Best Actor (Michael Caine), Best Supporting Actress (Vivien Merchant), Best Adapted Screenplay (Bill Naughton), and Best Song (Burt Bacharach composed the music and Hal David wrote the words). The Paramount DVD provides an excellent video transfer and Dolby Digital sound. Extras include the theatrical trailer and optional English subtitles. I highly recommend this film, especially for the bravura performance by Michael Caine.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older