Bill NaughtonCritiques

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1830

Caine is great as Alfie, who frequently speaks directly to the audience in this adaption of a play by the original playwright, Bill Naughton. Alfie is interested in just about any woman, from the gorgeous Jane Asher to Shelley Winters (who hadn't quite evolved into the Poseidon Adventure Shelley Winters, but was well on her way.) Alfie manages to be likable and unlikeable at the same time, as his treatment of a fellow sanatorium patient and his wife show. The film, successfully, moves from outright comedy to some deeply serious moments featuring Alfie's relationships with Foster and Merchant. Highly recommended.½

2022 movie #61. 1966. Alfie (Caine) is a right bastard, keeping a string of women who he barely cares about. When one of his birds gets pregnant and gets an abortion, the movie takes a serious turn. The movie that made Caine a star.

A small collection of stories centered around children from working-class families in England in the 1930s. Fair-to-middling, these. I'm not sure that they've aged very well or that kiddos now would much enjoy them.½

Varavavahi vastulook: ja muid lugusidTranslated into Estonian from The goalkeeper's revenge and other stories. One wonders why this was prominent in Estonia. There is a brief list of translated words at the end, e.g. Churchgate - tsootsgeit, Basher - baser, and Scuttle Street - skatl striit.

Thirteen short children's stories. They depict an age that seems much longer ago now, than it did when I first read them nearly forty years ago - said the old fart. For some reason it was Seventeen Oranges that stuck in my head but on reading again I also remembered Spit Nolan, Skinny Nancy and Maggie's First Reader. Great stuff.

A cockney womanizer learns the hard way about the dangers of his actions.
Director: Charles Shyer
Writers: Bill Naughton (play), Bill Naughton (earlier screenplay)
Stars: Jude Law, Sienna Miller, Susan Sarandon

This novel sits somewhere between the classics of the "Angry Young Men" genre, such as "Room at the Top," "Saturday Night and Sunday Morning," and "Look Back in Anger," and the insouciant spirit of the later '60s. Stylistically it has a lot in common with "AYM" works (see also, "Billy Liar" and "Lucky Jim" and "The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner") but thematically it really is from another, later generation. "Alfie" brings with it the sense of the sexual revolution (multiple mentions of the pill, women who use men for sex and not just vice-versa, teenage runaways, a more flamboyant interpretation of male fashion), fast cars, and consumer culture, far from the utilitarian North of post-austerity Britain evoked in the "AYM" classics. However, like them, the book consists of an unlikable protagonist whose misogynistic actions and self-delusion are tempered by a surprisingly deep, almost existentialist worldview.

It is difficult to read the book without picturing the young Michael Caine as he appeared in the original film, all Cockney bravado and slick clothes, whereas those earlier antiheroes were hard-wrought Northern working-class men (played by the likes of Tom Courtenay and Albert Finney with unadulterated Northern accents). It's hard not to hate Alfie, but it's also hard not to sympathize with him just a little bit. Warning that there is a lot of very sexist and homophobic language throughout the book, but this is true to the time period and to the character. Frustrating but ultimately rewarding if you can get past Alfie's actions and think about the themes Naughton is conveying about human nature.

If you thought he came across as a jerk in the movie, he comes off even worse in the book. Not only a womanizer, he was also a thief, and altough insisting that he does not usually hit women, does it at least twice in the book.
Pretty disgusting book, actually.½

Jude Law's Alfie, much like Michael Caine's Alfie in the 1966 original, is what you'd call an unrepentant womanizer. He beds 'em but never weds 'em, and New York provides ample opportunity to continue the process--until reality slaps him in the face. Because Jude Law is, well, Jude Law, you can see why he gets away with it as long as he does, and the actor also pulls off the usually awkward trick of narrating directly to the camera. Neither his Alfie, however, nor director Charles Shyer's remake emerges completely without scratches. Law has a Chesire Cat carnality, but he emanates too much intellect to buy him as the relatively dim bulb he's supposed to be. The film, meanwhile, is a bit soft around the edges; the whole thing would have more resonance if it wasn't quite so intent on watching the unrepentant repent. Regardless, it's a surprisingly thoughtful diversion, and there's fine work from Marisa Tomei, Nia Long, and Susan Sarandon as the women who understandably make Alfie reconsider his ways.--Steve Wiecking

These thirteen short stories are set in the North of England of the 1930s (with a little bit of Ireland for good measure).

They show a deft gift for the dialect of Lancashire and Eire of the time and the settings and themes are authentic.

Each story is a vignette: there is no consistency of personnel between stories; however the majority are told from the first-person perspective of a male aged between 10 and 16.

The stories are well suited for their target demographic of 11+ year olds of the 1960s, and do a fine job of integrating reflections on such social issues as disability, the role of women, and class into narrative threads without resorting to preachiness.

The era described is long past and these stories will have little relevance to the young person of today except as historical artifact however the skill of the author and the authenticity shown make this a 3.5 star work.½