"ALFIE", THEN AND NOW: "ALFIE" (1966 with Michael Caine) and "ALFIE" (2004 with Jude Law)

In 1966, novelist Bill Naughton adapted his own novel and play, Alfie, into a screenplay filmed by Lewis Gilbert and starring Michael Caine, Jane Asher, Vivien Merchant, and Shelley Winters. With a score by jazz great Sonny Rollins and a catchy title song by Burt Bacharach and Hal David that became a popular hit, Alfie was hugely successful; it made Michael Caine famous; it won a Golden Globe as Best Foreign film; and its innovations—such as having its seemingly amoral protagonist confiding directly to us about his escapades with women—were so fresh and unique that they have seldom been repeated. Until, that is, in 2004 when Charles Shyer directed Jude Law in a brand new, updated adaptation of the story in which Alfie is a Cockney limo driver in Manhattan, and Marisa Tomei, Jane Krakowski, and Susan Sarandon are some of Alfie's mistresses with very different options and attitudes than Michael Caine encountered in 1966. With music by Mick Jagger and stunning cinematography by Ashley Rowe, this Alfie, like the original, makes use of the city for many of its locations. Roger Ebert touched on what both Alfies have in common: "He's sold himself on life as a ladies' man, and is beginning to realize he is his only customer." Together we will try to answer a question of both Alfies: "What's it all about?"