When Michael Caine’s father died at fifty-six, he left behind only three shillings and eight pence. That moment shaped a promise in Alfie’s future hero: he would prove himself in both versions of The Man Who Would Be King and Footprint. This is among the many details Michael Caine shares in the German documentary MCaine by Margarete Kreuzer, which has been screening since last Tuesday. Kreuzer, who previously produced Sound of Sound: Tangerine Dream, focuses on the actor’s life and work and makes his presence unmistakable throughout the film.
A director, Christopher Nolan, who knew him well, joins the picture; photographer David Bailey, who captured many defining images of the 1960s, and Chas Smash, a member of the Madness group, also contribute their memories. They offer a perspective on a London-born actor who became a central figure in the working-class-led art movement of the 1960s, amid the culture of swinging London and Carnaby Street fashion. The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, actors Richard Burton and Sean Connery, and painter David Hockney are also part of this cultural tapestry.
The film MCaine extracts the name from the word cinema, an anagram that playfully reflects its subject. It follows in the wake of a self-taught performer who never hides his recognisable accent. He arrived on the London stage and later stood in for Peter O’Toole in Ambush in the Jungle, a story about a group of British soldiers. He would go on to participate in the first works of the then-unknown Harold Pinter. A public admirer of Marlon Brando and Humphrey Bogart, he adopted the surname Caine after seeing Bogart’s The Caine Mutiny near Leicester Square. His birth name was Maurice Joseph Micklewhite.
difficult beginnings
The early days were far from easy. In the documentary, Caine explains that he washed dishes, laid roads, and worked as a night watchman in a seedy hotel, often crossing the street to dodge creditors. The instability also affected his first marriage. He shared a flat with Terence Stamp, the actor initially cast to star in Zulu, a plan that faltered and led Caine, who would become a leading man, to take his place. The American director Cy Endfield ignored Caine’s East End accent, which helped spark a class-driven shift when a British voice spoke up in South Africa in 1879.
Stamp’s path continued elsewhere. He later tackled Alfie on stage and in the film’s early production context. Producers considered him for the screen version, but Stamp’s performance did not click with audiences. Caine, a long-time acquaintance of the director’s son, Lewis Gilbert, stepped in. The 1966 release would mark a turning point in his career. From that moment, he embraced sexual ambiguity in both theatre and cinema, ushering in a new aesthetic. David Bailey recalls that Caine helped craft the rimmed glasses that became a signature look in films.
lots of anecdotes
The documentary brims with lesser-known anecdotes, including footage of the Battle of Britain and The Funeral in Berlin, as well as archival moments such as a party Shirley MacLaine hosted during the making of A Love Thief. Caine recalls friendships with Alfred Hitchcock, though he rejected the role of the female killer in Frenzy. Barry Foster ultimately took that part. Later, the two crossed paths on a Berlin street, where Hitchcock’s reaction left a lasting impression.
If The Smiths used a Terence Stamp photo for one of their singles and Yo La Tengo released a track named Tom Courtenay, Madness released a song about Michael Caine in 1984. Chas Smash reveals that Caine’s stoic spy, Harry Palmer, portrayed in three films, mirrors a working-class James Bond. Alongside the real Bond, Sean Connery, they contributed to The Man Who Would Be King.
He spent a quiet period in Miami in the mid-1990s, but Jack Nicholson, who also lived in the city, persuaded him to co-star in Blood and Wine (1996). Caine returned to cinema with notable success: three years later he earned an Oscar for The Cider House Rules, and in 2000 Elizabeth II knighted him. After another pause, Nolan convinced him to return as the butler Alfred in Batman Begins (2005). “He warmed up something that could have been very dark,” Nolan notes. Since then, the director has relied on Caine, and while Dunkirk is a standout, the film includes a brief moment when Caine’s voice comes through on the radio with Tom Hardy.