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My Best Film: Michael Caine


Devon Malcolm

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Almost certainly one of Britain's greatest ever film actors by now and as Loki pointed out elsewhere, he is currently in one of the best runs of his career and seems to have shaken off his tendency to, out of the blue, just pick an absolutely awful film for no apparent reason - see The Swarm, Blue Ice, Jaws The Revenge and so on.

 

So, he's done some shit but he's also been in many, many great films. My favourites in no apparent order:-

 

1) The Harry Palmer films - they have never deserved to have been in the shadow of the Bond films and I think the Bourne trilogy owes far more to these than it does to the Bond series. He is as cool as fuck in these. Billion Dollar Brain is especially amazing.

 

2) Hannah And Her Sisters - steps into a Woody Allen film with seemingly no problem at all and proves that comedy and romance are absolutely no problem to him at all. Also my joint favourite Woody Allen film with Manhattan Murder Mystery.

 

3) Get Carter - obviously. And not just for the Alf Roberts moment.

 

4) Dirty Rotten Scoundrels - the perfect foil for Steve Martin? Who would have thought that? One of my favourite films as a kid.

 

5) The Man Who Would Be King - it just strikes me that if film critics did their work properly that this would rightly be lauded as one of the greatest films of the 1970s and that his performance would be one of the greatest in that decade.

 

Narrowing it down is almost impossible - I've not even mentioned Zulu, the brilliant Sleuth, Harry Brown, Children Of Men, The Italian Job and others.

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The answer is clearly Get Carter. While not just for the Alf ROberts moment, mainly for the Alf Roberts moment.

 

SPOILER - Highlight the black box to read

And also for Carter getting done by a sniper to perhaps the most cheerful music of all time before going into the famed Get Carter theme

 

 

The Stallone version of the Alf Roberts bit was shit.

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Huge fan.

 

My personal favourites are

 

Alfie

This is just a movie that blows you away. I wasn't expecting something as callous and bleak as this. As powerful now as the day it was made.

 

Zulu

He just bursts fully-formed into super-stardom really. The way he steals the film from under Stanley Baker, himself a seriously heavyweight actor, is quite something.

 

Get Carter

The perfect gangster movie in many respects.

 

The Quiet American

I loved this film, and it showed perfectly the manner in which he was going to approach his twilight years as an actor.

 

Gnomeo and Juliet

Only joking...

 

Harry Brown

As discussed in the other thread.

 

I haven't seen one of the classic Harry Palmer films in years, I wonder if you can get a boxed set?

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i aint actually seen that many older Michael Caine films, i got a set from the Daily Mail for free which includes about 20 of his older movies, i need to get on them.

 

To be a movie fan and not have seen the Italian Job is something im very ashamed of.

 

oh, if we're talking newer Caine, i recommend you check out Is Anybody There, cracking little movie.

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Best Film: The man who would be king A fantastic film that was a throwback to films of the 40s and 50s and has amazing chemistry between Caine and Connery

Best Performance: Hannah and her sisters

 

As mentioned now hes got past the habit of doing it for the money he's really having a cracking run of films

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Gladders, I know I've asked this before and there might have been good reason....but any reason we can't use a poll on these threads? Would be nice to get an overall feel of what everyone thinks and might be more inclined to go see whichever one does best if I haven't already

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Caine is so good he even made Jaws The Revenge bareable, but only because of him. For me the original Slueth, DRS, The Forth Protocol & The Muppets Christmas Carol.

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Hmm, loads of great performances

 

I'd go with Without A Clue as being my top Caine film. Brilliant as a bumbling, drunk, out of work actor playing Sherlock Holmes. Fantastic performance against Ben Kingsley's Watson and Jeffrey Jones's Lestrade.

 

Also thought that he was good in The Battle of Britain as Squadron Leader Cansfield, and in Mona Lisa, but Ive not seen the latter in an age

as well as Last Orders and indeed Little Voice

 

Others that have already been mentioned

 

Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, utterly fabulous and mesmerising film

 

The Harry Palmer films, are all excellent

 

Jasper in Children of Men, Nicely comic role

 

Get Carter as well is nicely dark and bleak, as well.

 

 

Top marks allround I think, but yeah, Without A Clue is definitely my favourite, out of the ones Ive seen

 

 

PS I guess the Italian Job doesnt get a mention nor Zulu because of the films status'es or perhaps the performances not being as good? I dunno. I thought he was great as Charlie Croker. But It's weird they arent mentioned

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