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The production of the 1960s film "Alfie" is discussed. The film dealt with sex, censorship and angry, cynical young men.

England swings like a pendulum do Bobbies on bicycles, two by two, Westminster Abbey, the Tower and Big Ben,

The rosy red cheeks of the little children. espite the banal lyrics, crass *rhymes and trite tourist imagery of its chorus, Roger Miller's 45 rpm record, `England Swings', made the Top 10 in the American pop charts in November 1965 and the British Top 20 by late January 1966. It was further, albeit modest, recognition of the country's new-found cultural role as the harbinger of everything that was exciting and dynamic in the `Swinging Sixties'.

Following the considerable success on both sides of the Atlantic during the previous two years of beat groups such as The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and films like Dr No, Tom Jones and A Hard Day's Night, British popular culture was riding the crest of a wave. Little wonder, perhaps, that showbusiness personalities sought to jump on the triumphalist bandwagon with yet more novelty discs such as Dora Bryan's `We Love You Beatles' (soon adopted with variations as a football crowd chant) or Bruce Forsyth's `I'm Backing Britain' (soon consigned to oblivion).

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Lewis Gilbert's film of Bill Naughton's Alfie, given its premiere on March 24, 1966, also proved an enormous transatlantic hit. Its origins lay in Naughton's radio play, Alfie Elkins and His Little Life, which was first presented on the BBC Third Programme on January 7th, 1962. BBC Audience Research reported that some people found the play offensive. `Not so much kitchen sink as kitchen garbage tin', was one comment. `Time was', another listener maintained, `when the BBC would not have considered broadcasting anything so revolting'. But a majority of listeners claimed to have formed a high opinion of the programme. They had been `completely absorbed, even fascinated; it was a memorable piece, some said, which still haunted them'. Bill Owen's performance as Alfie, in particular, was warmly praised. The play scored an appreciation index rating of 73, well above the then current average (63) for Third Programme features. The BBC therefore repeated it twice more in 1962. And when a forum of radio critics including Stephen Potter, Dilys Powell and Edward Lucie-Smith gave it their stamp of approval, Naughton was much pleased and prompted to adapt it for stage production. He expanded it considerably and Bernard Miles soon snapped up the retitled Alfie for presentation at his Mermaid Theatre in June 1963, as part of a short season of Naughton plays which included All in Good Time (also later transposed to film as the Boulting Brothers' The Family Way in 1966, starring Hayley Mills and Hywel Bennett). It transferred to the Duchess Theatre on July 22nd, with John Neville in the lead role (and Glenda Jackson and Gemma Jones in supporting parts) where it ran for over a year. Terence Stamp took over as Alfie for the American production at Broadway's Morosco Theatre on December 17th, 1964, but it closed after just twenty-one performances. Stamp puts the play's failure down to 'A devout Catholic critic who was reputedly offended by the abortion scene but, too smart to mention the fact, found other ways of making the play seem unwatchable'. Jean Shrimpton was probably as close to the truth when pointing out that `the audience did not understand the Cockney rhyming slang; in fact they did not understand the play at all'. `Terry was dynamic enough'. she continues, `but this near-monologue from him in an East End accent was baffling to the audience'. Given the play's surprisingly shortlived New York run, however, Stamp declined Lewis Gilbert's offer to make a screen version (much to Michael Caine's relief). The 1966 film finally settled Caine's star status - `Michael Caine is Alfie', ran the publicity billing - after earlier acclaim for his roles in Zulu (1963) and The Ipcress File (1965).

Naughton then proceeded to turn his work into a novel which, published to coincide with the film's release, was an instant best-seller reprinted four times in paperback during May 1966 alone. Cilla Black entered the British Top 10 on April 9th, with Burt Bacharach and Hal David's spin-off song of the same name, while Cher covered it for the American market making the US charts on August 20th. Dubbing of Cher's recording onto the soundtrack of the film (over the final credits) to tailor it for exhibition in the States also helped to secure an Oscar nomination for `Best Song' at the 1967 Academy Awards. Except for its solitary Broadway failure, Alfie progressed with everincreasing success from radio to stage play, from film to tie-in novel, with both UK and US spin-off pop records thrown in for good measure. As a marketing opportunity, it was only bettered at the time by exploitation of The Beatles' products. In addition to reaping huge rewards in international box office returns, moreover, the screen version was well praised critically with even the scholarly Berkeley journal, Film Quarterly, maintaining that `its wit and its stubborn humanity make it seem a giant of a film today'.

Few would agree with that judgement now. In fact, the film's reputation was soon revised. `Had Alfie come out in the 1970s when Women's Lib was digging its spurs into male flanks', the British critic, Alexander Walker, argued by 1974, `it would have been dubbed a crude propaganda tract for chauvinist male pigs'. Doubtless, and with good reason. Alfie is interested in scoring with the 'birds' and little else besides while his story is one long litany of sexual conquests with scant regard for the emotional hurt caused to his many partners along the way (a veritable Who's Who of 60s British acting talent including Jane Asher, Shirley Anne Field, Julia Foster, Millicent Martin and Vivien Merchant). Gone, even, is any trace of John Osborne's Jimmy Porter from Look Back in Anger whose vitriolic yearning and heartfelt lament over the loss of `good brave causes' to fight in 50s Britain, thereby explains, without ever excusing, his misogynist character. What Naughton's Alfie shares initially with Alan Sillitoe's Arthur Seaton in Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by way of selfish hedonist instinct, furthermore, differs markedly in its evolution and resolution. Where Arthur regrets being the cause of a lover's attempt at abortion and appears resigned finally to his domestic lot, Alfie is but momentarily diverted by a lover's desperate need for an abortion and returns to his customary routine of `chatting up the birds'. Though prompted to consider settling down with the American Ruby (Shelley Winters) - 'a good sort' and `great big lustbox' - when jilted by her, for once, he renounces all notions of domesticity in favour of a renewed affair with a married woman. Alfie, as presented on the screen with his knowing looks, arch asides and cocky comments to camera, is the amoral and promiscuous 60s cockney `wide boy'. The film says much about the changing image of masculinity in British cinema between the moment of the `angry young men' and the advent of `swinging London'. Alfie is often cited, moreover, as an example of progressive liberalisation on the part of the film censors - following in the wake of the 1960 Lady Chatterley's Lover trial which proved `the great liberation for printed literature' and in keeping with the 60s movement towards wider `de-censorship' in the arts which culminated in the 1968 Theatres Act and removal of the Lord Chamberlain's powers of censorship. The case for Alfie, however, is hardly watertight. The fact of the matter is that by the time the script landed on the film censors' desk in 1965, it had already been shorn of several controversial aspects, not least in regard to its abortion scene.

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When first presented as a play to the Lord Chamberlain's Office in 1963, for instance, it was the subject of long negotiations to ensure that potentially offensive and objectionable items would be removed or rewritten. The abortion scene was carefully considered, in particular, and face-to-face discussion ensued between the Lord Chamberlain's men, the playwright, and the producer, resulting in extensive revision before all parties declared themselves relatively happy with proceedings. Even then the stage censors found it necessary to send along both 'incognito' and 'open' inspectors to early public performances of the play to ensure the Lord Chamberlain's strictures had been followed. One or two items of concern were observed and further amendments required, though nothing like as much as the Public Morality Council would have wished. The Public Morality Council sent its own 'reporter' along to view Alfie and felt certain the producer had slipped things in after submission for a licence. Its stage plays sub-committee complained to the Lord Chamberlain's office that it considered the play 'deplorable'. The change in moral standards and the new permissive climate were as unpopular with the Public Morality Council as they were with Mrs Mary Whitehouse. In 1964, she embarked upon her `Cleanup TV' campaign and, as Arthur Marwick notes, 'a running battle between the advocates of permissiveness and tolerance and those of purity and censorship was joined'. `That battle in itself', he continues, `served to publicise the fact that change was indeed taking place'.

One such change was the 1967 Abortion Act and Marwick cites Alfie as precisely the sort of film that highlighted the `attendant horror and danger' of back-street abortions, thereby contributing to the tide of public opinion in favour of `liberal legislation in the sphere of sexual mores' which was evident in 1967, especially, with passage also of the National Health Service (Family Planning Act) and the Sexual Offences Act. Perhaps so. But, noticeably, when a film script of Alfie was tendered for pre-production scrutiny to the British Board of Film Censors in 1965, the film-makers stayed pretty much within the bounds of what the censors had already allowed and chose not to overstep the mark in their depiction of contentious issues such as abortion. Bill Naughton and Lewis Gilbert opened up the scenes of the play to accommodate its interpretation on film, predictably, with new characters and outside locations added to flesh out the story and lend variety. The abortion scene was rendered more obvious, moved into the foreground and in view of the camera, with the protagonists and the abortionist plainly on show (the latter, deftly played by Denholm Elliott). But it was not graphically done or depictive of any detail - the act itself being confined behind a curtain in the manner originally intended for the stage play. Its overall and cumulative effect still depended largely upon dialogue and characterisation (enhanced by some excellent acting from Vivien Merchant and Michael Caine, as well as Elliott). Crucially, Alfie's key speech of contrition about the aborted foetus of his child remained precisely as Naughton had fashioned it to meet Lord Chamberlain's requirements. The filmmakers stayed essentially within the confines of what had already been permitted. The finished film would still have to be given an 'X' rated certificate, of course, because of `the grossness of some qf the sex talk' and because of highlighting a successful abortion. (Here, however, it scored something of a victory considering that only a few years earlier, in 1959, Woodfall Films and Alan Sillitoe had been told quite categorically that they would not be allowed the cinematic depiction of a successful termination of pregnancy in the film version of Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.) But despite the continued reservations of the British Board of Film Censors, the screenplay for Alfie was deemed `the most moral "X" I have met for some time', by its scriptreader. *We really do not feel that the sex is dragged in to titillate the idle mind', was the considered opinion among film censors, and it was 'a basically moral theme'. Thus, there was 'a case for being as lenient as possible', the BBFC's secretary wrote to the film-makers on May 4th, 1965: '... it should not give us too much trouble'.

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Certain facets proposed by the script were not exactly welcome, however, such as Alfie taking a pair of women's panties from his pocket and tossing them back with the line '... 'Ere, mind you don't catch cold'. This was `more suggestive' than the censors would have liked. There was to be no business with a banana if it was meant to have any `visual significance' - `substitute an apple or something of this kind', was the instruction. `Discretion' should be used when Alfie `adjusts his trousers and generally makes himself less uncomfortable'. The same would apply when Siddie is seen `hitching up her skirt and tidying herself up'. There should be no nudity in one scene. `This kind of thing' had become 'a cliche", and `at most, only a backview would be accepted'.

`Ruby's costume should be adequate and not transparent', was a further stricture, and the censors were `not happy' about the phrase `lust box', which really ought to be dropped for preference. But if the film-makers persisted in using it in production then `you should have an alternative available'. It made sense, after all, to have another voice-over take readily to hand. When it came to the phrase `having if off, the censors reckoned it would `probably be acceptable' yet `here again, you might have an alternative for post-synching if it should not be' when it came to viewing the completed film for final certification.

The abortion scene, though ,strong... will probably be accepted in the context, since [it does] make a valid point against abortion'. But `we would not want any really harrowing moans and screams' and `obviously we shall not see what Alfie sees in the bathroom' following the termination. The BBFC secretary even tendered some helpful advice that had nothing whatever to do with censorship concerns and more to do with continuity matters - 'I am doubtful whether you can get a train from Waterloo Station to Forest Hill Station. I would have thought that Victoria was more likely'. So it went on. A bit of give and take as usual along carefully laid down and well formulated, if ever-evolving, lines. It is no wonder that the BBFC secretary, John Trevelyan, once described film censorship in terms of 'a curious arrangement' and, as he aptly added, `rather typically British in some ways'. When it finally reached the screen on March 24th, 1966, Alfie had been through a lengthy and arduous, if sometimes fruitful, process of censorship at the hands of both the theatre and film examiners, all of whom contributed substantially - along with the filmmakers themselves - to its emergence as a `basically moral' film. Some things were permitted anew in British cinema of the `Swinging Sixties', to be sure, but permissiveness was still bounded and circumscribed in its depiction. Alfie has since been issued several times on video and is now widely available, though not in the version released in Britain during 1966. The video copy, like the one often shown on British television, is the American version with Cher singing the title song over the end credits. Bacharach and David's composition did not appear on the original British release which had a musical score from the tenor sax player, Sonny Rollins, and that alone. In addition, Michael Caine did some post-synching of the dialogue soundtrack for the American edition - comprising 125 new sound loops - so as to render his character's `very thick cockney accent' into `clearer English' for American consumption. Clearly, lessons had been learned from the play's decided lack of success on Broadway. To see the film today, however, is to see an altogether different film to the one released in Britain in 1966.

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