In which 1969 movie did Michael Caine appear with his brother Stanley.
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Michael Caine The Italian Job
Sir Michael Caine,  (; born Maurice Joseph Micklewhite; 14 March 1933) is an English actor and author. Renowned for his distinctive working class cockney accent, Caine has appeared in over 115 films and is regarded as a British film icon.

He made his breakthrough in the 1960s with starring roles in a number of acclaimed British films, including Zulu (1964), The Ipcress File (1965), Alfie (1966), for which he was nominated for an Academy Award, The Italian Job (1969), and Battle of Britain (1969). His most notable roles in the 1970s included Get Carter (1971), The Last Valley, Sleuth (1972), for which he earned his second Academy Award nomination, The Man Who Would Be King (1975), and A Bridge Too Far (1977). He achieved some of his greatest critical success in the 1980s, with Educating Rita (1983) earning him the BAFTA and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor. In 1986, he received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance in Woody Allen's Hannah and Her Sisters.

Caine played Ebenezer Scrooge in The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992). Having by that time practically retired from acting on the big screen, he enjoyed a career resurgence in the late 1990s, receiving his second Golden Globe Award for his performance in Little Voice in 1998 and receiving his second Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for The Cider House Rules the following year. Caine played Nigel Powers in the 2002 parody Austin Powers in Goldmember, and Alfred Pennyworth in Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight Trilogy. He appeared in several other of Nolan's films including The Prestige (2006), Inception (2010), and Interstellar (2014). He also appeared as a supporting character in Alfonso Cuarón's Children of Men and Pixar's 2011 film Cars 2. As of 2015, films in which he has starred have grossed over $7.4 billion worldwide.  Caine is ranked the ninth highest grossing box office star. 

Caine is one of only two actors nominated for an Academy Award for acting in every decade from the 1960s to 2000s (the other one being Jack Nicholson; Laurence Olivier was also nominated for an acting Academy Award in five different decades, beginning in 1939 and ending in 1978). In 2000, Caine was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his contribution to cinema.

Early life

Caine was born in St Olave's Hospital in Rotherhithe, London,   the son of Maurice Joseph Micklewhite (1899–1957), a fish market porter, and Ellen Frances Marie Burchell (19 May 1900 – c. December 1989), a cook and charwoman. His father had English, Irish, and, reportedly, Irish Traveller ancestry,   and was a Catholic. He was brought up in his mother's Protestant religion. 

Caine had a maternal half-brother, David William Burchell (11 July 1925 – March 1992) and a full brother, Stanley Micklewhite (1936–2013). Caine grew up in Southwark, London, and during the Second World War, he was evacuated to North Runcton near King's Lynn in Norfolk.  After the war, his father was demobilised, and the family were rehoused by the council in Marshall Gardens at the Elephant and Castle in a pre-fabricated house made in Canada,  as much of London's housing stock had been damaged during the Blitz in 1940–41.

The prefabs, as they were known, were intended to be temporary homes while London was reconstructed, but we ended up living there for eighteen years and for us, after a cramped flat with an outside toilet, it was luxury. 

In 1944, he passed his eleven plus exam, winning a scholarship to Hackney Downs School (formerly The Grocers' Company's School).For an account of his evacuation and early school years, as sent to Jerry Pam—another Hackney Downs pupil whom he met in the 1950s, who was 6 years his senior, and who has become his publicist for "over 50 years"—see "MC" [Michael Caine], "A Message from Evacuee Maurice Micklewhite", The Clove's Lines: The Newsletter of The Clove Club: The Old Boys of Hackney Downs School 3.2 (March 2009): 16. After a year there he moved to Wilson's Grammar School in Camberwell (now Wilson's School in Wallington, South London), which he left at sixteen after gaining a School Certificate in six subjects. He then worked briefly as a filing clerk and messenger for a film company in Victoria Street and film producer Jay Lewis in Wardour Street.

From 28 April 1952, when he was called up to do his national service until 1954, he served in the British Army's Royal Fusiliers, first at the BAOR HQ in Iserlohn, Germany, and then on active service during the Korean War. He had gone into Korea feeling sympathetic to communism, coming as he did from a poor family, but the experience left him permanently repelled.  He experienced a situation where he knew he was going to die, the memory of which stayed with him and formed his character; he later said, "The rest of my life I have lived every bloody moment from the moment I wake up until the time I go to sleep."  Caine would like to see the return of national service to help combat youth violence, stating: "I'm just saying, put them in the Army for six months. You're there to learn how to defend your country. You belong to the country. Then when you come out, you have a sense of belonging rather than a sense of violence". 

Career

1950s

Caine's acting career began at the age of 20 in Horsham, Sussex, when he responded to an advertisement in The Stage for an assistant stage manager who would also perform small walk-on parts for the Horsham-based Westminster Repertory Company who were performing at the Carfax Electric Theatre.  Adopting the stage name "Michael Scott", in July 1953 he was cast as the drunkard Hindley in the Company's production of Wuthering Heights.  He moved to the Lowestoft Repertory Company in Suffolk for a year when he was 22. It was here that he met his first wife.  He has described the first nine years of his career as "really, really brutal." 

When his career took him to London in 1954 after his provincial apprenticeship, his agent informed him that there was already a Michael Scott performing as an actor in London and that he had to come up with a new name immediately. Speaking to his agent from a telephone box in Leicester Square, London, he looked around for inspiration, noted that The Caine Mutiny was being shown at the Odeon Cinema in 1954, and decided to change his name to "Michael Caine". He joked on television in 1987 that, had a tree partly blocking his view been a few feet to the left, he might have been called "Michael Mutiny". (Humphrey Bogart was his "screen idol" and he would later play the part originally intended for Bogart in John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King. ) He also later joked in interviews that had he looked the other way, he would have ended up as "Michael One Hundred and One Dalmatians".  In 1959, he was Peter O'Toole's understudy in Lindsay Anderson's West End staging of Willis Hall's The Long and the Short and the Tall. He took over the role when O'Toole left to make Lawrence of Arabia and went on to a four-month tour of Britain and Ireland.

Michael Caine's first film role was as one of the privates in George Baker's platoon in the 1956 film A Hill in Korea. The stars of the film were George Baker, Stanley Baker, Harry Andrews and Michael Medwin, with Stephen Boyd and Ronald Lewis, and Robert Shaw also had a small part.

He appeared regularly on television in small roles. His first credited role on the BBC was 'Boudousse' in the Jean Anouilh play The Lark in 1956.  Other parts included three roles in Dixon of Dock Green in 1957, 1958 and 1959, prisoner-of-war series Escape (1957), crime/thriller drama Mister Charlesworth, and, ironically, a court orderly in The Caine Mutiny Court Martial (1958).

1960s

Caine continued to appear on television, in serials The Golden Girl and No Wreath for the General, but was then cast in the play The Compartment, written by Johnny Speight, a two-hander also starring Frank Finlay.  This was followed by main roles in other plays including Somewhere for the Night, a Sunday-Night Play written by Bill Naughton, another two-hander by Johnny Speight, The Playmates, and two editions of BBC plays strand First Night, Funny Noises with Their Mouths and The Way with Reggie (both 1963).  He also acted in radio plays, including Bill Naughton's Looking for Frankie on the BBC Home Service (1963) and Ping Pong on the BBC Third Programme (1964).
A big break came for Caine when he was cast as Meff in James Saunders' Cockney comedy Next Time I'll Sing To You, when this play was presented at the New Arts Theatre in London on 23 January 1963.  Scenes from the play's performance were featured in the April 1963 issue of Theatre World magazine. 

When this play moved to the Criterion in Piccadilly with Michael Codron directing, he was visited backstage by Stanley Baker, one of the four stars in Caine's first film, A Hill in Korea, who told him about the part of a Cockney private in his upcoming film Zulu, a film Baker was producing and starring in. Baker told Caine to meet the director, Cy Endfield, who informed him that he already had given the part to James Booth, a fellow Cockney who was Caine's friend, because he looked more Cockney than Caine did. Endfield then told the 6'2" Caine that he did not look like a Cockney but like an officer, and offered him a screen test for the role of a snobbish, upper class officer after Caine assured him that he could do a posh accent. Caine believes Endfield offered him, a Cockney, the role of an aristocrat because, being American, he did not have the endemic British class-prejudice. Though he tested poorly, Endfield gave him the part that would make him a film star. 

Location shooting for Zulu took place in Natal, South Africa, for 14 weeks in 1963.    According to his 2011 autobiography The Elephant to Hollywood, Caine had been signed to a seven-year contract by Joseph E. Levine, whose Embassy Films was distributing Zulu. After the return of the cast to England and the completion of the film, Levine released him from the contract, telling him, "I know you're not, but you gotta face the fact that you look like a queer on screen." Levine gave his contract to his Zulu co-star James Booth. 

Subsequently, Caine's agent got him cast in the BBC production Hamlet at Elsinore (1964) as Horatio, in support of Christopher Plummer's Hamlet. Horatio was the only classical role which Caine, who had never received dramatic training, would ever play. Caine wrote, "...I decided that if my on-screen appearance was going to be an issue, then I would use it to bring out all Horatio's ambiguous sexuality." 

Caine's roles as effete-seeming aristocrats were to contrast with his next projects, in which he was to become notable for using a regional accent, rather than the Received Pronunciation hitherto considered proper for film actors. At the time, Caine's working class Cockney, just as with The Beatles' Liverpudlian accents, stood out to American and British audiences alike. Zulu was closely followed by two of his best-known roles: the spy Harry Palmer in The Ipcress File (1965), and the womanising title character in Alfie (1966). He went on to play Palmer in a further four films, Funeral in Berlin (1966), Billion Dollar Brain (1967), Bullet to Beijing (1995) and Midnight in Saint Petersburg (1995). Caine made his first film in the United States in 1966, after an invitation from Shirley MacLaine to play opposite her in Gambit. During the first two weeks, whilst staying at the Beverly Hills Hotel, he met long-term friends John Wayne and agent "Swifty" Lazar. 

1970s

After working on The Italian Job with Noël Coward, and a solid role as RAF fighter pilot Squadron Leader Canfield in the all-star cast of Battle of Britain (both 1969), Caine played the lead in Get Carter (1971), a British gangster film. Caine was busy with successes including Sleuth (1972) opposite Laurence Olivier, and John Huston's The Man Who Would Be King (1975) co-starring Sean Connery which received widespread acclaim. The Times applauded the "lovely double act of Caine and Connery, clowning to their doom", while Huston paid tribute to Caine's improvisation as an actor: "Michael is one of the most intelligent men among the artists I've known. I don't particularly care to throw the ball to an actor and let him improvise, but with Michael it's different. I just let him get on with it." 

In 1976 he appeared in the screen adaptation by Tom Mankiewicz of the Jack Higgins novel The Eagle Has Landed as Oberst (Colonel) Kurt Steiner, the commander of a Luftwaffe paratroop unit disguised as Polish paratroopers, whose mission was to kidnap or kill the then-British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, alongside co-stars Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Jenny Agutter and Donald Pleasence. Subsequently in 1978, he starred in The Silver Bears, an adaptation of Paul Erdman's (1974) novel of the same name. Caine also was part of an all-star cast in A Bridge Too Far (1977).

1980s

By the end of the decade, he had moved to the United States, but his later choice of roles was frequently criticisedsomething to which he has referred with self-deprecating comments about taking parts strictly for the money. Caine then averaged two films a year, but these included such failures as the BAFTA Award-nominated The Magus (1968), the Academy Award-nominated The Swarm (1978), Ashanti (1979) (which he claimed were his worst three films), Beyond the Poseidon Adventure (1979), The Island (1980), The Hand (1981) and a reunion with his Sleuth co-star Laurence Olivier in The Jigsaw Man (1982).
Although Caine also took better roles, including a BAFTA-winning turn in Educating Rita (1983), an Oscar-winning one in Hannah and Her Sisters (1986),  and a Golden Globe-nominated one in Dirty Rotten Scoundrels (1988), he continued to appear in poorly received films such as Blame It on Rio, the Dick Clement and Ian La Frenais comedy Water, the critical-commercial flop Jaws: The Revenge (1987) (about which he had mixed feelings concerning the production and the final cut), and Bullseye! (1990). On Jaws: The Revenge, Caine said "I have never seen the film, but by all accounts it was terrible. However, I have seen the house that it built, and it is terrific."  

His other successful films (critically or financially) were the 1978 Academy Award-winning California Suite, the 1980 Golden Globe-nominated slasher film Dressed to Kill, the 1981 war film Escape to Victory featuring Sylvester Stallone and footballers from the 1960s and 1970s, including  Pelé and Bobby Moore, the 1982 film Deathtrap, and the 1986 Academy Award-nominated Mona Lisa. In 1987, Caine narrated Hero, the official film of the 1986 FIFA World Cup.  He also starred in Without a Clue, portraying Sherlock Holmes and also acted as Chief Insp. Frederick Abberline in the 1988 TV series 'Jack the Ripper'.

1990s

In the 1990s, he found good parts harder to come by. He played the mysterious bartender Mike in Mr. Destiny in 1990. A high point came when he played Ebenezer Scrooge in the critically acclaimed The Muppet Christmas Carol (1992). He played the beleaguered stage director Lloyd Fellowes in the film adaptation of Noises Off (1992). He also played a villain in the Steven Seagal film On Deadly Ground (1994). He was in two straight to video Harry Palmer sequels and a few television films. However, Caine's reputation as a pop icon was still intact, thanks to his roles in films such as The Italian Job and Get Carter. His performance in Little Voice (1998) was seen as something of a return to form, and won him a Golden Globe Award. Better parts followed, including The Cider House Rules (1999), for which he won his second Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. 

2000s

In the 2000s, Caine appeared in Miss Congeniality (2000), Last Orders (2001), The Quiet American (2002), for which he was Oscar-nominated, and others. Several of Caine's classic films have been remade, including The Italian Job, Get Carter, Alfie and Sleuth. In the 2007 remake of Sleuth, Caine took over the role Laurence Olivier played in the 1972 version and Jude Law played Caine's original role. In an interview with CNN, Law spoke of his admiration for Caine: "I learned so much just from watching how he monitored his performance, and also how little he has to do. He's a master technician and sometimes he was doing stuff I didn't see, I couldn't register. I'd go back and watch it on the monitor, it was like 'Oh my God, the amount of variety he's put in there is breathtaking.

Caine also starred in Austin Powers in Goldmember (2002) as Austin's father and in 2003 he co-starred with Robert Duvall in Secondhand Lions. Caine played family elder Henry Lair in the 2004 film, Around the Bend. In 2005, he was cast as Bruce Wayne's butler Alfred Pennyworth in the first production of the new Batman film series, Batman Begins. In 2006, he appeared in the films Children of Men and The Prestige. In 2007 he appeared in Flawless, and in 2008 and 2012 he reprised his role as Alfred in Christopher Nolan's critically acclaimed Batman sequels, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises as well as starring in the British drama Is Anybody There?, which explores the final days of life.

It was reported by Empire magazine that Caine had said that Harry Brown (released on 13 November 2009) would be his last lead role.  Caine later declared (in the Daily Mirror) that he had been misquoted by the magazine. 

2010s

Caine appeared in Christopher Nolan's science fiction thriller Inception as Prof. Stephen Miles, Cobb's (Leonardo DiCaprio) mentor and father-in-law. He voiced Finn McMissile in Pixar's 2011 film Cars 2 and also voiced a supporting role in the animation, Gnomeo & Juliet. He also starred in the 2012 film Journey 2: The Mysterious Island, as Josh Hutcherson's character's grandfather; the film also featured Dwayne Johnson and Vanessa Hudgens.

Caine reprised his role as Alfred Pennyworth in the Batman sequel, The Dark Knight Rises, which was released in July 2012. He appeared in Christopher Nolan's 2014 science-fiction film, Interstellar as Dr. Brand.  Caine co-starred in Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015), by director Matthew Vaughn.  He also appeared in the lead role of retired composer Fred Ballinger in the comedy-drama film Youth, for which he received widespread acclaim.

In October 2015, Caine read Hans Christian Andersen's "Little Claus and Big Claus" for the children's fairytales app GivingTales in aid of UNICEF, together with Sir Roger Moore, Stephen Fry, Ewan McGregor, Dame Joan Collins, Joanna Lumley, David Walliams, Charlotte Rampling and Paul McKenna. 

Awards and honours

Caine has been Oscar-nominated six times, winning his first Academy Award for the 1986 film Hannah and Her Sisters, and his second in 1999 for The Cider House Rules, in both cases as a supporting actor. His performance in Educating Rita in 1983 earned him the BAFTA and Golden Globe Award for Best Actor.

He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 1992 Queen's Birthday Honours,  and in the 2000 Birthday Honours he was knighted as Sir Maurice Micklewhite CBE by Elizabeth II at Buckingham Palace.   In a tribute to his background, he stated: "I was named after my father and I was knighted in his name because I love my father. I always kept my real name - I'm a very private and family-orientated person."  In 2000 he received a BAFTA Academy Fellowship Award. 

In 2008, Caine was awarded the prize for Outstanding Contribution to Showbusiness at the Variety Club Awards.  On 5 January 2011 he was made a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres by France's culture minister, Frédéric Mitterrand.  In May 2012, Caine was awarded the Honorary Freedom of the London Borough of Southwark as a person of distinction and eminence of the borough. 

In popular culture

Caine is regarded as a British cultural icon, with Mairi Mackay of CNN stating: "Michael Caine has been personifying British cool since the swinging sixties. He has brought some of British cinema's most iconic characters to life and introduced his very own laid-back cockney gangster into pop culture. He doggedly retained a regional accent at a time when the plummy tones of Received Pronunciation were considered obligatory. It is a sweet irony that his accent has become his calling card." With his distinctive voice and manner of speaking, Caine is a popular subject for impersonators and mimics.  Most Caine impressions include the catchphrase "Not a lot of people know that." The catchphrase emanates from Caine's habit of informing people of obscure "interesting facts" that he has collected.  Referring to Caine as having the "biggest mind of useless information", Peter Sellers initiated the catchphrase when he appeared on BBC1's Parkinson show on 28 October 1972 and said:

Not many people know that. This is my Michael Caine impression. You see, Mike's always quoting from the Guinness Book of Records. At the drop of a hat he'll trot one out. 'Did you know that it takes a man in a tweed suit five and a half seconds to fall from the top of Big Ben to the ground?' Now there's not many people who know that! 

Over the years Caine himself had parodied the phenomenon, both his catchphrase and his "interesting facts", and has imitated others' impressions of him.  In an interview with Michael Parkinson in 2007, Caine commented on the impersonations of his voice, "I can do it. 'Hello. My name is Michael Caine. Not many people know that.' I sound like a bloody moron. You know where they've got me now? On birthday cards. 'It's your birthday today. Not many people know that'. Now they've got me on Satellite navigation. It's me going, 'take the second turn on the right, and you'll wind up right in the shit.' In 1983, Caine used his "not a lot of people know that" phrase as a joke in the film Educating Rita.

The British comedy sketch show, Harry Enfield's Television Programme, included a series of sketches in which Paul Whitehouse played a character called Michael Paine; an amalgam of previous Michael Caine impressions, who in a reference to The Ipcress File wears oversized, thick-rimmed glasses and a trench coat. He introduces himself with the line, "My name is Michael Paine, and I am a nosy neighbour" and in a spoof of the stakeout at the beginning of The Ipcress File, recounts to the camera the 'suspiciously' mundane behaviour of his neighbours, before saying, "Not a lot of people know that I know that". 

A parody of Michael Caine also appears in the animated series Ugly Americans, in the episode "The Dork Knight", which also parodies the film The Dark Knight. In the episode, Caine appears as himself, portrayed in the light of his Alfred Pennyworth interpretation, and constantly annoys the protagonists with endless anecdotes of his career.

The 2010 television series The Trip, starring Rob Brydon and Steve Coogan, featured improvised scenes in which the two leads argue over who can do the better Michael Caine impression.  Among the lines they repeat in their attempts to outdo each other are, "You were only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!" and, "She was only sixteen" – from The Italian Job and Get Carter, respectively.

Craig Ferguson has run segments on his show where he parodies Caine, usually while wearing a space suit.  In a 2010 interview with The Telegraph, Caine spoke of the impersonations and how everyone he meets quotes lines at him, to the point he quotes them quoting him. When asked did he ever tire of telling his anecdotes, Caine states: "I enjoy making people laugh. The trick is to tell them against yourself. If you praise yourself your stories aren’t funny."

Personal life

Caine lives in Leatherhead, Surrey, and is patron to the Leatherhead Drama Festival.  He has also lived in North Stoke, Oxfordshire, Clewer near Windsor, Berkshire, Lowestoft in Suffolk and Chelsea Harbour in London. In addition, Caine owns an apartment at the Apogee in Miami Beach, Florida. He still keeps a small flat near where he grew up in south east London. Caine has published two volumes of memoirs, What's It All About? in 1992 and The Elephant to Hollywood in 2010. 

He was married to actress Patricia Haines from 1955 to 1962. They have a daughter, Dominique (who was named after the heroine of the novel The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand).  He dated Bianca Jagger in 1968. Caine has been married to actress and model Shakira Baksh since 8 January 1973. They met after Caine saw her appearing in a Maxwell House coffee commercial and a friend gave him her telephone number. They have a daughter, Natasha Haleema.    As a Christian married to a Muslim, he says "no questions or issues ever come up" and describes his wife's beliefs as "very benign". 

Proud of his working class roots, Caine has discussed the opportunities his film career gave him: "I got to play football with Pelé, for God’s sake. And I danced with Bob Fosse." He also became close friends with John Lennon, stating: "With John and I it was a case of bonding because we were both working class and we shared a sense of humour. We were pretending we weren’t who people thought we were." His closest friends today include two former James Bonds, Sean Connery and Roger Moore.

Caine quit his 80-a-day cigarette habit in the early 1970s after a lecture by Tony Curtis.  Caine is a fan of the sport of cricket. This was alluded to by Gary Oldman, who acted with Caine in the Dark Knight Rises, when he talks about Caine's acting methods: "It's, 'Take one'. He got it. 'Take two', got it. 'Take three', got it. He's just on the money… He doesn't f*** around because he wants to get back to cricket." 

Some time after his mother died, Caine and his younger brother, Stanley, learned they had an elder half-brother, named David. He suffered from severe epilepsy and had been kept in Cane Hill Mental Hospital his entire life. Although their mother regularly visited her first son in the hospital, even her husband did not know the child existed. David died in 1992. 

Trivia books written by Caine include Not Many People Know That!, And Not Many People Know This Either!, Michael Caine's Moving Picture Show and Not A Lot of People Know This is 1988. Proceeds from the books went to the National Playing Fields Association, a UK charity which Caine served as Vice President, which aims to protect and promote open spaces for sports and recreation in British cities and towns. 

In July 2016, Caine changed his name by deed poll to his long-time stage name in order to simplify security checks at airports. "[A security guard] would say, 'Hi Michael Caine,' and suddenly I’d be giving him a passport with a different name on it [Maurice Joseph Micklewhite]. I could stand there for an hour. So I changed my name." 

Politics

Caine has often been outspoken about his political views. He left the United Kingdom for the United States in the late 1970s, citing the income tax levied on top earners by the Labour government of James Callaghan, but returned to the UK eight years later after taxes had been lowered by the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher:

Following the launch of his film Harry Brown, Caine called for the reintroduction of national service in the UK to give young people "a sense of belonging rather than a sense of violence". 

In 2009, Caine publicly criticised the Labour government of Gordon Brown for its reintroduced 50 per cent income tax rate on top earners and threatened to return to the US if his taxes were increased further.  During the run up to the 2010 General Election, Caine publicly endorsed the Conservative Party and appeared with party leader David Cameron for the launch of a civilian non-compulsory "National Service" for 16-year-olds, although he claimed he had previously supported New Labour under the leadership of Tony Blair in 1997.  In July 2014, Caine was reported to have been a celebrity investor in a tax avoidance scheme called Liberty.  Speaking in January 2016 on the subject of the United Kingdom European Union membership referendum, Caine stated he is "sort of certain" that the UK should leave the EU. 

Musical career

Caine is a fan of chill-out music and released a compilation CD called Cained in 2007 on the UMTV record label.   He met Elton John and was discussing musical tastes, when Caine claimed that he had been creating chillout mix tapes as an amateur for years.  Also in music, Caine provided vocal samples for the Ska-pop band Madness for their 1984 hit "Michael Caine" as his daughter was a fan. He has sung in film roles as well, including Little Voice and for the 1992 musical film The Muppet Christmas Carol.

Filmography

Academy Awards The Italian Job is a 1969 British caper film, written by Troy Kennedy Martin, produced by Michael Deeley and directed by Peter Collinson. Subsequent television showings and releases on video have made it well known in the United Kingdom.

Its soundtrack was composed by Quincy Jones, and includes "On Days Like These" sung by Matt Monro over the opening credits, and "Getta Bloomin' Move On" (usually referred to as "The Self-Preservation Society", after its chorus) during the climactic car chase. Lead actor Michael Caine is among its singers. 

In November 2004, Total Film named The Italian Job the 27th greatest British film of all time.  The line "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!" by Caine was voted favourite film one-liner in a 2003 poll of 1,000 film fans. 
The popularity of the film has led to parodies and allusions in other films and productions, including a 2003 remake.   

Plot

Charlie Croker (Michael Caine), a Cockney criminal, is released from prison with the intention of doing a "big job" in Italy. He soon meets with the widow (Lelia Goldoni) of his friend and fellow thief Roger Beckermann (Rossano Brazzi), who was killed by the Mafia while driving a Lamborghini Miura in the Italian Alps. Mrs Beckermann gives Croker her husband's plans for the robbery that attracted the hostile attention of his killers, which detail a way to steal 4 million dollars in the city of Turin and escape to Switzerland.

Croker breaks back into his former prison to convince Mr. Bridger (Noël Coward), the head of a huge criminal empire, to finance the plan. Bridger, who has bribed almost all of the prison guards to work for him, initially rejects the plan, but changes his mind after he learns Fiat is set to build a new factory in China.

With Bridger's backing, Croker recruits computer expert Professor Peach (Benny Hill), his girlfriend Lorna (Maggie Blye) and a team of thieves and drivers. The plan calls for Peach to replace the programme in the computer controlling Turin's traffic control system, creating a paralysing traffic jam that will allow the thieves to escape with the gold in three Mini Cooper S getaway cars. 

After planning and training, Croker and crew set out for Turin. Mafia boss Altabani (Raf Vallone) and his underlings are waiting in the Alps at the same pass where they killed Beckermann. Altabani warns Croker that the Mafia are aware of the gang's intentions and smashes their Jaguar E-Type cars, sending Croker's personal Aston Martin DB4 drophead off a cliff. Croker tells Altabani that Mr. Bridger will avenge their deaths by attacking the Italian community in Britain. Altabani lets them go, ordering them to return to England. Instead, they proceed with the plan, replacing the traffic control system's magnetic tape data storage reels. On the day of the robbery, Croker sends gang member Birkinshaw, disguised as a football fan, to jam the closed circuit television cameras that monitor traffic. The substitute data reel then causes widespread traffic chaos. The gang converge on the gold convoy, overpower the guards, and tow the armoured car into the entrance hall of the Museo Egizio. There, the gang transfer the gold to the Minis.

Altabani recognises that "If they planned this jam, they must have planned a way out." Pursued by the Turin police, the three Minis race through the shopping arcades of the city, speed down stairs, jump between rooftops, and finally escape the traffic jams by a pre-planned route across a weir. The getaway is timed perfectly, and they throw off the police by driving through a large sewer pipe. As Mr. Bridger receives the cheers and adulation of his fellow prison inmates, the gang drive the Minis into the back of a moving customised coach. They then unload the gold and dispose of the Minis by pushing them off the mountainside.

The rest of the gang, having sneaked out of the city in a minibus while disguised as football supporters, rendezvous with the coach in the Alps. On the looping mountain roads, driver "Big" William (Harry Baird) loses control of the coach. The back of the bus is left teetering over a cliff and the gold slides towards the rear doors. As Croker attempts to reach the gold, it slips further. The film ends on a literal cliffhanger with Croker announcing he has a "great idea".

Cast

 

*Michael Caine as Charlie Croker
*Noël Coward as Mr. Bridger
*Benny Hill as Professor Simon Peach
*Raf Vallone as Altabani
*Tony Beckley as Camp Freddie
*Rossano Brazzi as Roger Beckermann
*Maggie Blye as Lorna
*Irene Handl as Miss Peach
*John Le Mesurier as the Prison Governor
*Fred Emney as Birkinshaw
*John Clive as Garage manager
*Graham Payn as Keats
*Michael Standing as Arthur
*Stanley Caine as Coco
*Barry Cox as Chris 
*Harry Baird as Big William
*George Innes as Bill Bailey
*John Forgeham as Frank
*Robert Powell as Yellow

*Derek Ware as Rozzer
*Frank Jarvis as Roger
*David Salamone as Dominic
*Richard Essame as Tony
*Mario Valgoi as Manzo
*Renato Romano(in Italian) as Cosca
*Franco Norvelli as Altabani's driver
*Robert Rietti as Police chief
*Timothy Bateson as Dentist
*David Kelly as Vicar
*Arnold Diamond as Senior computer room official
*Simon Dee as Shirtmaker
*Alistair Hunter as Warder (cinema)
*Lana Gatto as Mrs. Cosca
*John Morris as Standin 
*Louis Mansi as Computer room official
*Henry McGee as Tailor
*Lelia Goldoni as Mrs Beckermann

Noël Coward, who played Bridger, was godfather of the director, Peter Collinson. Bridger's fellow convict and confidant, Keats, was played by Graham Payn, Coward's long-time partner. Lana Gatto was the nom de crédit of Hazel Collinson, otherwise known as Mrs. Peter Collinson. Michael Caine's brother Stanley Caine also appears as one of Croker's gang. The gang also included Robert Powell, in his first film role. Frank Kelly appears as an uncredited prison officer, also in his first film role. American distributors Paramount wanted Robert Redford to play the lead.

Ending

According to a "Making Of" documentary, producer Deeley was unsatisfied with the four written endings and conceived the current ending as a literal cliffhanger appropriate to an action film which left an opportunity for a sequel. The documentary describes how helicopters would save the bus seen on the cliff at the end of the first film.  The grateful gang would soon discover that it is the Mafia that has saved them, and the sequel would have been about stealing the gold bullion back from them.

In interviews in 2003 and 2008, Michael Caine revealed that the ending would have had Croker "crawl up, switch on the engine and stay there for four hours until all the petrol runs out... The van bounces back up so we can all get out, but then the gold goes over." The bus containing the gold would crash at the bottom of the hill where the Mafia would pick it up. The sequel would then have Croker and his men trying to get it back.

In 2008, the Royal Society of Chemistry held a competition for a solution that had a basis in science, was to take not more than 30 minutes and did not use a helicopter.  The idea was to promote greater understanding of science, and to highlight the 100th anniversary of the periodic table, on which gold is one of the 118 elements. The winning entry, by John Godwin of Surrey, was: Break and remove two large side windows just aft of the pivot point and let the glass fall outside to lose its weight; break two windows over the two front axles, keeping the broken glass on board to keep its weight for balance; let a man out on a rope through the front broken windows (not to rest his weight on the ground) who deflates all the bus's front tires, to reduce the bus's rocking movement about its pivot point; drain the fuel tank, which is aft of the pivot point, which changes the balance enough to let a man get out and gather heavy rocks to load the front of the bus. Unload the bus. Wait until a suitable vehicle passes on the road, hijack it, and carry the gold away in it. 

Locations

The opening sequence of the film featuring Beckermann driving his Lamborghini Miura through The Alps was filmed on the Great St. Bernard Pass, Aosta, Italy, with the opening scene featuring the Dardanelli Viaduct constructed in 1961. The large house featured momentarily during the sequence is the Manison de Refuge.

The tunnel in which Beckermann abruptly meets his demise at the hands of the Mafia was shot at La Thuile on road SS26, Italy.

The interior of the prison that held Bridger was Kilmainham Gaol in Dublin, Ireland. The exterior, seen when Croker leaves, is HM Prison Wormwood Scrubs in west London.

Upon his release, Croker stays at the Royal Lancaster Hotel in Bayswater, London. Denbigh Close, Notting Hill, W11, was used as the location for Croker's (Michael Caine) home. 

The highrise apartment where the Turin job is planned was the penthouse flat at Alembic House (now known as Peninsula Heights) on the Albert Embankment. The property became the London home of novelist and disgraced MP Jeffrey Archer, and was later seen in films such as Theatre of Blood (1973), A Touch of Class (1973), and Sweeney! (1977).

The training sessions shown for the Mini drivers were at the Crystal Palace race track in Upper Norwood, South London. The attempt to blow the doors off the bullion van, which led to its destruction and Croker's famous line, took place at Crystal Palace Sports Centre. The Crystal Palace transmitter can be seen in the background.

The meeting at the misty funeral was filmed in Cruagh Cemetery, in the foothills of the Dublin Mountains.

The office block that doubled as the Turin traffic control centre was Apex House, the Hanworth, Middlesex head office of the television rental chain DER.

The chase sequences were filmed in Turin, except for the chase through the sewer tunnel, which was shot in the Sowe Valley Sewer Duplication system in the Stoke Aldermoor district of Coventry in the English Midlands, filmed from the back of a Mini Moke. The person on the far side who closes the gate at the end of sewer tunnel is the director, Peter Collinson. Collinson also appeared in the scene on the highway when the ramps get jettisoned, clinging to the right-hand rear door of the coach as the Minis enter at speed.

During the getaway the Minis are pursued by police around the rooftop test track of what was then a Fiat factory in the Lingotto building in Turin. The weir the Minis cross in the car chase is just down river from the Ponte Vittorio Emanuele I at the end of Via Po in central Turin.

A portion of the car chase was filmed as a dance between the Minis and police cars inside Pier Luigi Nervi's Exhibition Building, with a full orchestra playing 'The Blue Danube'. It was cut from the final version and appears as an extra on the DVD.

The final escape from Turin and bus crash was the 'dead end' road from Turin via Ceresole Reale, Lago Agnel and the Colle del Nivolet. The road does not lead to France or Switzerland.

Vehicles

Roger Beckermann's orange Lamborghini Miura in the opening scene is actually two cars. The first was a Miura P400 that was sold as new afterwards. The car tumbled down the chasm by the Mafia bulldozer was another Miura that had been in a serious accident and was not roadworthy.

According to the director's commentary on the DVD, despite the publicity the film would give to the Mini, the car's maker, BMC, only provided a token fleet of Minis and the production company had to buy the rest at trade price. Fiat offered the production as many super-charged Fiat cars as they needed, several sports cars for the Mafia confrontation scene, plus $50,000, but the producers turned down the offer because it would have meant replacing the Minis with Fiats.

The Minis seen on screen carry registration numbers HMP 729G (Red), GPF 146G (White) and LGW 809G (Blue). As at July 2012, a DVLA query indicates that two of these plates may still be registered; these, however,  are not the cars used in the film as the film cars had "future dated" plates to make them current with the release date of the film, and as such would not be allowed to use them on the road. There were also numerous detail differences between the Minis used during filming and the launch of the "G" year suffix. According to the "making of" DVD extra, the Minis used in the chase scenes were all destroyed in accidents while filming the sewer sequence.

As Croker walks through the garage where the Minis are being prepared, viewers hear that "Rozzer's having trouble with his differential", and the back of the red Mini Cooper is jacked up where Rozzer is working. This is an inside joke since the Mini has front-wheel drive and does not have a rear differential. In the early 1960s, front-wheel-drive cars were new and asking a car mechanic to repair a Mini's rear differential was a popular snipe hunt.

Gold cost $39 per troy ounce in 1968;  so four million dollars in gold bars would have weighed about 3200 kg (7000 lb), requiring each of the three Minis to carry about 1070 kg (2300 lb) in addition to the driver and passenger. Since a 1968 Mini only weighs 630 kg (1400 lb),  each of these vehicles would have had to carry 1½ times its own weight in gold.

The coach at the end of the film was a 1964 Bedford VAL with Harrington Legionnaire Body, distinctive for its twin front steering axles. Following the filming, the coach had its improvised rear doors welded and was used on a Scottish school bus route until the mid-1980s when, according to the Legionnaire register, it was scrapped.

Charlie Croker picks up his Aston Martin DB4 convertible from a garage after release from prison.  The scene was mostly improvised, which caused visible lighting irregularities since the crew did not know where the actors would be.

The original DB4 belongs today to a private English collection. According to several sources, the "Aston" pushed off the cliff was a Vignale Lancia Flaminia mocked up as an Aston. The two E-type Jaguars that suffered from the Mafia's revenge were restored to original condition, the red one of which is owned by Phillip Porter, the founder of the Jaguar E-type owners club.

The black Fiat Dino coupé of Mafia boss Altabani was bought by Peter Collinson but became so rusty that only its doors remain. The Italian police cars seen around Turin were Alfa Romeo Giulias. The Italian police armoured car which escorts the gold convoy is a conversion of a former Second World War American M8 Greyhound armoured car. The original 37mm gun was removed and replaced with a water cannon.

A Land Rover Series IIa Station Wagon registration BKO 686C was used to get to the convoy before attacking and was modified with window bars and a "Towbar".

A Ford Thames 400E van was used for the football fans' decorated van; this was referred to as the Dormobile, the name of a common camper-van conversion coachbuilder.

The cross-Channel ferry featured in one scene is the MS Free Enterprise I. The ship spent many years as a day cruise ship in Greek waters before being scrapped in 2013.

The "Chinese" plane delivering the gold to Turin is a rare Douglas C-74 Globemaster, of which only 14 were built and only four passed into private ownership. It had been abandoned in Milan by its owners and was moved to Turin for filming. It was destroyed by fire in 1970. 

Music

The music for the soundtrack was written by Quincy Jones. The opening theme, "On Days Like These", had lyrics by Don Black and was sung by Matt Monro. The closing theme, "Get a Bloomin' Move On" (AKA "The Self Preservation Society"), was performed by the cast and had lyrics featuring Cockney Rhyming Slang. Many incidental themes are based on British patriotic songs, such as "Rule, Britannia!", "The British Grenadiers" and "God Save the Queen".

Reception and legacy

The film has received generally positive reviews, holding an 84% on Rotten Tomatoes and an average of 7.2/10.  Most positive reviews focus on the climactic car chase and the acting of both Michael Caine and Noël Coward, complimenting Peter Collinson's directing. It is considered highly evocative of 1960s London and the era in Britain as a whole.  In a modern review Nik Higgins of Future Movies claims that the film makes Austin Powers's wardrobe appear 'drab and grey'. He compliments Michael Caine's ability to effectively portray the character of Charlie   and also praises the music of Quincy Jones. Higgins particularly highlights how the music 'hops between smooth lounges' like the opener "On Days Like These" and the latter "Get a Bloomin' Move On" ('The Self Preservation Society'), which plays near the film's end.

It has also received some negative reviews, focusing on what is perceived as a predictable chase  and a lack of real emotion.  Vincent Canby, writing at the time of the film's release, felt that the caper film had been made before and much better as well. He complimented the film's technological sophistication, only criticising what he saw as an 'emotionally retarded' plot. Canby also expressed concern that Coward's appearance in the film, although intended to be kind, 'exploits him in vaguely unpleasant ways' by surrounding his character with images of the royal family, which had not knighted him at the time. A contemporary review in Time Magazine felt that the film spent too much time focusing on the film's caper as opposed to building the characters; it also criticised the car chases as 'dull and deafening'. 

Although it received a Golden Globe nomination for "Best English-Language Foreign Film", the film was not a success in America. Caine blamed its failure on unattractive and misleading advertising.  As a result, plans for a sequel were shelved.

The movie was the 14th most popular at the UK box office in 1969. 

The film remains popular, however, and is considered one of the greatest British films in modern polls.  James Travers of Films de France believes that the film's enduring appeal rests in the 'improbable union' of Michael Caine, Noël Coward and Benny Hill, whom he considers 'three of the best known [British] performers... in the late 1960s'.  He states that the film has a cult status and stands as a 'classic of its genre'.

A novelization of the film, written by Troy Kennedy Martin and Ken Wlaschin, was published by Sphere Books in 1969. The book contains numerous differences to the film: for example there is a rival group of German gangsters called the Hamburg Syndicate who try to obtain Beckerman's plans for the robbery, Croker and the three minis travel to Italy by yacht, and Professor Peach is rescued by the gang after he is arrested. The ending of the novel is also significantly different. The bus successfully crosses the border into Switzerland and two days later the gang and the gold arrive on a beach near Dover in a landing craft where they are met by Mr. Bridger and Luigi Altabani. Mr. Bridger tells Charlie Croker that they have come to an agreement to "divide Europe" and that the gold must be given back to the Italians.

Since 2000 there have been two remakes of the film. The first was released in 2003 and also called The Italian Job, set in Los Angeles and starring Mark Wahlberg as Charlie Croker. It features Donald Sutherland as John Bridger, played as more of a father figure to Croker. It employs the updated Mini Cooper for a chase towards the end. An official Bollywood remake of the 2003 film, called Players, was released in 2012. 

There is a video game based on the 1969 film, released for the PlayStation game console in 2001 and Microsoft Windows in 2002 and published by Rockstar Games.

Large portions of the car chase scenes were lifted directly from the film for use in the MacGyver episode "Thief of Budapest" (Series 1, Ep 3) with the main characters setting up the story with three Minis visible at the start of the episode. Most of the end of the episode is footage from The Italian Job.

The film was also the subject of a play, Bill Shakespeare's "The Italian Job", written by Malachi Bogdanov, who used lines from Shakespeare plays to tell the story. It was performed in 2003 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. 

As part of a celebration of British culture at 2012 Summer Olympics, which were held in Great Britain, a replica of the bus was made and was exhibited balanced on the edge of the roof of The De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-sea.  The famous dialogue and car blowing up scene were shown at the closing ceremony.
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