Cool Caine’s an able storyteller
BLOWING THE BLOODY DOORS OFF by Michael Caine Hodder & Stoughton, £20
THE title of Michael Caine’s follow-up to his 2010 autobiography The Elephant To Hollywood refers to his celebrated line in The Italian Job after one of his gang dynamites a white van into confetti: “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!” And this thoroughly enjoyable, wide-ranging collection of anecdotes and observations provides an insight into his approach to screen acting.
Eighty-five years old and still working, Caine is one of Britain’s most enduring and prolific stars. As a seasoned veteran of Hollywood and the British film industry, he has gathered a million stories, even if he has told many of them more than once.
This Rotherhithe-born son of a charlady and a Billingsgate fish market porter is a natural-born raconteur with an easy charm and an engaging manner that manages to be both self-deprecating and combative at the same time. I have interviewed him several times and in spite of writing fairly damning reviews of some of his films, he has never been anything other than courteous and obliging. He is also very funny.
He had a chip on his shoulder for a long time and became a resentful class warrior in search of peer group approval and respect. But this has been whittled down over the years by awards including two Oscars, a Bafta, a Golden Globe, a CBE and a knighthood.
The overall feeling one takes from this book, which is half reminiscence, half instruction manual, is one of generosity and big heartedness.
John Wayne once gave Caine some advice on becoming and remaining a movie star: “Talk low, talk slow, and don’t say too much.” And Caine’s own advice is equally simple but effective, born of decades of experience. While acknowledging that luck played a big part in his success, he writes that “luck favours the prepared and I believe it. So be prepared”.
Before an audition or a rehearsal or stepping on to a movie set, Caine learns his lines until they are embedded in his consciousness. He remembers being caught out on location for Kidnapped when a scene he hadn’t learnt was brought forward unexpectedly and he had to abandon lunch to cram his lines into his head.
He is brilliant on the skills required for close-ups. Don’t blink, unless you want to appear weak. When talking to another character, focus on their eye nearest to the camera because it will “put your full face in shot”. He avoids accents unless absolutely necessary as they occupy “at least 50 per cent of my concentration”. Given that his breakthrough role was the posh Lieutenant Bromhead in Zulu, this is deeply ironic.
THE book is peppered with anecdotes both amusing and alarming. Particularly memorable is the story of when he worked as a hotel doorman and rescued a frightened prostitute from a punter before being set upon by five of the perpetrator’s mates.
And Caine’s lack of pretentiousness makes even his most mundane observations seem penetrating, such as his belief that the fate of the star is “you can get in everywhere, but you can’t get out anywhere”.
OK, so we may have read or heard many of the stories before. But Caine is canny enough to put them in new contexts. Never mind the knighthood, Michael Caine is still cool, still cooking with gas.