The Alfred Hitchcock movie Michael Caine rejected due to sadism
“I have never done nudity and I never would,” Sir Michael Caine famously proclaimed, his reasoning being that once you take your clothes off, you know longer have the audience’s attention. In fact, the actor has some of the most rigid boundaries when it comes to taking on certain jobs, often opting for more dignified roles over ones that seem only slightly risqué.
Caine achieved mainstream success in the 1960s, starring in films like The Italian Job and Battle of Britain. The well-to-do, respectable figures that he played, coupled with his signature Cockney accent, made him one of the most beloved actors in history. Perhaps most remarkably, Caine’s repertoire transcends generations, with many also seeking comfort or enjoying the nostalgia found in films like A Muppet Christmas Carol and the Dark Knight.
In the early 1970s, Caine’s successes continued with Sleuth. Starring alongside Laurence Olivier, Joseph L. Mankiewicz’s final film garnered extraordinarily positive reviews from critics. However, this was a film Caine had accepted instead of another due to his own personal moral compass. The other would be one by Alfred Hitchcock called Frenzy, which the director specifically wanted the actor for.
“He offered me a part of a sadist who murdered women, and I won’t play that,” Caine explained to The Express. Discussing the reasons why, he added: “I have a sort of moral thing and I refused to play it and he never spoke to me again. It was a film based on a real killer who cut women to smithereens. I said, ‘I can’t play this, I don’t want to play it’.”
The role eventually went to Barry Foster, but the refusal ignited something of a tiff between Caine and the director, as evidenced by several incidents that saw the actor being unfairly dismissed. “I used to see him every Friday at Chasen’s restaurant [in Hollywood] and he would totally ignore me,” he explained.
Although Caine’s instincts generally turn out to be correct, there was another film he didn’t turn down that he later regretted having any involvement in. This time, he would experience second thoughts due to the film’s apparent silliness rather than its controversial content. When asked by Rolling Stone which films he didn’t particularly appreciate, he answered: “The Swarm. It’s about [killer] bees. I did it without reading the script, because I said, ‘Who’s in it?’ and they gave this me great big star list: Henry Fonda, Olivia de Havilland, Jose Ferrer.”
Reflecting on the realisation that this wasn’t destined to be a great movie, he added: “I said, ‘I’ll do it.’ One day, we were all having a conversation with live bees above us, and suddenly we noticed all these little black dots on our shirts. The bees were shitting on us. And so the first review was in, but we didn’t know it at the time.”
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