The favourite character of Michael Caine’s career: “The most like me”
Operating at the top of his game for decades, the esteem of Michael Caine is so thick in the air that surrounds his cinematic legacy that one would require a sharpened chainsaw to find their way to the central, totemic figure of Caine himself. Managing to balance himself as both a working-class icon and a British gentleman, Caine’s career is littered with highlights.
While it is easy to point to his historic dalliance in Zulu, his game-changing performances in the Dark Knight trilogy and, perhaps his finest venture, as Ebenezer Scrooge in The Muppets Christmas Carol as some of his finest turns upon the silver screen, the truth is, that Caine’s career extends further than we all care to know. Now retired at the tender age of 90, the London-born actor can barely lift the golden legacy that stretches out behind him.
With such an impressive filmography, Caine is continously hit with a series of questions regarding the movies, co-stars, directors and roles he holds dearest. Of the former, he has routinely pointed to The Italian Job as one of the best he’s ever made, as well as picking out Dirty Rotten Scoundrels as one of the most enjoyable pictures he ever took part in.
“I had such a good time filming it that when they first came to me I thought they were joking,” Caine recalls regarding his casting in the role. It is this playful, self-evident onset fun that bleeds gloriously onto the screen. Initially reluctant to take on the movie, when Caine eventually read the script, he called it a “riot” with Caine giving all the plaudits to Martin, stating: “He was nuts, and I was completely serious at all time. If I was trying to be funny it wouldn’t work, especially in movies”.
However, when asked about who his favourite character to play was, Caine had a different answer: “I have a particular affection for Harry Palmer. Harry was the most like me person I have ever played, I think. His attitude towards authority and all that was so me. In the Army, I was called a communist because I was so anti-officer [laughs].”
When one thinks of Michael Caine, it is difficult not to imagine him with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth, his blonde hair Brylcreemed to one side, and the thick black rim glasses of Harry Palmer staring straight into your soul. Caine has played the anti-hero across many movies, including the wonderful The Ipcress File, Funeral in Berlin and Billion Dollar Brain, which were all based on the original Len Deighton novels that the character was first found in. Later, Caine would take on the same character in Bullet to Beijing and Midnight in St Petersburg, though these were not based on Deighton’s novels.
Pitched as the antithesis of James Bond, Palmer’s brutality and bravado was a perfect antidote to the annoyingly suave 007 agent. Palmer was the everyman with a revolver and a unique set of skills — if Bond was a public school toff, Palmer was the ultimate working class hero. It’s very easy to see then how Caine would find a home in Palmer’s character.
It’s even more interesting considering Caine was often touted as a bond star in the making. But that notion never came to fruition. “I was always much more ordinary,” he explained in regards to why he never got the role, “Bond was a glamorous, imaginative creation. I’ve always played real people”. If there was one thing that connected Caine and Palmer it was just that: authenticity.
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