Book review - “Elephant to Hollywood” by Michael Caine

I like Michael Caine, everyone likes Michael Caine, he’s one of those actors impossible not to like – at least now he’s become an institution. I think it was easier to get sick of him in the 70s and 80s when he kept starring in so many bad films. Indeed, Caine remained a star for much longer than you think his flop ratio would allow – The Swarm, Ashanti, The Marseilles Contract, The Magus, etc, etc. But as he once said all you need is one hit for every five and he seemed to make that. Also I think he was so good natured and likeable, people wanted to make movies with him – you know you’d get a good performance from a true professional, and some laughs behind the scenes.

This book does feel like a bit of a rip off, though. Caine had already written an excellent memoir, which came out in 1992. He’s certainly done enough since then to warrant a second book – he survived a dip in his career which happened in the early 90s as he transferred from leading actor to character star, then went on and featured in a number of fine works, even winning an Oscar. He could gone into some of his old adventures in friends in greater detail, like David Niven did with ‘Bring on the Empty Horses’. But instead what we get is a book whose first two-thirds is a repeat of ‘What’s It All About’ – the same stories, only briefer. By the time I hit page 200 and still hadn’t heard a new anecdote I was getting seriously annoyed. I mean, I enjoyed the anecdotes and Caine writes in a bright, lively style, but he’d told them before and in more detail. Why couldn’t he have done things like talk more about his Korean War service? Early theatre personalities? His work as producer (Get Carter, Blue Ice)? More in-depth profiles of famous people he knew?

There is some new stuff here: Caine loved Miami and lived there for long sections in the early 90s, he has a man crush on Jude Law and calls Law’s Hamlet the best he’s seen in recent years. There’s a moving section on his gang of mates who he’s been friends with since the 60s and who are recently dying off. And I liked the section on Harry Brown. More of this and it would have been a better book. Unfortunately, there’s a bit too much of how great his life is and his house, and too much polite treatment of the people he’s worked with recently.