Gender, Stars and Class Wars: Alfie and Sleuth

This chapter examines what happens when Michael Caine’s 1960s and 70s working-class lover is remade with a new British actor, Jude Law, in the lead. Such remakes tend to follow their predecessors more closely, rejecting formulaic resolutions or upbeat Hollywood endings. Starting with Alfie as a more politically correct remake to appeal to contemporary sensibilities and closing with Sleuth, where Law clashes face-to-face with Caine, the chapter reveals a complex entanglement of class, gender and star relations, with the remake of Sleuth in many ways becoming a sequel to Alfie. The chapter investigates how via casting, a sense of seriality and continuity is established not only across the originals and their remakes but also across both remakes. As a result, in a similar way to the current trend in legacyquels, all four titles are bound together in new ways as Caine appears to be passing on the torch to Law in the acting profession.