Alfie 1966: Original End Titles

On its original release, the film had an all instrumental soundtrack by Sonny Rollins, the legendary bebop saxophonist. The Oscar nominated song, by Bacharach and David, was added for the American release, and to a British re-release.

For the UK re-release, the song was sung by Cilla Black over the end credits, for the US release, the song was originally to be sung by Dionne Warwick over the end credits, but was replaced at the last minute by the version sung by Cher.

Vic Singh and Harri Peccinotti designed the stunning end titles. Singh was initially approached by Lewis Gilbert, the film's director, and asked to create an 'at dusk' mood using black and white stills.

With no digital graphics available at the time Singh used the 'sandwich' photo-printing method. He shot a number of night/dusk shots around London which had a lot of very dark to black areas, these came out as transparent on the negative. He then photographed the cast and production crew in the studio on a black background using Tri-X film.

A lot of time was spent in the darkroom positioning one negative over another, the portraits with the transparent background would come through the transparent areas of the city background showing both at the same time and creating a surreal effect.

The credit lettering had to be done in various sizes (percentages) depending on the contracts of the film stars. Singh asked Harri Peccinotti, influential Italian art director of Nova magazine and the annual Pirelli Calendar, to do the lettering with some old wooden blocks which he had also used for Nova magazine.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Alfie
• Sonny
• Rollins
• Michael
• Caine
• Lewis
• Gilbert
• Harri
• Peccinotti
• Vic
• Singh
• bebop