Michael Caine Calls This Legendary Director “The Greatest All-Round Movie Talent of Our Time”
For Michael Caine, 1975 was a turning point. After years of working his way up in film, he finally landed a job with the director he had admired since childhood: John Huston.
Huston’s movies had left a lasting impression on Caine when he was a boy, watching films like The African Queen, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, and The Maltese Falcon. The role was even more special because it had once been meant for Caine’s other hero, Humphrey Bogart.
In his memoir Blowing the Bloody Doors Off, Caine reflected on the experience: “I twice had the tremendous experience of being directed by the man I regarded as the greatest all-round movie talent of our time, the late great John Huston: fifteen-time Academy Award nominee, director of my childhood heroes, director of three of my all-time favourite childhood movies—The African Queen, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, The Maltese Falcon.”
Caine’s early life was far from glamorous. He grew up in London during the Blitz, with bombsites outside, sirens wailing, and ration books controlling daily life. Cinema had been his escape. To then find himself on set with Huston, the filmmaker who had shaped his love of movies, felt surreal.
Their first collaboration was on The Man Who Would Be King, where Caine played Peachy Carnehan, a part Huston had originally written for Bogart twenty years earlier.
They worked together again in 1981 on Escape to Victory, a mix of war drama and sports film starring Sylvester Stallone. While the second movie didn’t reach the heights of the first, for Caine the true reward was simply working with Huston again.
“He was very gentle with actors because he loved being one himself,” Caine recalled. “And he had an aura about him—charisma maybe, or star quality—that seemed effortlessly to command attention and respect. It was John who taught me not to expect constant input from a director—and that the quality of a director’s input could not always be measured by the number of times he interacted with me or the number of words he threw in my direction.”
Huston’s influence on Caine was profound. Born in 1906, Huston was an actor, writer, and director whose career spanned more than six decades. He directed classic films such as The Maltese Falcon (1941), widely regarded as one of the first great film noirs, The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (1948), which earned him Oscars for Best Director and Best Screenplay, and The African Queen (1951), which won Humphrey Bogart his only Academy Award.
Huston was known for filming in real locations under challenging conditions and for bringing depth, humanity, and adventure to every project he touched.
Caine took these lessons to heart. He carried Huston’s guidance into later performances, ultimately winning Best Supporting Actor Oscars for Hannah and Her Sisters and The Cider House Rules. For him, Huston wasn’t just a director; he was a mentor, a father figure, and a reminder of why he fell in love with cinema in the first place.
“For me, working with John Huston was a chance to learn from one of the greatest minds in movies,” Caine wrote. “It was a reminder that talent, hard work, and a little luck can take you from the streets of London to the sets of some of the most iconic films ever made.”
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