Alfred the Great stars David Hemmings as Alfred, determined to become a Priest, when Danes invade, he is persuaded to delay the realisation of his vocation and lead the defence of his homeland. Alfred finds once his vows are broken in battle, it is difficult to suppress other desires and soon marries. King Ethelred, Alfred's brother, dies, and Alfred finds himself even further from the path he had planned to take. Mike plays Offa, one of Alfred's followers.

The movie actually began with a scene that I found amusing, I couldn't help smiling when the marauding Danes' first victims were a flock of sheep! On I watched and there came a scene with the injured King Ethelred and Prince Alfred. I was concentrating on the dialogue between the characters but found my eyes drawn to a young man standing behind the King, it was his stance that drew me, very upright, very soldier like, I moved closer to look at his face, it was Mike! I asked him if it really was him , and he nodded! Mike was actually nodding in agreement with what had been said, at that moment in the scene of cause, but, what a coincidence, and for me, what a thrill!

In every scene that Mike appeared in thereafter, he stood out from the crowd, I didn't need to look for him. When he stood he was taller and straighter than those around him, when sitting he was upright and attentive to proceedings taking place. When Mike was next to King Alfred on horseback, his demeanour called out that he was the Kings right hand man, supporter, protector and defender, when defeated in battle his face showed exhaustion and despair. When Mike held the Standard in the final battle he stood firm to the very end. I wondered, could what I saw be what Sylvia Anderson and Lew Grade saw in Mike when they chose him for the role of Colonel Foster, his amazing screen presence!

I had an immense feeling of pride in Mikes performance. Mike does not have any lines in the released version, but, although it would have been lovely to hear him speak even a few words, his expressions and gestures do all the talking for him.

Alfred the Great runs for a little over 100 minutes, but Mike informed me the original footage shot was approximately two and a half hours long. Hopefully the cut footage is still somewhere, well taken care of, in MGM's film archives, because, amongst the footage that didn't make it into the final cut are scenes where not only Mike has lines, but, of all scenes to be cut from a movie about Alfred the Great, the cake burning scene!

Mike remembers the scene as quite light hearted involving the King and his three loyal followers, exhausted, starving and in search of shelter, finding a crofters cottage and within the aroma of cakes cooking. Alas, the cakes are burnt and crumble into charcoal as they handle them, resulting in a cake fight and much laughter.

Mike recalls, "I think I remember having the immortal line 'cakes!' which I'm sure if included would have been to this day a comedy classic!"

On watching the movie after Mike's revelations, I found myself pausing the tape, where I felt the appropriate moment, and imagining the scene complete with the 'immortal line.' Did the editor make a grave mistake? Well, although the movie as a whole was not as bad as the worst review I had read, (as well as Mike's appearance, I quite liked a number of the effects used to link scenes and the battle scenes were quite well executed), there are some unintentionally amusing moments and dialogue that made me cringe a little, but overall there was something sadly lacking to make the movie the epic it had the potential to be.

Maybe MGM could be persuaded to re-release Alfred the Great on DVD to include the missing footage, after all, there are not many movies I have seen that have not come over a great deal more rounded when released in full as a 'directors cut' or 'special edition.'

Many thanks to Mike for kindly sharing his memories.