WHAT IF...Peter Bogdanovich's SAINT JACK (1979, co-adap & dir by Peter Bogdanovich, produced by Roger Corman, w/ Ben Gazzara, Denholm Elliot, 115mns, USA/Singapore)
This writer has a frought relationship with moviemaker Peter Bogdanovich. A HUGE fan of 70's freedoms meets John Ford THE LAST PICTURE SHOW. An admirer of PAPER MOON. And a puzzled spectator of much of Bogdanovich's other output.
Peter Bogdanovich is also one THE great writers about movies and a hell of an actor; as evidenced again here where Bogdanovich has a supporting part as a CIA spook. He is also one of American cinema's strange spirits. Wandering between the two worlds like Ethan Edwards and the slain Comanche, Peter Bogdanovich has made classics and he's made a lot of movies that don't work quite as well.
So what a revelation it is to watch 1979's SAINT JACK, a tremendous film, where Ben Gazzara plays American ex-pat John "Jack" Flowers, a wandering spirit himself who kibbitzes on the streets of Singapore with dreams of becoming a gentleman pimp to a bordello full of exotic women.
The movie, adapted from a novel by Paul Theroux (who also penned the equally humane and complicated THE MOSQUITO COAST), is a beautiful shaggy dog of a picture.
So shaggy in fact, it's hard to write about, in the best possible way. The movie doesn't follow any predictable rhythms or outcomes. And that is its great strength.
Call this John Casavettes by way of Howard Hawks with maybe a little Tom Waits.
At heart, the movie is about people with dreams and codes who try to get by in a world that plays a lot harder.
The "kind gentleman pimp" is as much a mythological cinematic character as the "sex worker with the heart of gold". Life and reality usually produce much harder customers in these jobs, survivors and swindlers, exploiters and exploited. Often in the same soul.
And so the movie starts (at least from a 2025 perspective) a bit in the hole, asking us to love Jack for his kindness, non-judgement, and anti-authoritarianism while he's simultaneously making money off of dozens of women involved in sex work.
Jack…just trying to help a lady and a fella out…
And yet, at least in the world of the movie, Jack does feel believable. He's trying to make a few bucks. The women are trying to make a few bucks. Why shouldn't they work together? And as Jack tells the wonderful Denholm Elliot's visiting tax auditor, William Leigh, "people make love for so many crazy reasons, why shouldn't money be one of them?" It's actually kind of hard to argue with that logic.
Gazzara and Bogdanovich have nice chemistry as a guy who can get things done and a CIA spook who needs favors…
Produced by the ever resourceful Roger Corman, helping Bogdanovich out of a slump that started post 1973's PAPER MOON, SAINT JACK returns Bogdanovich to his low budget roots with the also Corman produced TARGETS. And Bogdanovich seems to thrive on the complex material, the limited resources, and the locale.
Here we get a glimpse of what his career might have been if he had decided to pursue a more humanist path of literary adaptations. The formula of an amazing novel/story, a great cast, and a wildly talented cinematographer (here Robby Muller, famed DP of 70's Wim Wenders, REPO MAN, Lars Von Trier's BREAKING THE WAVES) brings out the alchemical best in the director.
We follow Jack across several years, stitched together by the annual visits of Denholm Elliot's William to audit the books of corrupt businessmen with whom Jack does business. Some years Jack is up. Some years Jack is down.
Denholm Elliot’s innocent abroad William Leigh is, in many ways, the conscience of the movie…
The third act of the movie becomes Hitchcockian as Jack, again back on his heels, gets a $25,000.00 offer if he can take compromising photos of a visiting US Senator (played by James Bond himself, George Lazenby). Jack is so hard on his luck he decides to do it. Bogdanovich and Gazarra then play the entire sequence on Jack's face as he trails the Senator and has to decide if he's really going to follow through. You're really watching someone's thought process. And it's a testament to Bogdanovich and Gazzara that every nuance, hesitation, plays clear.
What ultimately happens (don't worry, no spoilers) provides the surprising and satisfying climax.
A fellow moviemaker told this writer to watch this movie. And this writer is grateful.
SAINT JACK is full of the non-judgmental humanism crucial to great work. It may be the most Jean Renoir-like of all of Bogdanovich's movies.
Gazzara never strikes a false note. He reminds us why Casavettes used him again and again in movies like HUSBANDS, THE KILLING OF A CHINESE BOOKIE, and OPENING NIGHT. We come to like Jack as everyone on the Singapore street scene comes to like Jack. You know Jack is a good guy just trying to figure out how to make his mark.
With subtle observations about America's involvement in Vietnam, the English empire's effects on Asia, friendship, not judging someone's sexuality, SAINT JACK is a wonderful conversation of a movie. As deceptively easy going as its main character.
Craig Hammill is the founder.programmer of Secret Movie Club.