After several box office failures in a row Peter Bogdonovich was back where he started in the film buisness, getting financing from low budget producer extraordinaire Roger Corman. But 'Saint Jack' is like no normal Corman picture, it's not cheap or explotive, its probably the most high end, literate film ever to come out of New World Pictures. Orson Wells of all people suggested the book to Bogdonovich as a good candidate for adapation.
'Saint Jack' is based on the 1973 novel of the same name by Paul Theroux, today best known for 'The Mosquito Coast'. The movie tells the story of Jack Flowers (Ben Gazzara), Buffulo born Korean War veteren, who after graduating with a degree in English via the G.I. Bill, decides he needs to see the world before he can truly become a writer. He leaves the country in 1959 and by the early 1970's still hasen't returned home, and through circumstances never gone into finds himself managing a brothel in Singapore.
'Saint Jack' is a character study, as well as a portrait of the troubled American presence in the South-East Asia of the time. Gazzara gives what is probably the best performance of his career, understated, subtle and tortured. In scanning through blurbs about this film on Rotten Tomatoes one reveiwer described it as a "brilliant character study of a reprehensible man who is also a decent human being." It is about trying to be a ethical pimp, and is that even possible.
The lead chartacters background is given out slowly over the course of the film. At one point he makes a self depricating joke about writting, and it is only later with added context that we see the pain that the joke masks. Jack is good at hidding pain, it's something that only those who grow close to him seem to notice, on the outside he is friendly to everybody, an expert crises manager with a good sense for people.
The film progresses over the course of around four years. We see Jack go from a kind of freelancer to managing a high end brothel, which is then destroyed by a rivial syndicate which allows Jack to take on the task of opening a quasi-government sponsored brothel for American solders on leave. The film ends with America preparing to withdraw from Vietnam and Jack looking around for his next opertunity.
The light and dark pulls to watch Jack is subject are personified by two supporting characters. Denholm Elliot, best known as Marcus Brady in three Indiana Jones films, plays William Leigh, an English accountant who comes each year to do the brothels books. Like Jack he seems a good man caught in bad circumstances. Mr. Leigh is honest in his work and never indulges in the sexual escapedes readily avilable him, he prefers instead a good game of squash and openly longs for the day when he and his wife can retire to the English countryside. He and Jack like each other and become good friends.
Appealing to Jack's worse angels is CIA man Eddie Schuman, played by Bogdonovich himself in a role intended for Charles Grodin. Schuman is ereduite and charming and offers Jack resources he'd never had before. It is Eddie Schuman who recrutes Jack to run a brothel for the government.
On one of his trips to do the books Leigh has a heart attack and dies. He is cremated and Jack calls his Hong Kong based widow offering to travel there and deliver the remains in person. Hurt by her husband's dying and leaving her a widow half a world away from her home, Mrs. Leigh tells Jack not to bother making the trip and just dispose of the remains himself. This further depresses and disillusions Jack.
Around this time Schuman comes to him with an offer. An anti-war Senator whose made enemies with The Agency, is coming to Singapore as part of a trip to observe the winding down of US involvement in the war. While purportedly a family man there are rumors about the senators personal life and Schuman will pay him $25,000 for some incriminating photographs. Jack follows the senator (played by former Bond George Lazenby) at night, see's him turn down propositions from mutipal female prostitutes, only to engage a male one and proceed to rent a hotel room. Jack bribes the young man to leave the door ajar so he can take photos. He does so and Jack then spends some time debating with himself whether or not he is going to destroy this man's life, he ultimately decides he can not and throws the evidence into the river.
'Saint Jack' is the first movie ever filmed in Singapore, and captures the island nation as it was still transitioning into the highly regulated buisness state it is known as today. Theroux's book was known there and is not a flattering portrait of the place, so the movie was filmed semi gurelia style. Bogdonovich even pened a treatment for a fake Singapore based film to show local officials as needed.
In the film Jack has a relationship with a Sir Lankian woman, Bogdonovich had a relationship with the lady who played that woman, one which caused the end of his eight year relationship with the actress Cybil Sheapard. The movie would receive good to middling reviews but would have limited distribution in the US, making most of its money internationally. Bogdonovich always regretted and that the movie didn't do better, and it's real shame that Gazzara didn't get an Oscar nomination as his performance was worthy of one. 'Saint Jack' is a forgotten gem of a film and one I knew upon finishing I needed to see again, so I waited 10 days, gave it a second viewing and liked it even more. A complex rumination on morality both personal and geopolitical, a real achivment. ****
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