Saint Jack | |
---|---|
Directed by | Peter Bogdanovich |
Screenplay by | Howard Sackler Paul Theroux Peter Bogdanovich |
Based on | Saint Jack by Paul Theroux |
Produced by | Roger Corman |
Starring | Ben Gazzara Denholm Elliott Joss Ackland James Villiers Rodney Bewes Mark Kingston George Lazenby |
Cinematography | Robby Müller |
Edited by | William C. Carruth |
Production companies | |
Distributed by | New World Pictures (US/Canada) Orion (foreign) |
Release date |
|
Running time | 112 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $2 million [1] |
Box office | less than $1 million (US/Canada rentals) $3 million (foreign) [2] |
Saint Jack is a 1979 American drama film directed by Peter Bogdanovich and based on the 1973 novel Saint Jack . Ben Gazzara stars as Flowers in the film. The film also features Denholm Elliott and Lisa Lu.
Jack, a likeable, freewheeling American pimp in Singapore, goes to the airport to pick up a British accountant for his Chinese 'boss', whom he only associates with to cover his real business, pimping, from the authorities. He takes William, an uptight and nervy English accountant, to his hotel, then to a bar where British expats mingle. He meets a john, who he takes to a brothel, together with William, who only really wants a game of squash. Returning, they are chased by Chinese triads, who resent Jack. The next day they find one of Jack's Chinese friends has been murdered, as a warning. As the plot unfolds, Jack is revealed to be a man of moral fibre and good character, who is struggling to plot the course of his life in Singapore, where his expat buddies are invariably drunk and disorderly. The arrival of William, a man of simple tastes who longs to get back home to a quiet retirement in the English countryside, brings about an epiphany for Jack, who is faced with a moral dilemma when asked to help blackmail a prominent US senator.
Cybill Shepherd sued Playboy magazine after they published photos of her from The Last Picture Show . As part of the settlement, she got the rights to the novel Saint Jack, which she had wanted to make into a film ever since Orson Welles gave her a copy. [3]
Saint Jack was shot entirely on location in various places in Singapore in May and June 1978. Places featured in the film include the former Empress Place hawker centre (now demolished) and Bugis Street. The local authorities knew about the book, hence the foreign production crew did not tell them that they were adapting it, fearing that they would not be permitted to shoot the film. Instead, they created a fake synopsis for a film called Jack of Hearts, (what the director called "a cross between Love Is a Many Splendored Thing and Pal Joey " [1] ) and most of the Singaporeans involved in the production believed this was what they were making.
Saint Jack was the first film with a gay Singaporean sub-plot complete including full frontal male nudity and the first to have a Singaporean trans woman nude scene. [4]
Australian actor George Lazenby, best known for playing James Bond, was cast in a key support role. It was one of Lazenby's few prestige projects outside of James Bond. [5]
The film was banned in Singapore and Malaysia on January 17, 1980. Singapore banned it "largely due to concerns that there would be excessive edits required to the scenes of nudity and some coarse language before it could be shown to a general audience", and lifted the ban only in March 2006. [6] It is now an M18-rated film.
Saint Jack was re-released in North America on DVD in 2001.
The film was a box office disappointment in the US and Canada, earning less than $1 million. It performed better outside those countries, with a gross of $3 million. [2]
In an interview with The New York Times on 15 March 2006, Bogdanovich said: "Saint Jack and They All Laughed were two of my best films but never received the kind of distribution they should have." [7]
Filmink argued "A trashier version of this story – one directed by, say, Steve Carver... probably would have been more lucrative. I’ve never read Corman admitting that in an interview, but I bet he felt it." [8]
Roger Ebert gave the film a four-star review. In praise of Gazzara's performance, he writes: "sometimes a character in a movie inhabits his world so freely, so easily, that he creates it for us as well. Ben Gazzara does that in Saint Jack." He goes on to say: "The film is by Peter Bogdanovich and what a revelation it is, coming after three expensive flops. But here everything is right again. Everything." [9] Stanley Kauffmann of The New Republic described Saint Jack as "otiose and odious". [10]
Peter Bogdanovich was an American director, writer, actor, producer, critic, and film historian. He started his career as a film critic for Film Culture and Esquire before becoming a prominent filmmaker as part of the New Hollywood movement. He received accolades including a BAFTA Award and Grammy Award, as well as nominations for two Academy Awards and two Golden Globe Awards.
The Last Picture Show is a 1971 American coming-of-age drama film directed and co-written by Peter Bogdanovich, adapted from the semi-autobiographical 1966 novel The Last Picture Show by Larry McMurtry. The film's ensemble cast includes Timothy Bottoms, Jeff Bridges, Ellen Burstyn, Ben Johnson, Cloris Leachman, and Cybill Shepherd. Set in a small town in northern Texas from November 1951 to October 1952, it is a story of two high-school seniors and long-time friends, Sonny Crawford (Bottoms) and Duane Jackson (Bridges).
Roger William Corman was an American film director, producer and actor. Known under various monikers such as "The Pope of Pop Cinema", "The Spiritual Godfather of the New Hollywood", and "The King of Cult", he was known as a trailblazer in the world of independent film.
Targets is a 1968 American crime thriller film directed by Peter Bogdanovich in his theatrical directorial debut, and starring Tim O'Kelly, Boris Karloff, Nancy Hsueh, Bogdanovich, James Brown, Arthur Peterson and Sandy Baron. The film depicts two parallel narratives which converge during the climax: one follows Bobby Thompson, a seemingly ordinary and wholesome young man who embarks on an unprovoked killing spree; the other depicts Byron Orlok, an iconic horror film actor who is disillusioned by real-life violence and is contemplating retirement.
The Trip is a 1967 American psychedelic film released by American International Pictures, directed by Roger Corman and written by Jack Nicholson. It was shot on location in and around Los Angeles, including on top of Kirkwood in Laurel Canyon, the Hollywood Hills, and near Big Sur, California, over three weeks in March and April 1967. Peter Fonda stars as a young man who experiences his first LSD trip.
Biagio Anthony "Ben" Gazzara was an American actor and director of film, stage, and television. He received numerous accolades, including a Primetime Emmy Award and a Drama Desk Award, in addition to nominations for three Golden Globe Awards and three Tony Awards.
They All Laughed is a 1981 American romantic comedy film directed by Peter Bogdanovich and starring Ben Gazzara, Audrey Hepburn, John Ritter, Colleen Camp, Patti Hansen, and Dorothy Stratten, who was murdered before the film was released. The film was based on a screenplay by Bogdanovich and Blaine Novak. It takes its name from the George and Ira Gershwin song of the same name.
The Wild Angels is a 1966 American independent outlaw biker film produced and directed by Roger Corman. Made on location in Southern California, The Wild Angels was the first film to associate actor Peter Fonda with Harley-Davidson motorcycles and 1960s counterculture. It inspired the biker film genre that continued into the early 1970s.
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Easy Riders, Raging Bulls: How the Sex-Drugs-and-Rock 'N Roll Generation Saved Hollywood is a book by Peter Biskind, published by Simon & Schuster in 1998. Easy Riders, Raging Bulls is about the 1960s and 1970s Hollywood, a period of American film known for the production of such films such as The Godfather,The Godfather Part II,The French Connection,Chinatown,Taxi Driver,Jaws,Star Wars,The Exorcist, and The Last Picture Show. The title is taken from films which bookend the era: Easy Rider (1969) and Raging Bull (1980). The book follows Hollywood on the brink of the Vietnam War, when a group of young Hollywood film directors known as the "movie brats" are making their names. It begins in the 1960s and ends in the 1980s.
Husbands is a 1970 American comedy-drama film written and directed by John Cassavetes. It stars Ben Gazzara, Peter Falk, and Cassavetes as three middle class men in the throes of a midlife crisis following the death of a close friend.
The Intruder, also known as I Hate Your Guts, Shame and The Stranger, is a 1962 American drama film directed and co-produced by Roger Corman and starring William Shatner. The story, adapted by Charles Beaumont from his own 1959 novel of the same name, depicts the machinations of a racist named Adam Cramer, who arrives in the fictitious small Southern town of Caxton in order to incite white townspeople to racial violence against Black townspeople and court-ordered school integration.
Capone is a 1975 American action crime film directed by Steve Carver, written by Howard Browne, and starring Ben Gazzara, Harry Guardino, Susan Blakely, John Cassavetes, and Sylvester Stallone in an early film appearance. The film is a biography of the infamous gangster Al Capone.
Monster from the Ocean Floor is an American 1954 science fiction film about a sea monster that terrorizes a Mexican cove. The film was directed by Wyott Ordung and starred Anne Kimbell and Stuart Wade.
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden is a 1977 American psychological drama film directed by Anthony Page from a screenplay by Gavin Lambert and Lewis John Carlino, based on the 1964 novel of the same name by Joanne Greenberg. The film stars Bibi Andersson, Kathleen Quinlan, Sylvia Sidney, Martine Bartlett, Lorraine Gary, Signe Hasso, Susan Tyrrell, and Diane Varsi. It follows a mentally ill teen who struggles between fantasy and reality, escaping to her own imaginary world.
A Time for Killing is a 1967 Western film directed originally by Roger Corman but finished by Phil Karlson. Filmed in Panavision and Pathécolor, it stars Glenn Ford, George Hamilton, Inger Stevens, and Harrison Ford in his first credited film role.
Beach Ball is a 1965 American beach party movie starring Edd Byrnes and partly financed by Roger Corman.
The Bees is a 1978 Mexican horror film about South American bees imported to the USA, where they wreak havoc.
Love Letters is a 1984 American romantic drama film starring Jamie Lee Curtis and James Keach. The film is written and directed by Amy Holden Jones, whom Roger Corman agreed to finance following her success with The Slumber Party Massacre (1982).
Moonshine County Express is a 1977 action film from New World Pictures.