Saint Jack (1979)

Peter Bogdanovich’s Saint Jack, based on Paul Theroux’s novel, came out in 1979. Because of Bogdanovich’s insistence on having Ben Gazzara play the lead role rather than a big name star major studios wouldn’t touch the movie (they wanted Paul Newman) so it ended up being made by New World Pictures with Roger Corman himself producing.

My reaction to this movie is very similar to my reaction to Bogdanovich’s earlier The Last Picture Show (1971). I can see what Bogdanovich is trying to do and I think he succeeds in doing it, but I’m just not necessarily particularly interested in the result.

This is a deep dive into squalor, moral corruption and nihilism.

Jack Flowers (Gazzara) is an American expatriate in Singapore in 1973. He runs a whorehouse but he wants his own whorehouse. This gets him into a lot of trouble. He befriends a seedy English expatriate, William Leigh (Denholm Elliott).

Jack has a girlfriend but she no plays no part whatsoever in the story.

Jack falls foul of gangsters. He then goes into business with the smooth but creepy Eddie Schuman (played by Bogdanovich himself). It’s never explicitly stated but we assume Eddie is CIA. He’s certainly involved in the kinds of sleazy illegal immoral activities we would expect from a CIA agent.

Jack gets to manage a huge brothel for the CIA and is persuaded to engage in some political blackmail.

Not much really happens. It’s that kind of movie.

There are really only two characters with even the slightest amount of depth, Jack and William.

We get no backstory at all on any of the characters. For me that’s one of the movie’s biggest strengths. I prefer movies in which a character’s personality is slowly revealed through their actions, rather than having it explained to the viewer.

In this case we learn almost nothing about Jack except that he’s a loser drifting through life. I can see why Bogdanovich wanted Gazzara rather than Paul Newman. Gazzara has zero charisma, which suited Bogdanovich’s purposes.

At the end we get a hint that Jack is a loser but he isn’t a louse, but then we knew that from the beginning from the fact that he treats his whores kindly and is as honest as you can be while being a criminal.

Denholm Elliott is always fun to watch but William remains an enigma.

I assume that that was Bogdanovich’s intention. Jack and William are both empty shells.

There is perhaps a very slight Graham Greene flavour - European expatriates slowly subsiding into moral corruption and despair.

On the audio commentary Bogdanovich tells us that most of the smaller roles were played by non-actors and much of the dialogue was improvised. I have never understood why some directors like doing this. You usually end up with a movie that is rather flat, and that’s the case here. Since the movie is also too long the whole thing drags quite badly in places. It lacks energy. But then that might have been the director’s intention - to emphasise the hopelessness and emptiness.

Singapore in this movie is a city of the damned. A city of degradation and violence, a city of whores, gangsters and corrupt cops. All of the European expatriates know they should go home but perhaps they can’t because they know they serve their damnation.

Is there a chance that Jack might have a chance of achieving redemption? You’ll have to watch the movie to find out.

The Vietnam War plays a background role, with American servicemen on rest and recreation leave heading straight for the brothels. It’s as if the East is corrupting the West at the same time as the West is corrupting the East. The only thing that could make things worse would be for the CIA to show up, which they do.

I didn’t exactly enjoy this movie but there are plenty of interesting aspects to it. It’s an odd emotionally distanced movie.

It was a box office flop. Bogdanovich made these odd movies that as his career progressed seemed increasingly to alienate both audiences and critics. He didn’t quite fit comfortably into the New American Cinema mould. Most directors of that period would have succumbed to the temptation to insert a crude political message into Saint Jack but Bogdanovich is more interested in social alienation than politics. He wasn’t predictable enough. After Paper Moon he had a whole string of flops, including Daisy Miller which I personally think is a superb movie.

Despite its flaws and quirks Saint Jack is worth seeing. Recommended.