''Just a Gigolo'' (german: Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo, lit=Beautiful Gigolo, Poor Gigolo) is a 1978 West German

drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has been ...

film directed by David Hemmings and starring

David Bowie David Robert Jones (8 January 194710 January 2016), known professionally as David Bowie ( ), was an English singer-songwriter and actor. A leading figure in the music industry, he is regarded as one of the most influential musicians of the ...

. Set in post-

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

Berlin, it also features

Sydne Rome Sydne Rome (born March 17, 1951) is an American-Italian film actress. Her first name is often misspelled ''Sydney'' or ''Sidney''. Biography Born in Akron, Rome grew up in a wealthy, Jewish family in Upper Sandusky, Ohio. Her father was preside ...

Kim Novak Marilyn Pauline "Kim" Novak (born February 13, 1933) is an American retired film and television actress and painter. Novak began her career in 1954 after signing with Columbia Pictures and quickly became one of Hollywood's top box office stars, ...

and

Marlene Dietrich Marie Magdalene "Marlene" DietrichBorn as Maria Magdalena, not Marie Magdalene, according to Dietrich's biography by her daughter, Maria Riva ; however Dietrich's biography by Charlotte Chandler cites "Marie Magdalene" as her birth name . (, ; ...

in her final film role. The film was panned by critics and audiences; this led Bowie to quip that it was "my 32

Elvis Presley Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935 – August 16, 1977), or simply Elvis, was an American singer and actor. Dubbed the "Honorific nicknames in popular music, King of Rock and Roll", he is regarded as Cultural impact of Elvis Presley, one ...

movies A film also called a movie, motion picture, moving picture, picture, photoplay or (slang) flick is a work of visual art that simulates experiences and otherwise communicates ideas, stories, perceptions, feelings, beauty, or atmosphere ...

rolled into one".

Plot

Prussia Prussia, , Old Prussian: ''Prūsa'' or ''Prūsija'' was a German state on the southeast coast of the Baltic Sea. It formed the German Empire under Prussian rule when it united the German states in 1871. It was ''de facto'' dissolved by an em ...

n officer (David Bowie) returns home to Berlin following the end of the

Great War World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

. Unable to find employment elsewhere, he works as a

gigolo A gigolo () is a male escort or social companion who is supported by a person in a continuing relationship, often living in her residence or having to be present at her beck and call. The term ''gigolo'' usually implies a man who adopts a lifest ...

in a

brothel A brothel, bordello, ranch, or whorehouse is a place where people engage in sexual activity with prostitutes. However, for legal or cultural reasons, establishments often describe themselves as massage parlors, bars, strip clubs, body rub par ...

run by the Baroness (Marlene Dietrich). He is eventually killed in

street fighting Street fighting is hand-to-hand combat in public places, between individuals or groups of people. The venue is usually a public place (e.g. a street) and the fight sometimes results in serious injury or occasionally even death. Some street fi ...

between

Nazis Nazism ( ; german: Nazismus), the common name in English for National Socialism (german: Nationalsozialismus, ), is the far-right totalitarian political ideology and practices associated with Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party (NSDAP) in Na ...

and

Communists Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a so ...

. Both sides claim his body but the Nazis succeed in capturing it and bury him with honours, "a hero to a cause he did not support".

Cast

as Paul Ambrosius von Przygodski *

as Cilly *

as Helga von Kaiserling * David Hemmings as Captain Hermann Kraft *

Maria Schell Maria Margarethe Anna Schell (15 January 1926 – 26 April 2005) was an Austrian-Swiss actress. She was one of the leading stars of German cinema in the 1950s and 1960s. In 1954, she was awarded the Cannes Best Actress Award for her performance ...

as Frau von Przygodski *

Curd Jürgens Curd Gustav Andreas Gottlieb Franz Jürgens (13 December 191518 June 1982) was a German-Austrian stage and film actor. He was usually billed in English-speaking films as Curt Jurgens. He was well known for playing Ernst Udet in '' Des Teufels Gene ...

as Prince *

as Baroness von Semering *

Erika Pluhar Erika Pluhar is an actress, singer and author from Austria and was born on 28 February 1939 in Vienna. Erika Pluhar is the daughter of Anna and Dr Josef Pluhar. One of her sisters, Ingeborg G. Pluhar, is a painter and sculptor. After finishing s ...

as Eva *

Hilde Weissner Hilde Weissner (3 July 1909 – 30 May 1987) was a German actress. Life and career Born on 3 July 1909 in Stettin, Germany (in what is, today, Szczecin, Poland), Hilde Weissner made her theatrical acting debut at the Schiller-Theatre in Hamburg- ...

as Aunt Hilda *

Werner Pochath Werner Pochath (29 September 1939 – 18 April 1993) was an Austrian film actor. He worked in Germany, Italy and the United States, and then in the 1980s he began a second career as a Hollywood agent. He had been the partner of the ballet directo ...

as Otto *

Rudolf Schündler Rudolf Ernst Paul Schündler (17 April 1906, in Leipzig – 12 December 1988, in Munich) was a German actor and director. He played "Karl" in ''The Exorcist'' (1973). After finishing the film ''The Nasty Girl'', Schündler died of a heart attack ...

as Oberst Gustav von Przygodski *

Evelyn Künneke Evelyn Künneke (15 December 1921 – 28 April 2001) was a German singer and stage, television and film actress. She was the daughter of the famous composer Eduard Künneke. Selected filmography * '' Goodbye, Franziska'' (1941) * ''Third from ...

as Frau Aeckerle

Production

Around the time of its release, David Hemmings said that ''Just a Gigolo'' was intended to be "highly

ironic Irony (), in its broadest sense, is the juxtaposition of what on the surface appears to be the case and what is actually the case or to be expected; it is an important rhetorical device and literary technique. Irony can be categorized into ...

, tongue-in-cheek, about the period". Marlene Dietrich was persuaded to come out of retirement to make the film, reportedly receiving $250,000 for two days' shooting. It was Bowie's first movie role after

Nicolas Roeg Nicolas Jack Roeg (; 15 August 1928 – 23 November 2018) was an English film director and cinematographer, best known for directing '' Performance'' (1970), ''Walkabout'' (1971), ''Don't Look Now'' (1973), ''The Man Who Fell to Earth'' (1976 ...

's ''

The Man Who Fell to Earth ''The Man Who Fell to Earth'' is a 1976 British science fiction drama film directed by Nicolas Roeg and written by Paul Mayersberg. Based on Walter Tevis's 1963 novel of the same name, the film follows an extraterrestrial (Thomas Jerome Newt ...

'' (1976). As Roeg's film had played upon Bowie's earlier identification with science fiction and alienness, so ''Just a Gigolo'' fitted his then-current interest in pre-war Berlin, pricked by meeting

Christopher Isherwood Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood (26 August 1904 – 4 January 1986) was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist. His best-known works include '' Goodbye to Berlin'' (1939), a semi-autobiographical ...

, whose ''

Goodbye to Berlin ''Goodbye to Berlin'' is a 1939 novel by Anglo-American writer Christopher Isherwood set during the waning days of the Weimar Republic. The novel recounts Isherwood's 1929–1932 sojourn as a pleasure-seeking British expatriate on the eve of Ad ...

'' had inspired the musical ''

Cabaret Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining or d ...

''. The city had also been the recording location for Bowie's latest studio album, '' "Heroes"'' (1977). The singer has variously claimed that he took the role "as a favour to Hemmings", who at the time was also planning to produce a documentary of Bowie's 1978 concert tour, and because "Marlene Dietrich was dangled in front of me". Actually, the two stars never met. Dietrich played her brief part in Paris, where she lived, with the result simply being cut into Bowie's scenes that were shot, along with the rest of the film, in Berlin.

Soundtrack

The soundtrack of ''Just a Gigolo'' included jazz and cabaret standards performed by various acts including

Pasadena Roof Orchestra The Pasadena Roof Orchestra (PRO) is a contemporary band from England that specialises in the jazz and swing genres of music of the 1920s and 1930s, although their full repertoire is considerably wider. The orchestra has existed since 1969, a ...

The Manhattan Transfer The Manhattan Transfer is a Grammy award–winning vocal group founded in 1969 that has explored a cappella, vocalese, swing, standards, Brazilian jazz, rhythm and blues, and pop music. There have been two editions of the Manhattan Transfer, ...

and the

Village People Village People is an American disco group known for its on-stage costumes and suggestive lyrics in their music. The group was originally formed by French producers Jacques Morali, Henri Belolo and lead singer Victor Willis following the release ...

. As well as appearing on screen, Sydne Rome sang a track called "Don't Let It Be Too Long", by David Hemmings and composer Günther Fischer, while Marlene Dietrich performed the song " Just a Gigolo". Unlike his work on ''The Man Who Fell to Earth'', Bowie did contribute a piece of music to the film; his so-called "Revolutionary Song" was co-written with musical director Jack Fishman and played by a band called the Rebels. It was released in Japan as a single, which later became something of a collectors' item.

Release and aftermath

The film opened in Berlin on 16 November 1978. It received poor reviews and was pulled from cinemas. Hemmings recut the picture for its UK premiere in

Leicester Square Leicester Square ( ) is a pedestrianised square in the West End of London, England. It was laid out in 1670 as Leicester Fields, which was named after the recently built Leicester House, itself named after Robert Sidney, 2nd Earl of Leicester ...

on 14 February 1979 where, at an ostensibly

black-tie Black tie is a semi-formal Western dress code for evening events, originating in British and American conventions for attire in the 19th century. In British English, the dress code is often referred to synecdochically by its principal element ...

affair, Bowie wore a

kimono The is a traditional Japanese garment and the national dress of Japan. The kimono is a wrapped-front garment with square sleeves and a rectangular body, and is worn left side wrapped over right, unless the wearer is deceased. The kimono ...

. Reviews were again negative; the ''

Sunday Mirror The ''Sunday Mirror'' is the Sunday sister paper of the ''Daily Mirror''. It began life in 1915 as the ''Sunday Pictorial'' and was renamed the ''Sunday Mirror'' in 1963. In 2016 it had an average weekly circulation of 620,861, dropping marke ...

'' called the film "all show and no substance" and considered Bowie "completely miscast", while '' Time Out'' advised its readers to simply "overlook it". In an interview with ''

NME ''New Musical Express'' (''NME'') is a British music, film, gaming, and culture website and brand. Founded as a newspaper in 1952, with the publication being referred to as a 'rock inkie', the NME would become a magazine that ended up as a f ...

'' in September 1980, Bowie was quoted as saying: Bowie's biographers have labelled the film "an active pain", "an unadulterated flop", and a "debacle". Its reputation among mainstream critics generally remains low,

Halliwell Halliwell is a surname. It may refer to: People * Bryn Halliwell (born 1980), English football goalkeeper * Danny Halliwell (born 1981), rugby league footballer who played in the 2000s and 2010s * David Halliwell (1936–2006), British dramatis ...

's calling it an "international misadventure... interminable... clumsily made", while

Leonard Maltin Leonard Michael Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and film historian, as well as an author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives. He is perhaps best known for his book of fil ...

describes it as a "weird melodrama".

Allmovie AllMovie (previously All Movie Guide) is an online database with information about films, television programs, and screen actors. , AllMovie.com and the AllMovie consumer brand are owned by RhythmOne. History AllMovie was founded by popular-cult ...

's Hal Erickson has nevertheless given the film a 3-star rating. ''Just a Gigolo'' was released to DVD in a number of markets in 2004. It was digitally remastered and received its first official release in the United Kingdom in 2021, where it was accompanied by a 54-page booklet on the making of the film.

References

Sources

* * * *

External links

* * * {{Rotten Tomatoes, just_a_gigolo 1978 films 1978 drama films 1978 LGBT-related films English-language German films German drama films German LGBT-related films Films about male prostitution Films about prostitution in Germany Films directed by David Hemmings Films set in 1919 Films set in the 1920s Films set in Berlin West German films 1970s German films Films about gigolos