ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΟΓΡΑΦΟΣ: "Just a Gigolo" drama film 1978 directed by David Hemmings Starring David Bowie Continental Film Review magazine 1978 Κινηματογραφικά

Δευτέρα 12 Φεβρουαρίου 2024

"Just a Gigolo" drama film 1978 directed by David Hemmings Starring David Bowie Continental Film Review magazine 1978 Κινηματογραφικά

"Just a Gigolo"

drama film 1978

directed by David Hemmings

Starring

David Bowie

Sydne Rome

David Hemmings

Kim Novak

Maria Schell

Marlene Dietrich

Curt Jurgens

Erika Pluhar

Continental Film Review magazine, 1978

Κινηματογραφικά

PAUL von Pryzgodski (David Bowie) is a young gentleman of Prussian descent. His background is military, and, as a consequence he believes that his destiny lies in his ability to prove himself in battle. To perform with honour, to die with honour even, that must be the pointer to the direction of his life.

But Paul von Pryzgodski comes too late to the Great War. He arrives in November 1918 just in time to hear the official announcement that the war is over. But his commanding officer Capt. Kraft (David Hemmings) has other ideas, and forces Paul to join him in one final push over the trenches that results in Paul being caught in the last explosion of the war and leaves him uniformless, clutching a French helmet in his hand.

As he awakes from a lengthy coma, he is heralded as the final war hero of the small French town near where the explosion occurred. To the embarrassment of the local dignitaries assembled for their hero's awakening, he is discovered to be German and thrown ungallantly onto the streets and left to make his own way back to his Fatherland.

He arrives to discover that the city of Berlin has undergone many changes since his enthusiastic departure. His family's elegant town apartment has been turned into a pension; his Father (Rudolf Schundler) has suffered a stroke upon hearing that the war is lost: his Mother (Maria Schell) is working in undignified circumstances at the nearby Turkish Baths and generally there seems little place for him in the new scheme of things.

What hope is there for an officer, trained for battle and heroism, in a land of unemployment, inflation and no sense of purpose? Even his aunt Hilda (Hilde Weissner) sells his only evidence of the last few months, a suckling pig.

JUST A GIGOLO, directed by David Hemmings and produced by Leguan-Film is just about the biggest production seen in the Berlin studios since the war — budget in the neighbourhood of £3.000.000.

Hemmings not only directs but plays a major part in the film opposite David Bowie. Other big stars include Sydne Rome, Kim Novak, Maria Schell, Curd Jurgens, Erika Pluhar, Evelyn Kunneke and, after 40 years, her return to a German film to sing the title song — Marlene Dietrich.

The various locations create an authentic atmosphere impossible elsewhere: the old, dilapidated nightclub Lutzower Lampe; the luxurious Palace Hotel Gehrhus; the Cafe Wien (just as it was in 1920); Chamisso Square (genuine Berlin-Kreuzberg) with its neo-baroque facades dating back to the Grunderseit, a time (1850-1900) of wild speculation.

The action begins on the last day of World War I and continues into the celebrated twenties, at once a fervent maelstrom of ideology and vice; despair and blatant opportunism.

For two decades the roots of National Socialism were allowed to probe deeper and deeper into the economic and psychological soil of a nation to surface suddenly in the thirties, a strong, poisonous plant which neither Germany nor Europe could stamp out.

In his attempts to find some footing for a future, Paul tries many routes. His childhood friend, the housekeeper's daughter, Cilly (Sydne Rome) is a young lady of histrionic abilities who has joined the fashionable left wing movements of the day. Singing 'in the streets and involving himself in workers' meetings, however, does not seem right for Paul.

The young Pryzgodski is, in fact, a total anachronism — but he does have one quality that takes him some time to capitalize upon. His vulnerability makes him desperately attractive to women.

A Prussian General's widow (Kim Novak) contributes to his physical education by providing a decent wardrobe and an introduction to the kind of sophisticated elegance only an older woman can provide.

Eva (Erika Pluhar), an upper class prostitute whom Paul much admires, gently demonstrates that he must learn to be flexible in this new age. All around him, for one reason or another, the people whose paths he crosses seem to be selling themselves in the name of self-preservation.

Paul's old army captain persuades him that he should join the new movement to the right. With him he says, lies the path of true heroism; the path to a new Germany. But Paul finds himself ill-at-ease and when he presents Captain Kraft to his family the resultant confrontation once again leaves him purposeless.

Even Cilly, who has given up political beliefs for a life as a night-club singer, deserts him, lured away to the United States by talk of film and fortune.

Totally alone, sitting in the strange Lutzower Lampe night club where Cilly worked, Paul is offered an opportunity to escort an elderly woman, Frau von Aekerle (Evelyn Kunneke). Rich, hideous, she purchases his services through the normal channels of the famous Eden Bar and, almost without realising it, Paul becomes a gigolo.

Formally recruited by the Baroness von Semering (Marlene Dietrich), he finds himself part of a new style regiment, complete with uniform, code and, in some ways, honour. He, too, has joined those who are willing to sell themselves to survive.

In a cinema he watches Cilly's success when her new Hollywood film appears in Berlin. Outside, the movement of the right — the brown shirts — march almost unnoticed by the crowds. Paul has become successful but his original destiny, his original belief in his background and upbringing, have been denied him.

In a last meeting with Cilly at the celebrations for her marriage to a German Prince (Curd Jurgens) Paul realizes how much and how little they share. He leaves the party to return to the deserted Eden Bar to hear the Baroness von Semering sing the song on which the Gigolo story is based ("Schoner Gigolo, Armer Gigolo”) [:beautiful gigolo, poor gigolo] and which describes the inconsequence of his life.

As Paul leaves, Communists and Nazis fight m the streets. For some years such open clashes have been commonplace. Paul is lost in his own thoughts, and hardly notices when he is struck down by a stray bullet and lies dying on the pavement: dressed to perfection and handsome as he has been always.

Both sides wish to claim the body as a martyr for their individual causes but Captain Kraft, whose paramilitary organisation is now fully integrated into the party, succeeds and Paul is laid out with full military honour at the Nazi Headquarters.

His family look on as Kraft eulogizes on Paul's heroism.

Paul von Pryzgodski has died as a hero.

Gigolo traces Paul's struggle against the background of a tortured, decadent Berlin during the period 1918-1928. Basically it is a tragi-comedy without political overtones but the canvas of the times would be incomplete without references to the prevailing situation. The film suggests that in hard-pressed moments people are, perhaps, too easily ready to accept the least line of resistance.

David Hemmings David Bowie

David Hammings as Captain Hermann Kraft, a psychopathic schizophrenic vvith rampant sexual perversions, persuades Paul to make the last attack of World War 1 with the result that Paul is blown up — but not fatally.