Good 80's Films: American Gigolo

1980 Drama
From Paramount Pictures
Directed by Paul Schrader

Starring
Richard Gere
Lauren Hutton
Hector Elizondo
Nina Van Pallandt
Bill Duke
K Callan
Thom Stewart

This was considered a pretty sexy flick back in 1980.  Yes, it was sexy, moody, dirty, degrading, complicated, audacious and for the most part, unapologetic.   It is gorgeously photographed with a dazzling production design.  Its musical score could send scores of viewers to late-night bars for sweaty dancing.  Best of all, it has an exciting film noir quality to it. 

It all serves to tell the story of a Southern California male escort who mainly services older women.  (I don't do gay or couples.) He lies when he tells people he doesn't sleep with these women although his repertoire includes chauffeuring and translating.  Julian Kaye is now on his own... out from under the procuress who brought him up in the business, leaving her pissed that he has left the stable.  

Julian has his luxury digs at the Westwood Apartments Hotel, drives a sleek black Mercedes, buys his suits on Rodeo Drive, keeps himself fit by hanging upside down from the ceiling while working with dumbbells.  He annoys everyone around him by accepting favors without any form of repayment. 

Two powerful events happen to Julian within two days.  A gay friend sets him up with a financier's wife in Palm Springs.  The husband wants to watch.  He also gives Julian S/M instructions to work her over.  We see little of the action.

The following day he is at fancy-schmancy Perrino's where he runs into Michelle, the sexually-frustrated wife of a senator, sitting alone in a booth.  The dialogue surrounding their jockeying for position tends to bring a smile to my face.  He's not sure he wants to become involved with her but she not only wins him over but they fall in love with one another which is bound to complicate his professional duties.  She is intuitive enough to tell him he brings about wonderful pleasure for others but is unable to feel any himself... likely a casualty of the trade.

Julian hears that the Palm Springs fling ended in the woman's brutal murder.  A Detective Sunday questions him and it's obvious he thinks Julian is the killer especially since it happened on the same night Julian was with her.  Since the audience doesn't see how the evening concluded, we're not sure Julian isn't, in fact, the killer and his odd behavior doesn't help his case.  Ultimately, however, it appears that Julian was framed by the very man who sent him there.

He becomes increasingly desperate as the case begins winding down and the detective tightens his grip.  Michelle sticks by him and figures prominently in an enticing conclusion.

I opened my posting on writer-director Paul Schrader by saying he brought us edgy, noirish, brutal, sexual and existential pieces which often focused on social alienation and cultural revolt. I must have been thinking of American Gigolo.  I also commented in that piece how much I related to the film and its depiction of the mores of 1980's Los Angeles... at the dawning of AIDS.  The lurid, jaded, dangerous nature of Schrader's script aptly depicts the times I so well remember.  He got it exactly right.  This could easily have been a gay script but Schrader made it sparkle in its straight milieu. 

Paramount was hot on casting Christopher Reeve as Julian but Schrader was equally hot that it not happen.  He opted for John Travolta, who was hired.  But Travolta wanted final cut approval which Schrader would not grant.  So Gere was hired at a salary far less than what Reeve or Travolta would have gotten.  Interestingly, Gere also inherited three other roles Travolta declined... Days of Heaven (1978), An Officer and a Gentleman (1982) and Chicago (2002). 

I found Gere to be just right for the remote Julian.  Always an edgy actor in his early career, he displayed a manic sexuality in Looking for Mr. Goodbar (1977) and a more vulnerable sexuality here.  I always thought and liked that so many of his characters seemed a little less bright than they might have been.  That is certainly true of Julian who made it initially on his looks and callbacks came from his sexual prowess.  Gere has a brief frontal nude scene which caused a stir at the time because it was among the first in a mainstream movie.

I got a kick out of the actresses playing his older clientele... Frances Bergen (Candice's mother), Carole Cook and Carol Bruce.  I found myself (oddly, for me) feeling a little embarrassed at the encounters but they were enjoyable nonetheless.

Hutton never had a very successful movie career, certainly nothing to rival modeling, and this is her best role.  I could never forget how she was showcased in her opening scene in the restaurant.  What a stunning creature... and frankly, she needed to be for Julian to fall for her.  Julie Christie was the original choice for the role and I can imagine that.  Meryl Streep was offered the part, too, but turned it down because she didn't like the tone.  The studio wanted 
Jessica Lange who said it was all too dark.

Elizondo has long occupied roles in which he appears as though he knows something you do not.  No wonder he was so convincing as a cop.  Van Pallandt, another one who never had much of a movie career, certainly pulled off being a Malibu madam.  Big Bill Duke appeared scary to me in a number of films and he layered his villainy nicely here as the one who set up the Palm Springs meeting.

One of the most memorable scenes comes as Julian lays out his expensive clothes on his bed... jacket, shirt tucked inside, tie on top... one outfit after another.  It was all sewn by the busy fingers at Armani's whose career was given a big push by this movie.

Also memorable is Giorgio Moroder's thumping music where acoustic and electric instruments inhabit the same songs and Debbie Harry belts out Call Me, which became a worldwide hit.

The film scores high with its look as well.  John Bailey's cinematography beautifully showcases Ed Richardson's art direction, George Gaines' set direction and special credit going to Francisco Scarfiotti.  I especially loved the lighting and shadows created by the extensive use of window blinds.

Ultimately, I found American Gigolo to be a sad film and I thought it was about loneliness.  One can only imagine what would be done with it today.  Isn't it time for a remake?

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A good 80's movie