Ben Gazzara, Between Anatomy of a Murder(1959) and Road House(1989)

"Saint Jack" is an ambling. adult film about hookers and business in Singapore, and it briefly brought director Peter Bogdanovich a comeback.

He'd gone from three bit hits in a row -- The Last Picture Show, What's Up Doc, and Paper Moon -- to three big flops in a row -- Daisy Miller, At Long Last Love, Nickelodeon -- and envious Hollywood types enjoyed giving him the heave ho(Bogdo and then gal pal Cybill Shepard didn't wear their success in a modest enough way.)

But nobody's too bad in Hollywood that they can't redeem themselves with a good movie, and Bogdo did that with "Saint Jack." For awhile.

Interesting: Jack Nicholson turned down the lead. He probably wasn't trusting Bogdo with his career at that peaking time. Jack Lemmon was considered, but that poor guy was deep into his "wimpy neurotic" period and aging.

So Bogdo went with Ben Gazzara. And seems to have given Gazzara his greatest role -- a star role, a lead -- the kind of character who is SUPPOSED to get nominated for an Oscar(but didn't.)

Ben Gazzara had an interesting face. It was certainly a handsome face, and interestingly, it seems like he had the same face for 40 years, from Anatomy of a Murder in '59 to Saint Jack in '79 to Road House in '89 to The Big Lebowski in '98(damn, missed 99 by that much.)

But that's not true. In Anatomy of a Murder, the "Ben Gazzara face"(particularly with a short, clunky Army haircut) is rather mean and nasty and threatening. He's up on a murder charge and his lawyer James Stewart kind of thinks Gazzara looks like a guy who COULD kill people. (Well he clearly did -- the trial is about temporary insanity as a defense.)

Gazzara went on to years of work, and if I looked it up, I'm sure I'd see something else really good in there(plus a couple of TV shows like Arrest and Trial - the first "Law and Order" -- and Run for Your Life(a dying man on the run until...the ratings kill him.)

Gazzara also joined up with fellow NYC tough brooders John Cassavetes and Peter Falk for Cassavetes film "Husbands," and though Falk would have the biggest career...Gazzara kind of looked like the biggest star.

But he wasn't really...which is why Bogdo could get him to play "Saint Jack" and then get a great performance of a man in a great role. The sneering menace of Ben Gazzara in 1959 is now, 20 years later, calmed down with the handsomeness of middle age(it came to Cary Grant and Paul Newman too) and a "retained" menace that suggests this middle aged American expatriate procurer?pimp?business man? can STILL take care of himself when menaced by Triad thugs.

But we get to see a softer side of Ben Gazzara in "Saint Jack." He strikes up a genuine friendship with sad-faced, friendly, frail Denholm Elliott(two years before Elliott became Indy Jones similar pal) , looks out as best he can for both his professional women and their "less than" male customers...its a good role. Right up to -- and past -- when he is asked to do something horrible. By a character played by...Peter Bogdanovich(who seemed to know that HIS handsomeness was always too smarmy looking.)

It IS a good role. Anchored almost entirely not only by the handsomeness of Gazzara's face but by its sly, knowing, self-amused quality.

And I daresay that this "locked in" so that Gazzara could use it two more times to play BAD guys.

In the camp classic (with A-production values from the Die Hard producers) "Road House," Gazzara did his sly self-knowing thing to play a transplanted NYC mobster who runs a whole Southern town with his team of henchmen, killing anybody who gets in his way(he's the town boss in a modern day Western; Patrick Swayze and Sam Elliott are the good guy bouncers). Thing of it is, when the chips are down, Gazzara can fight pretty good , too -- in his own way. Gazzara's villainy wasn't quite up there with Alan Rickman in "Die Hard," but he seems more suave than, say, John Lithgow might have been in the role.

In "Saint Jack," Gazzara sports a lot of open short sleeved "Hawaiian shirts of a different nation" to play his denizen of the steamy Orient. Its a good look for him, and he brought it back for "Road House" and then for a shorter villain role in the cult film "The Big Lebowski." It seems as if , in "Lebowski," Gazzara is cashing in on his "Road House" villainy(he's a pornorgrapher in this one, with henchmen)...but its really a performance that can be traced by back in charisma to..."Saint Jack."

I suppose in 1979 if Peter Bogdanovich had tried to cast a "top tier star," he'd have gotten Nicholson, or maybe Lemmon...or perhaps Paul Newman or Gene Hackman. Maybe even Warren Beatty. (Jack has to be older; he's a Korean War veteran -- so Michael Caine and other British stars are out , well, maybe not -- wasn't the UK in Korea, too?)

But Bogdo didn't have that kind of juice anymore, or that kind of budget(Roger Corman produced.) So he went with Ben Gazzara.

And Ben Gazzara makes "Saint Jack" a small classic...all about him,