Just a Gigolo (1978 film)
| Just a Gigolo | |
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Original film poster
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| Directed by | David Hemmings |
| Produced by | Rolf Thiele |
| Written by |
Ennio De Concini Joshua Sinclair |
| Starring |
David Bowie Sydne Rome Kim Novak Maria Schell Curd Jürgens Marlene Dietrich |
| Music by |
John Altman Günther Fischer |
| Cinematography | Charly Steinberger |
| Edited by | Susi Jäger |
| Distributed by | United Artists Classics |
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Release date
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Running time
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Germany 147 mins UK 105 mins USA 98 mins |
| Country | West Germany |
| Language | English, German |
Just a Gigolo (Schöner Gigolo, armer Gigolo) is a West German 1978 film directed by David Hemmings and starring David Bowie. Set in post-World War I Berlin, it also featured Sydne Rome, Kim Novak and, in her last screen appearance, Marlene Dietrich. The hostile reception the film received led Bowie to quip that it was "my 32 Elvis Presley movies rolled into one".
A Prussian officer (David Bowie) returns home to Berlin following the end of the Great War. Unable to find employment elsewhere, he works as a gigolo in a brothel run by the Baroness (Marlene Dietrich). He is eventually killed in street fighting between Nazis and Communists. 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".
Around the time of its release, David Hemmings said that Just a Gigolo was intended to be "highly ironic, 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's The Man Who Fell to Earth (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, whose Goodbye to Berlin had inspired the musical Cabaret. The city had also been the recording location for Bowie's latest studio album, "Heroes" (1977).
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