Gigolô

In the seventies, the band Genesis were renown for their amazing live shows but their first live album however didn't capture the magic of that performance. In 1930 one of the most beautiful actresses in the world starred in a hit Broadway comedy which everyone agreed was brilliant including MGM's Thalberg who got Jack Conway to turn it into a picture. This didn't capture the magic of that performance either.

Thalberg knew his audiences weren't as discerning as a Broadway audience but it was successful enough to turn in a nice profit for MGM but watched today it very, very flat and lifeless. There were of course some exceptions but in the early thirties it seemed to be the thing to take a successful play and just film it, maybe making a few tweaks here and there. Figuring out how to adapt a play into a moving picture was not something most people could do in the era of the early talkies. The experience of watching real people just a few metres in front of you is nothing like the experience of watching a film. In a theatre, you feel part of the performance, you share the same air, you share the energy with the performers whereas when watching a movie, that movie has got to reach out to you, do something special to engage with you to make you feel part of the action. This production fails miserably at adapting itself.

You can imagine how fantastic it must have been to watch live, Irene Purcell playing that outrageously flirty, sexy young thing in front of your eyes. You can imagine those silly over-the-top lines "Lord Brummel" making you laugh when said by a guy just in front of you - maybe winking at you in the audience. These same characters were put into the film but because they're not movie characters, characters written for the pictures, they don't work, they don't engage with you in the slightest. There were a few tweaks made but these were simply toning down some of the more saucy content - again something which makes this even flatter. The fundamental problem is: Theatre characters on film do not feel like real people. Without being able to imagine these characters as real people, it's impossible to engage with them. Without that engagement, whatever silly situations they find themselves in don't make us laugh, they just irritate us.

Some of the early talkies Jack Conway directed were amongst the best ever made, some had real flair, imagination and life. This however was just a job he was assigned to do so imbued none of his own personality or indeed thought into. At MGM (and most other studios as well), it wasn't the director who decided to make a picture. He was just an employee with no choice what he had to do, he was assigned to go into whatever sound stage that day and direct Film A, Film B or Film C. The studio knew what they wanted, Conway didn't argue, he filmed the play and the result is an hour of watching actors doing some acting rather than seeing people in a story.

It's not a bad nor a good film it's just OK but it could, with a little more thought been a very good film. William Haines, the silent heartthrob (little did his thousands of female fans know!) simply plays the William Haines his women fans wanted to see. He's not convincing at all as an English Lord nor as an incorrigible womaniser. You really couldn't care less whether he 'gets the girl' or not. Irene Purcell is 'the girl' and what a girl! Productions like this must have been the reason she only stayed in Hollywood a few years before returning to the stage. Although a few months later she starred in THE MAN IN POSSESSION and gave a completely different performance. Unlike in this, in that film, which benefited from having a very witty script (unlike this) and a more engaged director (unlike this) and a decent leading man (unlike this) she was fabulous. She's OK in this but seems almost camera shy so you'd never guess that she was one of Broadways most respected and talented actresses. If you've seen MAN IN POSSESSION (which you should) you would have fallen instantly in love with her (well I did) but in this lifelessly directed trudge to the finish, even that sex appeal is dampened - which again, if you've seen that other film you'll find unbelievable.

Unless for some inexplicable reason you're a William Haines fan, give this a miss. If you've never heard of Irene Purcell, watch MAN IN POSESSION instead and be prepared to go weak at the knees! And most importantly, if you've never heard Genesis Live: 1973 - what's wrong with you?

as the wild playboy who depends on his uncle for money. One of the best light actors of the 20s and 30s, Haines shows off his stuff in this mild comedy; he's the whole show. What's important about this film is that it demonstrates what kind of career Haines could have had in Hollywood if he had been willing to play the game and "play straight." Because he wouldn't, Louis B. Mayer, scuttled his career (as he did John Gilbert's) and Haines quickly descended to B pictures. One of the top box-office draws of the late silent/early talkie period, Haines was washed up just a few years after this film. C. Aubrey Smith and Irene Purcell (lovely as the love interest) are fun.

William Haines is not believable as a "straight man" in this movie, despite what others think, and so there is no sexual frisson between him and Irene Purcell. They are as brother and sister, but what a sister she is! Really quite contemporary in her deportment, she fascinated me with her performance. As others noted, she came and went - perhaps her interpretations were just too far advanced. But the movie was a hit, and I think she carries Haines through, with her "needy sister" act to his absolutely dispassionate comportment with her. Anyway, one reviewer says Haines had a hand in the set design, and if you love "geometric Deco" (as I do), they are to die for. I kept pausing and studying the sheer complexity of the opening set - way, way cool. And the old folks, C. Aubrey Smith, and Charlotte Granville, are great as Brits who know how to let their youth evolve. A quite amusing scene when the two react to the "sex book" that the young folk are reading. Some things never change. A refreshing move, even if Haines only really engages with the other men and is too much the buffoon with the women for my liking.

In most of William Haines' films, he plays a man with incredible natural talents--be it as a soldier, a football player, a polo player or whatnot. Here in "Just a Gigolo" his talent seems to be women...and Lord Robert Brummel (Haines) is mistaken for a common gigolo. Since this is a pre-code film, there is lots to suggest but little is stated outright. A 'gigolo' is described as a man who takes money to dance with women....though most adults in the audience know this is code for a male prostitute. And, in usual William Haines style, he lets the lady believe that he's just a gigolo!

Casting Haines as a British lord did seem odd considering he sounds 100% American here. A Ronald Colman-type would have been more believable but MGM put Haines in this for one huge reason...he was a huge box office draw at the time. So, as was often the case, the role was expected to fit the actor instead of the other way around.

Despite Haines being wrong for the part, I really liked this film because unlike his other very formulaic films, this one is a comedy- -especially when the girl his character is chasing realizes who he is and decides to turn the tables on him. Clever and quite enjoyable.

By the way, as for Haines he only made a small handful of films after this. With the new Production Code of 1934, gays were now supposed to be DEEPLY in the closet and the openly homosexual Haines chose instead to walk away from films...and became a very successful interior decorator to the stars.

Normally, in his sound films, William Haines would be constantly chattering and go for the broad laughs with over the top often hammy humor. Here he plays it cool pretty much throughout. Haines plays the playboy nephew of Lord George Hampton (C. Aubrey Smith). Lord Hampton has had it with paying for his nephew Robert's scandalous and expensive ways and threatens to cut off his allowance and his inheritance unless he marries. He even names the girl - one from a wealthy family that has never met him and therefore doesn't know what he looks like. At first Robert says no - he's had too many married women to want to wind up playing the fool himself once he is married. Robert's experience has led him to believe all women cheat. Thus Robert makes a bargain with his uncle - if he can bed his wife-to-be in 30 days without her knowing who he actually is, he does not have to marry her. The uncle agrees and the fun begins. Of course the bet between Robert and his uncle isn't put quite as plainly as I put it. This may be the precode era but there were some things you couldn't just come out and say even then. Still this film is pretty sexually bold for its time and is cleverly done. Highly recommended for the precode fan.

One thing that puzzles me is whatever happened to Irene Purcell, who plays Robert's possible fiancée here? She's been just perfect in the MGM films I've seen her in - this one and "The Passionate Plumber". She was great at playing high society types in comedies, but it was just three films and then out for her over at MGM. She did three more films at smaller studios in much smaller parts and left the industry entirely in 1932. I wonder what happened?