SAINT JACK—pimps rank just a notch above politicians on the respect scale, and it’s a hard sell to make one anything more likable than a swamp leech. Yet the enterprising, easygoing ‘Jack Flowers’ (Ben Gazzara) in this arresting 1979 character study and period piece emerges with some decency and dignity, even honor. Pimp is a suitably ugly word (paging Harvey Keitel’s ‘Sport’ in Taxi Driver): call Jack the somewhat less damning ‘procurer’, his time, place and choices laid down in Paul Theroux’s compact yet dense 247-page novel. Peter Bogdanovich directed, co-writing the script with Theroux and Howard Sackler. Little-seen gem is one of the hit-or-miss director’s better of his 17 feature films, and features Gazzara’s career-best work. *

“William, people make love for so many crazy reasons, why shouldn’t money be one of them?”

Singapore, the early 1970s. Amiable ex-pat hustler Jack Flowers runs a fairly happy brothel, weathering the occasional danger from rivals, a local Chinese triad who don’t play nice. Then the overflow from the Vietnam War brings a new wrinkle, not just the combat-zoned soldiers on r&r but political pressure to set up a visiting American senator. Jack’s scruples may be situation-adjustable, but he does possess them.

With Robby Müller as cameraman, the shoot was done guerilla style in steam-heated Singapore, using a fake title to fool city officials about its content; wised up on release they banned it for 26 years. With the vetted storyline, the exotic authenticity of the backdrops and by employing local talents as well as non-actors, the movie is drenched in atmosphere and acted with such naturalism that it feels like you’re watching reality play out in real time. Non-judgmental, the writing, direction and performances let you make up your own mind as to veracity, morality contrasted with amorality and how need can be quantified by greed, one ‘sin’ deplored while a greater one is allowed to flourish.

Colorful settings wouldn’t suffice without both a solid and surprising storyline and characters you care about. The situations and circumstances devised are alternately sly, sinister and sad and the casting faultless. Throughout his career, Gazzara, 48 at the time, did edgy work that varied from exact to indifferent; it’s no snipe to call his complicated, compromised Flowers–jocular, practical, gentle and resilient—his finest since he drew notice for Anatomy Of A Murder back in 1959.

Bogdanovich, who acts in a small role as a C.I.A. slug, also drew a winner with a superb turn from Denholm Elliott, as a sensitive-souled occasional Brit visitor from Hong Kong who becomes a close friend of Jack’s. At 56, after toiling diligently for 31 years and racking solid credits (Station Six-Sahara, King Rat, Alfie, The Apprenticeship Of Duddy Kravitz), Elliott again proved a master of naturalistic, nuanced delivery with this sympathetic character; he aced another part that year in the epic Zulu Dawn.

Low-budgeted (maybe just $2,000,000), produced by the director’s old mentor Roger Corman, Saint Jack is listed by Cogerson at 123rd place among 1979 releases, grossing $1,700,000 in the States. Corman said it did better overseas, enough to even out the costs. With James Villiers (blowsy ex-pat lush), Monika Subramaniam (Jack’s Ceylonese girlfriend, cynical but sincere), George Lazenby (as the Senator, a decade after his shot at 007, and a much different role), Joss Ackland, Lisa Lu, Yan Meng Tan. 112 minutes.

* Cybill Shepherd, the director’s girlfriend at the time, got 50% of the rights to Theroux’s novel as part of her settling with “Playboy” over the magazine’s publishing nude pix of her from The Last Picture Show, where she and the director had first met. Irony having a snicker, Hugh Hefner got an Executive Producer credit for the film. Life imitating art, the dallying director’s day with Shepherd ended over his location philandering with sultry supporting player, Singaporean model Monika Subramaniam.

Gazzara, 2009: “I would say Husbands and Saint Jack and The Killing of a Chinese Bookie are my three favorite films, of my work.”

Bogdanovich, 2006: “Saint Jack and They All Laughed were two of my best films but never received the kind of distribution they should have.”