FREE ON YOUTUBE David Bowie - Just A Gigolo (West-Berlin 1978)

FREE ON YOUTUBE (DU FINDEST DEN GANZEN FILM FREI AUF YOUTUBE) David Bowie made only one film during his time in Berlin: Beautiful Gigolo, Poor Gigolo. We see world stars like Curd Jürgens, Kim Novak and Marlene Dietrich in their last appearance. Beautiful Gigolo, Poor Gigolo shows the Berlin of the 20s: The poverty on the streets, the nightclubs, heady Nazi villains and a lonely hero. David Hemmings simply left his stars to themselves as a director. Curd Jürgens once again plays the Herrenmenschen and Sydne Rome is stupid with pretty Glubschaugen. David Bowie is the Prussian officer Paul von Pryzgodski, who returns to Berlin after the First World War, but no longer finds his home. He plays a gigolo and is finally shot by Nazis. We are in a scenario that could have been taken from a comic book. Underground a Nazi colonel works on the resurrection of the Aryan race and hears Wagner. Meanwhile Gigolo Paul is seduced by a widow at her husband's coffin. Marlene Dietrich acts as the boss of the Gigolo Service and is even allowed to sing a number (which we'd better keep quiet about). It must be considered a curious decision that she chose David Hemming's film after 17 years of screen abstinence. Despite its obvious ridiculousness, the film reveals something about the Berlin Wall of 1978: the Senate provided unusually high subsidies to re-establish the city as a film metropolis. So Marlene and David Bowie were added together for a crashing flop at the box offices. For Bowie another costume in his career, for Marlene a forgotten departure and for Berlin a typical Schildbürgerstreich.