KINDA HOT: A book about Saint Jack

Getting Copies

2011-01-04T07:48:00.000-08:00

Forget the Amazon link, except if you want to read the lovely review just posted by Gordon J Whiting. If you want a copy of Kinda Hot, email me at gonetopersia at gmail.com and I'll sort you out as soon as I can, for a reasonable price. Thanks!

One Night In Singapore

2010-02-02T17:37:00.000-08:00

26th November, 2009, 7:30pm

The Ladies: Monika Crump, Sally Tunnicliffe and Lisa Lu

The Guys: Teo Bee Hui, Tan Yan Meng, Noel Joseph, Pierre Cottrell and me

Monika and Tony Yeow

My intro

Bee Hui

Monika, Noel and Meng

Pierre, Lisa, Tony and me

Bee Hui

(Photos courtesy of the National Museum of Singapore)

Once Upon A Time...

2009-11-03T18:28:00.001-08:00

The journey to organise a screening of Saint Jack has been a long one that's taken many twists and turns along the way, including the un-banning of the film; discussions to show the film in London and Telluride (which I recently found out came much closer to happening than I ever believed); prints appearing, disappearing and deteriorating at the BFI and in America; the quest for Quentin Tarantino's personal copy (not sure whether he ever got the messages), and much more besides.

Anyway, we're finally go. And it's the 30th Anniversary of the film's commercial release, and almost exactly 30 years since Warners innocently sent a copy to the Singapore Censorship Board for a look-see.

The first screening is on the 26th November, and a second one on the 27th. All at The National Museum of Singapore, and it's part of a season they're doing of foreigners takes on Singapore/Malaya called Once Upon A Time In The Orient.

For the details: times, ticketing and prices, please click this mother.

I invited some of the major cast and crew to attend. Apologies to all those I didn't or couldn't contact. And we have Monika Subramaniam (lead actress), Pierre Cottrell (producer) and Sally Tunnicliffe (casting and actress) flying in and possibly Lisa Lu (see below). I'm hoping to rouse as many of the local cast and crew to show their faces as well, and I'm sure we'll have a few surprises.

We're also doing the 'Jack Of Hearts Mystery Tour' - a bus tour of locations which I'll be co-hosting with Tony Yeow, the film's Unit Manager. This tour will take place in a parallel universe in which Saint Jack is a well-known classic and a la San Francisco and Vertigo, tourists flock to our tour to find out where the scenes were shot from their favourite film in the old/new Lion City.

This should be fun. See you there!

Lisa Lu

2009-04-25T19:24:00.000-07:00

(Photo by Sherman Ong)

Another missing piece of the puzzle. I finally met Lisa Lu this week. Lisa was the producer/actress sent-parachuted by Roger Corman into Singapore just as the Saint Jack shoot was starting, to deal with some of the 'interpersonal issues' that had developed between Pierre Cottrell and Peter Bogdanovich. I'd tried to contact Lisa a few times when I was doing my research back in 2005, but the messages never seemed to get through. Anyway, Lisa was pretty thrilled to get the book and talk about those days. Lisa is a true star, she's worked with everyone from James Stewart to Wim Wenders, Donald Cammell, Ang Lee, Wayne Wang and of course, the legendary Li Han-Hsiang, in two genuine masterpieces for Shaw Brothers in which she played the evil Empress Dowager, CiXi. We had dim sum and bak kut teh at Raffles Hotel, and talked about those days, but she wants to have a longer talk when she's finished reading the book.

A Million Flowers

2008-12-03T17:51:00.001-08:00

This is a piece I wrote last year for Alexis Tioseco's site about South-East Asian cinema, Criticine. It's based on a number of talks and presentations I did around the time when the book came out in which I discussed the story behind the writing of the book and it's impact on my life. Enjoy.

End of a journey

2007-04-03T23:56:00.001-07:00

Casting Sessions

2007-03-22T00:55:00.000-07:00

(Top: Ben Gazzara as Jack Flowers. Bottom: George Morfogen, Lisa Lu and Peter Bogdanovich - all taken by Agnes Chia during the Saint Jack shoot.)

When Saint Jack was finally screened at The Arts House last August one great surprise was the appearance of casting chief Agnes Chia, someone who many of my interviewees had sung the praises of, but who I had entirely failed to track down. Turns out her niece is someone I actually knew a little before I began writing the book, and since then she had completely missed my various public calls for Saint Jack cast and crew to contact me. Singapore is both a small place, and strangely big (or fast moving) enough for people to not notice each other. Anyway, since then Agnes has read the book, seen the film a few times (she was very pleased that it came out on DVD here) and either she or I were too busy to meet up. Finally we set a time and date, at McDonalds at Clementi of all places (the West side of Singapore), close to where she lives and works.

There was a great feeling of deja vu for me, getting the dictaphone out and jotting down questions - the first time I've interviewed a Saint Jack crew member in about a year, and Agnes gave me the usual - "I don't have very much to tell you" routine, before I began to plug away. Agnes had been pulled into Jack Of Hearts (the fake name they used while filming) by Tony Yeow (Unit Manager) because her sister-in-law, who worked at film studio Cathay-Keris, had recommended her to Tony. A decade earlier, she had worked on casting for Pretty Polly, the largely forgotten Noel Coward adaptation set (and filmed) in Singapore, which she says was "very straight-forward". Saint Jack would prove to be a more unpredictable and memorable experience.

She and Sally Tunnicliffe were in charge of casting, working with George Morfogen (Peter Bogdanovich's right-hand man), who dealt with them directly. Agnes, unlike Sally, says she didn't have many dealings with Peter, who she describes as "aloof". Pierre Cottrell (Roger Corman's production guy, who fell out with Peter) on the other hand was "a nice guy". Sally was teaching during the day, and mainly dealt with casting the expats, Agnes specialised in finding Singaporeans for the many small or larger roles and was in the office - at the Shangri-La Hotel and then later at the Goodwood Park Hotel.

Interestingly she says that many of the locals who had speaking parts were recruited from Chinese Clan Associations who were regularly doing performances, and had names and addresses of their best actors. The hordes who turned up after seeing the newspaper ad, were generally pretty terrible. She recalls the legions of models sent over to audition for the female roles, and how difficult it was to find a pretty girl with 'bow legs' (a description inherited from Paul Theroux's novel, of one of Jack's best ladies), so they gave up on that.

On casting Monika: "There was a lot of competition for the lead – a lot. Monika was very natural. She had that look, innocent and fresh, not so vulgar, very different from the other girls."

On casting the part of Toh, the gangster-boss: "They wanted a dwarf, and they wanted him the next day… (finally)we heard that there was a dwarf living in this one particular place, so we took a car and went over there and went looking for him door to door. We didn't have his address or phone number. And we found him"

When the shoot began, she or Sally had to be present to make sure the actors turned up, and to find replacements if they were needed, which by the sound of it, was never. For the big crowd scenes, at Goodwood Park (with the GIs) and at North Bridge Road (the nightclub raid scene) Agnes ended up managing the extras, and she even organised the catering, which was budgeted at an extremely generous 10 bucks a head.

She loved the old house on Institution Hill, and at the end of the shooting there, the production/set guy David Ng auctioned off the furniture, so for years she had a chandelier and sofa from the film set (sadly she no longer has them).

Agnes had been told that the film was Jack Of Hearts, but knew pretty quickly that it was something more risque. There was obviously tons of gossip flying around the local crew about what the foreigners were up to - both in terms of the film and their other activities. The script was changing all the time, which was a problem for casting because they never knew what characters might be invented, be needed or dropped, but from the pages that they saw, it was clear that Jack Flowers was a pimp. The scenes with the trans-vestites/sexuals Bridget and Lily were the most shrouded in secrecy, and she had no role in casting those scenes - Peter, Pierre, Ben and George did that alone.

She doesn't remember seeing much about it in the papers until it was banned (early 1980), and wasn't at all worried about this, by that time she was busy working, but not in films or TV sadly...she obviously had a real talent for casting.

The screening at The Arts House was the first time she'd ever seen Saint Jack, and she really enjoyed finally getting to see it, and was even more excited to get the DVD, which she has shown to her whole family. Her feeling is that the film is a very valuable document of Singapore's past, and should be required viewing for young people...

Agnes shyly agreed to pose with me after we had photocopied her my archive copies of the casting notes, which she hadn't seen since the summer of '78 (pic taken by Wayne from Access Depot), I promised to give her a bunch of contacts for some of Saint Jack crew so she can get back in touch, and then she showed me how to get back to the station without getting wet (It was pouring with rain), and she was gone.

Le Pierre et moi

2007-03-20T00:56:00.000-07:00

Legendary film guru and friend/associate of many members of the Saint Jack crew, Pierre Rissient, takes curry with myself and Malaysian film director U-Wei Bin Hajisaari (who took this) on the 20th March 07.

Pierre was also the crucial connection between the Singapore International Film Festival and Roger Corman, thus allowing the first Singapore screening of Saint Jack to take place in '97.

Reviewed

2007-03-20T00:41:00.000-07:00

It's been in the pipeline since before Christmas, but I finally have my first British print review for Kinda Hot, which is in the current edition of Time Out (London), and was written by film writer//distributor Jason Wood, who has written quite a few books himself. I've never met Jason (although we do have mutual contacts), so its especially heartening to read his words about my efforts...at the risk of being terribly immodest, he really does say some very cool things.

Here's the review as it appeared in print.

And here's the longer version before the sub-editors cut it down to size.

DVD: Out of print...

2007-01-30T23:57:00.000-08:00

'jbln' from Maryland is the second person to review my book at Amazon, and the first this year. It's extremely positive and jbln is obviously a fan of the film, however he or she decides to knock half a star off what would have been a "5 star review" because the film is so hard to get hold of...The injustice of that aside, jbln points out the news (to me) that the Roger Corman DVD version of the film is now out-of-print, and has become rather expensive. If you go to the Amazon page for Saint Jack, it is currently retailing at 48 US bucks...I think it was 20 when I bought it 6 years ago. But if its going to disappear soon, that means the only version left (in the world) will be the Australian DVD currently on Singapore HMV shelves which uses the exact same materials as the Corman one.

2 Myths...

2007-01-21T23:25:00.000-08:00

Alex Au from Yawning Bread, whose wonderful website provided me with some useful information for Kinda Hot, has written something about Saint Jack which discusses my book, and says some very nice things indeed. Mucho grazias, Alex!

the year of living saintly

2006-12-23T18:18:00.000-08:00

(The Ozzy version of the Saint Jack DVD on sale at Orchard Road, HMV, probably the biggest DVD outlet in Singapore, and it's one of their bestsellers. Yes, my book should be there alongside it - we're working on it...)

If 2005 was the year of researching and writing Kinda Hot, then 2006 has been the year of seeing the book in print and experiencing the highs and lows of getting the thing into people's hands and discovering what they think. A friend kept saying to me that the publication was just the beginning of the 'long-haul' and she was right, you would hope that a book when its out there would take on a life of its own and start making its own way in the world... and in a way it does. But it also lies inert on shelves in innapropriate parts of bookshops, or worse, sits in a warehouse because no one bothered to re-order it.

After a a period of fervently emailing the publishers about disappeared stock and bad shelving, or coming up with new ideas about how to promote it, you do have to drop out of the race to a certain extent. Its time to move on.

Actually, it sold decently. I think about a quarter of what was printed (2,500 copies) has shifted so far. Most of this is Singapore buyers, but thanks to the power of the internets the Amazon sales have been steady as a group of the devoted and dedicated Saint Jack-lovers/Peter Bogdanovich fans/Singapore-in-the-70s nostalgists have tracked it down.

This sounds like I'm wrapping up the blog - and actually I'm not - there is a Saint Jack related interview with a key local crew member in the pipeline that will be up here in the New Year I hope. And I never even posted about my wonderful afternoon with Le Pierre himself, Pierre Rissient, who dropped by Singapour in November and took me to lunch and told me how accurate he felt the book was, even if he wasn't the biggest fan of the movie. But as those who've noticed the paucity of posts of late will have guessed, I am busy on other projects, including the very earliest stages of finding a home for Book 2. So this is merely a long-winded way of saying something simple:

Thanks for reading.

Hidden in a podcast

2006-11-13T16:48:00.000-08:00

I had downloaded the mp3 that Jeffrey Wells' put up on his website of his interview with Peter Bogdanovich about his re-worked and restored documentary Directed By John Ford, but it took me a week to get round to listening to it. I had sent Wells a copy of Kinda Hot a couple of months ago, but he'd never got back to me and I imagined it had slipped into the ether. But at about 23 minutes into their conversation he raises the topic with Bogdanovich, and although the discussion of Saint Jack doesnt quite catch fire, it was pretty strange to hear these two guys talking about me...

Greencine interview and a local review

2006-11-10T02:16:00.000-08:00

The phenomenally committed and enthusiastic David Hudson recently did an interview with me for the Greencine site. Read and enjoy...

Also, just discovered this book review by Lim Mun Pong on the youthful Singapore-based 'movie' website, "Moviexclusive". It's a good review (I get four stars out of...) although I'm described as an "arty type" and my prose style is apparently occassionally "whiny"... all quite accurate comments, actually.

DVD in Singapore

2006-10-20T21:05:00.000-07:00

This post may be unintelligible to non-Singapore based folk:

A lot of people in Singapore have asked me if they can get a copy of the DVD, and now they can. HMV has stocks of the Australian Region 4 DVD selling for a very decent 19.95 Sing dollars. Its M18 of course. I know for certain its in the Citilink branch, because I went down there and saw it on the shelves after someone tipped me off (Thanks Alan!). I'm pretty sure it must also be at The Heeren branch.

Anyway, come on Borders and Kino! There's no excuse not to be flogging the DVD and my book side by side!

(Pictures to follow...)

I'm dreaming....

2006-09-30T21:33:00.000-07:00

... of an Amazon review.

Anyone?

Something about a Sunday

2006-08-28T18:07:00.000-07:00

So, Sunday the 27th came around, and it was time to unveil the talk on Saint Jack, which I'd spend a couple of weeks preparing and still hadn't finished. I had about 25 minutes of 'presentation', and then filled the rest of the time with Gavin Millar's footage of the Saint Jack shoot - which had never been seen before in Singapore.

The best bit was the Q & A, everyone stayed and a lot of people asked good questions, and by that time I'd warmed up and was able to give good answers (I think). That woman in the front row took photos of me all the way through - can I see them please?

The screening was of course, packed out. I felt the audience was a bit more subdued than last friday's event, but I still really enjoyed seeing the film again on the big screen, spotting new details and bits of business each time. And almost everyone stayed for the credits, which was impressive.

Finally it was over, but it isn't quite over. It seems very likely that a distribution deal to release the film is going to be struck very soon. When that happens, like Tom Joad in Grapes of Wrath, I'll be there.

(And that's me and my wife, Marianne Wee, by the way, thanks to Soon Kin who took the pic and organised all the events.)

Check this first response to my talk by film blogger Readymade

another take

2006-08-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

Here is a review of the screening and my book by a Singapore film blogger called Stefan. Check it out.

Finally...

2006-08-19T19:15:00.000-07:00

(The old gang together for the first time in 28 years, click into flickr for the names)

The first screening of Saint Jack was on friday. A few days before the Straits Times had run a small preview piece, and within a few hours of that hitting doormats both screenings of the film had sold out. Even though it was on DVD and anonymous benefactor had lent us a 35mm print of the trailer, the one with Bogdanovich strutting around the set narrating the story and giving foreigners a quick primer into Singapore. I had gathered most of the cast and crew who had come to my book launch - Tony Yeow, Teo Bee Hui, Tan Yan Meng and Noel Joseph (Peter Teh was uncontactable - where are you Peter?), and then as I sat with Tony waiting for people to arrive, a woman approached him who announced herself as Agnes... It was Agnes Chia, who had been in charge of casting (along with Sally Tunnicliffe), and whom I had entirely failed to track down during my research.

The film began to a packed and expectatant house, and it seemed to go down well. It was the first time I'd seen it with an audience, and whats particularly clear is how radical the shift is between the noisy, jokey, freewheeling first 2/3rds and the final near-silent section. Jack's world gets quieter and smaller, until he disappears into history. Of course, I think people loved seeing the old locations, the fashions and the faces, and hearing the dialects and the accents of the Singaporean cast.

Afterwards, most of the audience stuck around to see the cast and crew, there weren't many questions - but it was great to have them out enjoying the limelight for something they did nearly 3 decades ago.

Next weekend - the final sold-out screening (and it is the FINAL screening, the Arts House only have permission for 2 and no more from Roger Corman's people), and my talk about Saint Jack.

See you then.

Come and See

2006-08-01T16:53:00.000-07:00

(The crowd gathers to gawp at Saint Jack being shot in 1978, Clara Pang and stills photographer Moustique sit at the table, and that maybe Lousie Walker as well. The chap without a shirt is unknown to me... click on the shot for an anecdote about Moustique.)

It is 100% confirmed. Saint Jack hits the Arts House (which used to be the Old Parliament Building) this month!

The dates and timings for the Screenings are:

Fri 18 Aug at 7.30pm (cast appearance and post-show dialogue)
Sun 27 Aug at 6pm

Kinda Hot, A talk by Ben Slater at 4pm, Sun 27 Aug.

As I mentioned in the last post, its on DVD, but as its only 2 screenings, hopefully this won't put off anyone from trying to get the print back in town. But to be honest, it needed to happen soon, and I think the folk at the Arts House deserve much respect for their determination on making this happen.

As for me, my talk will discuss the whole process of writing the book (expect gossip and outtakes from the book), and I'll be showing some ultra-rare footage of the film being made, which was shot by the BBC back in '78.

The Arts House website is a little tricky to navigate round, so I'd just recommend calling the ticket hotline: 6332 6919

The film is bound to sell out fast, so get moving...

good news

2006-07-29T18:34:00.000-07:00

Yes. Jack will be back in Singapore. Not exactly in the most glamorous of circumstances, but there will be two screenings in August, and a talk by me. So, its very good news! I have been very busy editing what is effectively another book (not written by me), and have been stupidly busy for the last month. But once all the details are cleared up, I'll post all the event details here. Thanks for your patience!

easy does it

2006-06-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

Scored a very nice write-up from Wiley Wiggins, who recommends reading Kinda Hot after Easy Riders, Raging Bulls, Pete Biskind's highly entertaining muck-rake through 70s Hollywood. Biskind's hi-energy style was an influence on my writing, but I made sure I never mentioned the book to Bogdanovich who totally hates it! I did tell him about Julie Salmon's wonderful The Devil's Candy, on the making of Brian De Palma's Bonfire Of The Vanities, which he'd suprisingly not heard of. Anyway, cheers Wiley!

2006-06-15T01:10:00.000-07:00

Not sure how long it will last, but I'm posting over at harrylimetheme again.

the accountant is coming

2006-06-11T16:58:00.000-07:00

(An ad for my book designed by Yuen Chee Wai, using a wicked shot of the Saint Jack crew in serious downtime mode taken by Pat Jackson. Look carefully and you can see Ben Gazzara and Robby Mueller, among others. I love this picture, but we couldn't use it in the book because its too fuzzy and indistinct.)

Just got back from Tokyo, a city of beautifully designed dreams... hence, a slowdown on blog action from me. Truth is I've been rather down lately about the book. Local sales have slowed down to a snails pace, and I can't bare to go into bookshops anymore. Kinda Hot is either not there at all (in one major bookstore which claims it has an abundance of copies, it is impossible to find), or displayed very poorly. Because I'm S for Slater, I tend to get shoved down to a lower shelf of the 'Local Interest' section, and the flashy cover that we spent so long agonising about rarely gets a chance to show itself off to passing consumers. Maybe we should have spent more time thinking about the spine...

My Amazon sales rank yesterday was #696,452, which apparently means I've so far sold 20 copies online. This is actually pretty cool, because it means international readers of Greencine, IFCBlog and possibly these very pages, have made those moves.

Although I'll continue to do what I can with promoting the book, I think I have to accept I can't worry about its presence (or non-presence) in every single bookstore. Gotta let it go.

But I didn't want to just post a lot of pathetic self-pitying guff today. Instead I'd like to swing this around and share with you some of the positive stuff people have been saying about Kinda Hot.

I got a handwritten letter from George Morfogen last week, he's in the photo above standing with his arm outstretched at the back of the group. George's handwriting is very dense, but he wrote that "the different memories of events make for an accurate reflection of the climate of those months of production. Your essay and critique of Saint Jack was the high point for me..."

Charles Longbottom, the expat film buff who found himself with a key role in the film's red-light district scenes, took the book on holiday to France (it does make for a fine vacation read), and emailed me on his return: "I think you've done a fine job, Ben, capturing well the filming of a bygone era." Although he thinks I downplayed Bogdanovich's arrogance. Personally, I think I leave it for the reader to make their own judgements.

His fellow expat actor/crew member Sally Tunnicliffe had this to say to me: "I very much enjoyed the book. It took me right back to an amazing time. You certainly did some thorough research and simply getting in touch with so many people must have been a huge undertaking. I also learnt a lot that I didn't know at the time."

Louise Walker, the costume supervisor and a great interviewee mailed me a succinct: "really wonderful and well done".

Pierre Cottrell, the production chief, whose testimonies really blew apart many of my preconceived notions about the shoot, was someone who I felt may not like the book. But he sent a quick congratulatory email, under the title 'Bon Mots'. I know he reads this blog once in a while, so I look forward to hearing your reactions in full Pierre.

Singaporeans have also sent me some feedback. This was from Ming Wong, an artist who is based in London. "I loved the way the book meshes together film-making, film history, guerilla filmmaking guide, travel guide, social/political history book of that special dot in the ocean called Singapore (especially timely, now with talk of the local 'film industry' again), nostalgia trip..." And this from Kok Meng, an architect, which was forwarded to me by a mutual friend: "Couldn't put the book down once I got started on the plane. Delicious names and places. A Singapore I loved."

Thanks to all of those who have written to me (or about me), the book took a long time to create and so I really appreciate the comments.

Cinema Singapore and other titles...

2006-06-02T00:02:00.000-07:00

(Fragment from article in the Singapore newspaper TODAY)

The daily newspaper TODAY has a big feature about why foreigners are so curious about Singapore movies, which has a few soundbites from me - you can read it here, or have the pdf here. But the main peg of the article is the publication of my compadre Raphael Millet's splendid account of Singapore's cinematic history, aptly titled Singapore Cinema. Raphael has done a great job of tracking down rare stills, which have been beautifully reproduced by his publisher, and in a highly readable text he gives probably the most detailed and exhaustive chronology of Singapore films and filmmakers in existence. Local readers should start seeing it around soon, and you lot overseas can buy it online here.

Meanwhile, I did my little reading last night at the library, which was fun. Thanks again to Shu Hoong for inviting me. The independent event, which obviously has a regular following, seems to have been co-opted by various library bureaucrats to help launch a multi-lingual reading campaign - so that was a little weird. Especially since they had a camera crew videoing every move we made. But it was a good crowd and people were very friendly...

I'm still surprised how few people have heard of Saint Jack, even after all the publicity its had since March through my book, the unbanning and Paul Theroux's visit. It makes me realise that in terms of publicity - there's a lot of work to do.

spoken word

2006-05-25T17:57:00.000-07:00

A date for the diary.

Catch me talking about the process of researching and writing the book at 7pm on the 1st June as part of the regular subTEXT writer's meeting group which is convened by poet Yong Shu Hoong.

The event takes place at the National Library's lending library. I'm not exactly sure where we will be, but there is presumably a side-room in the basement... it will be clearly signposted I'm sure. I'll be speaking alongside several other local authors, so it's a real privilege to be invited.

I'll be using it as a chance to try out some new material which will be a work-in-progress towards a bigger, multimedia presentation at some point in the near future.

See you there!

in the post

2006-05-18T17:18:00.000-07:00

(A photograph of me, a copy of the book, and the envelope that the book will eventually go into - taken at Books Actually by Darlene Lin)

To all who've been promised a copy of the book in the mail, I promise you that it's going to happen soon. I intend to send a wave out today, but, at the risk of sounding like a cantankerous old expat, I really hate the post offices in Singapore. Not sure why, but it never seems to take less than half an hour to perform a simple transaction (much longer for anything complicated). The ones I go to always seem very understaffed, or, they have baroque queueing systems. Enough.

There's a few things I wanted to get on this site, they don't exactly flow together, but here goes.

Kinda Hot is available from the following stores in Singapore:

- Times The Bookshop (Centrepoint, Funan Centre, Plaza Singapura, OUB, Suntec)
- Times Newslink (Changi Airport T2 North)
- Borders (ordered thrice)
- Kinokuniya
- MPH
- The Old Paliament House
- Select Book
- Campus Bookshop
- NUS Co-op

And in Malaysia:

- MPH Books
- Times The Bookshop
- Borders

I haven't even begun to publicise the book in Malaysia. That's a whole other project.

And the other thing I wanted to include was various bits of news from Saint Jack alumni. First up is the tip that our director Peter Bogdanovich is going to direct a Tom Petty concert film. Which is an interesting departure for them both...

...and I've just read Geoff Andrew's review of Paris Je T'Aime (you'll have to scroll down a ways). Where he singles out the episode co-directed by Gerard Depardieu as the best film in this portmanteau tribute to the city. It stars Jack Flowers himself Ben Gazzara alongside his Cassavetes co-star Gena Rowlands, and both apparently give "fabulous performances". It does sound pretty delicious.

on the circuit

2006-05-14T17:51:00.000-07:00

(Songs from the second floor - me trying to re-enact a bit of Gazzara at 65 Kerbau Road, Little India)

On friday Singapore's main newspaper for executives, VPs, CEOs and all white collar workers, The Business Times, ran a profile of me and the book, which I was very happy with. You can read it here, but warning, this is a Google cached version of the piece, which now seems to have officially expired...but it should work for a while.

The piece was written by Parvathi Nayar, who aside from covering arts and culture for the aforementioned paper, is also an artist.

sentimental journeys

2006-05-07T20:02:00.000-07:00

(Paul Theroux looking back to No. 50 College Green - this was the house where the first 100 pages of his novel Saint Jack were written)

(We met up in the Botanical Gardens, and spent quite a while looking for bamboo, along the way he really grooved off the plants and trees. His enthusiasm is infectious.)

(After we'd met with the photographer from the newspaper we walked around town. Paul wanted a 'tourist' shot of himself outside of Raffles Hotel, which is where the last scene in the novel of Saint Jack takes place.)

the wanderer returns

2006-04-29T16:53:00.000-07:00

(PT enjoys a refreshing glass of Tiger minutes before talking to a packed-out crowd at the National Library, last thursday.)

Crazy week man. On Thursday I spent half a day with Paul Theroux, author of Saint Jack, who was in town as part of his research for a 'sequel' to his famous travel-book The Great Railway Bazaar. In 1973 he came back to Singapore for a few days and promised he'd never return - but here he was larger than life and in very good spirits.

My official account of our time together was published two days later in TODAY newspaper, and you can get the pdf of the article here, or check a text version here.

There was much I didn't or couldn't include in the article - because we did speak in some detail about Saint Jack, the book and the movie. It made me really wish I'd done a phone interview with him for my book, rather than email exchange. In person he is irrepressibly expansive, frank, funny and full of insights and information. Watching him with other press and public it's clear that he has the same smooth-as-silk people skills as the main character from Saint Jack.

He told me that Frank Sinatra was also considered to play the part of Jack Flowers at one point, which sounds likely... Theroux himself was flown out to Bogdanovich's house in Bel Air to work on the script for a week, and he has quite a few good stories about the director and Cybill Shepherd...but I guess I should keep these for a second edition.

To others he said lovely things about my book, but mano-a-mano he told me I'd done "quite a good job", which I think is high praise indeed.

I'll post more pics from the day at a later date.

ALSO: Read an interview with me on the Singapore National Library book blog. Thanks Sarah.

and then what happens...

2006-04-20T19:14:00.000-07:00

(Robby Mueller lighting Ben Gazzara for a scene in Saint Jack: continuity polaroid by Patricia Kirk)

Well, the book is on the shelves of some bookshops in Singapore (not as many as I'd like), and I continue to get the occasional sms or email of praise from friends, family and crew members who have read it. No one has beaten me up for my mistakes (and there are a few) or printing anything terrible - although one crew member did tell me that he might not receive christmas cards from certain friends this year.

After the Straits Times article, some keen folks set up a wikipedia page for Saint Jack, which didn't mention my book at all (because it had been so painfully sidelined by the article), or certain key facts about the 'controversy'. So I actually joined wikipedia in order to correct a few things... although it's still got certain inaccuracies that bug me.

I guess the big news is that by odd serendipity Paul Theroux is coming to Singapore next week. The plan is for us to meet up, and since he's not been here since the 80s, it will interesting to do a bit of urban exploration. Not sure whether this will pan out, but will update as it comes in. For those in Singapore (or nearby) - watch the press for details of a public event. He seems keen to do press and meet his readers.

Coincidentally, next friday (the 28th), the good people of Bukit Batok Community library Book Club will be discussing Saint Jack at 4pm! I wonder if he will be up for making an appearance...

And what of the film itself? Well I am hearing rumblings all over about those who are seeking to organise screenings. It is only a matter of time. I just hope they let me be around to flog my tome.

and Amazons...

2006-04-11T04:05:00.000-07:00

I'm back from my travels around the UK, where I played my part at the Lovebytes festival (entirely non-Saint Jack related). In London I visited the UK office of my publisher and had a really positive meeting about having *proper* British distribution for Kinda Hot - watch this space.

Back in Singapore I am going to make some moves to organise an event in May where I will give slide and video presentation about the book, my research and more. Again, all details of this will appear here first.

For those impatient to buy... here, at last are fully illustrated Amazon links

American site

UK site (No books till June I'm afraid)

Germany

Direct from publisher

I'm staggered to find I have an Amazon US sales rank, it may be exceedingly low, but it means someone has ordered it...

I also received an email from someone in Prague who was an uncredited extra in the film during the R & R scenes, I'm hoping that this will be the first of many crew and cast members to get in touch.

The Straits Times responds:

2006-04-05T09:57:00.000-07:00

My relationship with Singapore's oldest and biggest daily paper The Straits Times over the book and the film has been slightly fraught - basically they seemed uninterested in the story of what I was doing both before and after the book was written. So imagine my surprise when on the day before I'm leaving for the UK I get a call from them urgently wanting to interview me for a BIG feature about the book and film (Saint Jack not Kinda Hot). Of course I co-operated to the best of my ability... but the final piece was somewhat different from what I'd been told to expect... there's not much about me here, but quite a bit of my research, and the article strangely seems to leave out all the things that make Saint Jack so fascinating.

You have to pay for it online at the official website:
but here's a version that was blogged earlier

The book is out!

2006-03-18T22:57:00.000-08:00

The old crew and me - from left to right - Noel Joseph (Gopi), Tan Yan Meng (Little Hing), Teo Bee Hui (Jimmy) and Peter Teh (Mike), not in the photo is Tony Yeow, the film's unit manager.

Yesterday we had our launch event at Borders, which I had originally intended to be a 'soft launch', and not to be such A Big Deal, but over the last 2 weeks it seemed to gather momentum with all my friends promising to be there, and then after the 'unbanning' of Saint Jack last week, it seemed to become even more important to mark the event properly. So, most of the local cast and crew who I had interviewed showed up - which was a huge thrill for me, and I think the crowd that came to watch loved meeting them.

We almost sold out of books in the shop - which I'm told is pretty rare - but I have to thank all the good, good friends who showed up and supported me, and I hope you enjoy the book.

I'm off to the UK on wednesday for 2 and half weeks - so don't expect too much blogging from me. But hopefully press and publicity will continue to unfold. I'll try and get links up when I can.

Latest links.
Full version of the 'unbanned' scoop and feature all on one page.
The New Paper's take on it - very tabloidy.
Mr Miyagi, top blogger and Saint Jack fan previews.
And, Amazon US finally has the book for sale - still no picture. Grrrr.

Saint Jack is unbanned!!!

2006-03-15T16:19:00.000-08:00

(Double page spread from Singapore newspaper TODAY, on the 16th March 2006)

Last night I got a call from a reporter from TODAY newspaper telling me that the Media Development Authority Of Singapore had issued a statement to them explaining that Saint Jack was no longer banned... and that it is now possible to import and sell the DVDs, watch the DVDs (or any other format), and to screen the film in cinemas, either as a one-off or as part of a commercial release.

This is obviously fantastic news. I've been doing some research into getting a screening of the film for a while, and also the possibility of the DVD being in the shops is very exciting. The film will be rated M18, which is not the highest rating (thats R21), so it can be sold in stores!

The MDA say that the film could have been passed anytime since the last change is censorship regulations (around 2003), and they do suggest that the film was only banned originally because of the lack of classification ratings in the past - an excuse which I don't buy. If Saint Jack was banned because of one or two moments, they could have suggested they be cut - which they never did - the film was banned outright for the reason outlined by an anonymous censor who I quote in my book (read it and find out!).

Anyway, enough quibbling. We have a big reason to celebrate.

Read the article online here. And if you are willing to click through the pages you will be able to find the full pdf of the article, but there's no direct link - sorry...

Tracking them down

2006-03-13T16:58:00.001-08:00

(Peter Bogdanovich, Monika Subramaniam, Robby Mueller and Ben Gazzara hanging out at a now-obliterated eating spot along the Singapore river - this was actually a scene in Saint Jack, and Bogdanovich got so ill from the shrimp in this photo that the film had to shut-down for a day.)

Getting press for an upcoming book is no easy task, even in a place as close-knit as Singapore... and since nothing has actually been published yet, I'm not going to hex myself by announcing anything, but a few journalists have read the book now and I've been feeling the faint trickle of positive feedback. And more importantly no one has hauled me up on anything erroneous, but all in good time!

The book should have been in the shops by now, but it isn't, so if you are in Singapore and want to buy a copy as soon as you can, all I can do is say - Come to Borders on Saturday at 2pm, you can buy the book and get a look at me. As an extra incentive: at least two major crew members from Saint Jack will be around as well, one of them had a largish speaking role in the film. I'm calling some more of them up today, so there may be a bit of a reunion.

The question I get asked quite a lot is about the 'research' - did it go as well as I expected? Did I find all the things I wanted to find? And this leads back into the story of writing the book. Well, after I spoke to Bogdanovich I felt that the whole episode had a bit more flesh, but Bogdanovich had also repeated a fair few anecdotes I'd already read in other interviews. He gave me some great detail about the origins of the project - Orson Welles, casting, the Playboy case with Cybill Shepherd, etc, but of the period in Singapore he was much more sketchy.

My search for other crew members was crude and simple - checking their subsequent credits on IMDB, and Googling them for personal websites. And suprisingly this gave me a few immediate results. Jacques Steyn, the chief lighting guy on Saint Jack, and now a cinematographer in his own right, has his own website, and was really quick to respond to my email. We arranged a time to speak, and I remember Jacques telling me that thinking about that time after my email had brought back "a million memories"... some of which he shared with me in vivid and animated detail. This confirmed to me that Saint Jack was an amazing experience not just for the main players, but for all the foreign crew, most of whom were very young... and Jacques's description of life on the set was enormously compelling - it was hard work but also pretty fantastic. I was getting more than a little seduced by the world of Saint Jack.

Not long after Jacques, I interviewed Gregg Barbanell, who had worked on the film doing post-production sound. Gregg's name isn't on the film, rather the company Mag City is, but miraculously, IMDB listed Gregg by name, and also had his email address. Gregg replied within hours, and a few days later we were talking. Gregg's memories were most specifically of Bogdanovich, and they were mostly negative... Gregg tells these stories with incredulity even today which made them pretty funny. Mostly it was PB's cigar-waving arrogance, something that's well documented all over. Looking at Gregg's credits, which are pretty awesome, I realised that the process of talking to all of these crew members and technicians was opening up my naive eyes to the massively collaborative enterprise of filmmaking... for the first time I was really getting a sense of how all of these people function together in making a film, and how little recognition they get.

Each time I interviewed someone I added another layer to the tale, a fresh perspective, or a whole load of new facts and info about some aspect of the shoot I hadn't even considered. But, I still hadn't spoken to any of the Singaporeans involved in the film, and it was imperative that I did. It did't matter if I tracked down every single European and American person involved - I had to have that local voice. To be honest, I was worried. I spent hours on the Yellow Pages website, trying to find phone numbers, some looked promising, but led no-where. I realised that because the foreign crew were mostly still working in The Business, they were much easier to track down than the locals. I was wondering whether it was possible to pull this off without the aid of Private Detectives...

To be continued.

Got the book

2006-03-07T18:08:00.000-08:00

Yes, I finally got the thing yesterday... and I'm very pleased with it. Makes you remember what delicious objects books are. Sorry for the cheesy picture, but it has to be done.

Next thing: do people actually like it, and did I make any godawful errors...?

Jack Flowers

2006-03-04T03:09:00.000-08:00

(Jack, played by Ben Gazzara, getting the bad words on his arms changed into flowers)

If you're following the first post, you'll know I'm trying to recount the story-behind-the-book-behind-the-film, and before I go forward, I should mention that even though I did no real research into Saint Jack when I first arrived in Singapore back in 2002, Jack Flowers (the main character in Saint Jack) continued to haunt me.

As part of theatre group spell#7, I worked with Kaylene Tan on a performance in July 2002 called Kinda Hot (sound familiar?), which was a performed guided tour of the area where the spell#7 office is located, Little India.

The name of the show was clearly a reference to Saint Jack - after the line that Jack uses to open up conversations with strangers - "Kinda hot?" He only uses it once in the book, and once almost imperceptibly in the film, but its a line that stuck out - for it's cheeky innuendo, Singapore-specificity and obvious metaphorical qualities...

I played a character called Jack, who was inspired by Jack Flowers rather than literally based on him. I wore a very cool Batik shirt, and as I introduced myself to the audience I certainly hinted that I might be able to show them where the 'good times' could be had. We took certain aspects of Jack Flowers - that he was a storyteller, an exile who can never leave, an outsider but utterly at home - and heightened them to suit our story about two characters who are in love with each other and the streets where they wander. Kaylene wrote a beautiful line about the character, which kinda gives the game away about the source:

"Jack leaves a scent. A trail of a million flowers. I can smell you 2 miles away."

That show was banned. Sounds melodramatic, but that's what happened, and you can read about that all here.

Next up was a performance called Various Gangsters with spell#7, which was performed at the marvellous Substation as part of their September festival that same year. A criminally underrated show, it was loosely inspired by the idea of gangs and gangsters - and we did some research into triads and secret societies, oaths and tattoos. Which brings us back to Saint Jack. As we were writing the piece we were looking for something for the end of the performance, and there was a line which suddenly connected Saint Jack with the tone and feeling we were after.

"The bad words have been made to look like flowers."

And after that there was list of obscenities followed by the different types of flowers they had been made to look like: "Fuck becomes a chrysanthemum". All of them were written by Kaylene, who takes the speech off from this initial premise into a sublime description of a body as if it were a garden (You can read the whole thing and find out more about the show here).

This began as a response to Jack's tattoos in Saint Jack, the way he brilliantly decides to change the Chinese insults, that have forcibly carved into his arms, into something beautiful.

In 2004, we went back to Kinda Hot and reworked it into an audio tour (people listen to our soundtrack as they are directed around Little India), and the characters remained roughly the same - including Jack. Now, existing only as a voice, he does become spectral, like a ghost of Singapore's past, condemned to endless strolling, chatting with tourists, and Gin and Tonics back at the hotel (The audio tour is called Desire Paths, and you can still come and do it - there is a lovely website for it here, or read a review here).

Jack had now become a persona. I figured I knew who this guy was - his hopes and dreams, a romantically inclined loser. He would always be the popular one, telling jokes, full of life, making people around him feel good. But you could never get too close to Jack - inside he was shutting down, trying to protect himself from pain, panicking about the future. It was a character I couldn't ever get rid of, he kept turning up in the things that I did in Singapore.

Which brings us back to the book.

Event Alert!

2006-03-01T23:26:00.001-08:00

Because I'm going away at the end of the month, and in April we'll be deep into the wonderful Singapore International Film Festival, there will only be one chance to hear me talk about the book in public and to say hello.

So, diaries out folks:

It's at Borders on the 18th March, which is a Saturday, at 2pm. I'll be there talking about the genesis of the book, and discussing why the film is worthy of so much of my time, and if people really want to, I can sign your books. I'll add more details of what I'm planning as we get nearer the date.

Now, the book was meant to be printed this week and in my hands (and then shortly after that in the shops), but due to some technical errors, it is not. So, it looks likely that the 18th May be the first chance people have to get their hands on the tome - so it is now literally becoming the First Day of Publication... which is nerve-wracking.

Meanwhile, I discover that Amazon UK is already featuring the book on it's website as an item for future sales. No picture though, which I'm gonna sort out.

And thanks to Greencine Daily for being the first to blog about my blog.

5/3/06 Update:

Thanks also to IFC Blog for blogging about this as well. Mucho grazias!

And - the German Amazon entry has gone up. Still no picture, but it's the first time I've seen the phrase "von Ben Slater" before...

Coming my way?

2006-02-22T07:13:00.000-08:00

Not sure where to start this blog, but the cover seems as good place as any:

To see a bigger version, click on the pic and it'll take you thru to Flickr.

I'm in a limbo at the moment, the book went to print friday before last, and I'm expecting it to be in my hands any day now. To say that I'm full of nervous anticipation is a bit of an understatement.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Not sure how you got to this site, but you may need some background information. And that's what this blog is for - to fill you in on this book wot I wrote, why I did it, how it's doing, and where you can buy it.

I'll keep it simple.

According to the internet movie database, Saint Jack is a film directed by Peter Bogdanovich, based on a book by Paul Theroux, it stars Ben Gazzara, and was shot on location in Singapore. It was released in 1979 in the States, and in Europe in 1980 and in some countries even later.

It's a film that used to turn up on TV in the UK, late at night and without fanfare. Even though I was a compulsive video-taper of almost anything I hadn't seen movie-wise, I distinctly remember deciding not to waste a tape on it when I was about 16, mainly because the review in the Time Out Film Guide (my bible at the time), dismissed it as a poorly made travelogue exotica of little interest (the review is unbylined, but I have an unconfirmed feeling that it was by a now extremely well-known expert on Asian cinema).

That's it. I totally forgot about it for nearly a decade. And now I've written a book about it. How can that happen?

Well, I came to Singapore in 1998 for the first time. The film had been screened the year before as part of the Singapore International Film Festival - it had never been seen officially in Singapore up to that point. So, some friends of mine had seen it and told me about how cool it was, and especially how brilliant Ben Gazzara was in the lead role as an American pimp called Jack Flowers.

On my return to the UK I sought out the book by Theroux, read it quickly and loved it. I've not travelled a great deal in my life - and so reading a novel set in a 'far-away' place which I was now, pretty familiar with, was very pleasurable. The book is crammed with authentic details of language, dress, behaviour and in particular, places and spaces.

I went back to Singapore at least once a year over the next few years, and Saint Jack came up in conversations there, particularly when we were visiting some very run-down ex-colonial spot. But that was it.

Then in late 2001, I knew I was going to move to Singapore in 6 months. A massive life-change, and I was not quite sure what I intended to do when I got there. I decided to create for myself a project, and ordered the DVD of Saint Jack on Amazon and before it even arrived I was plotting something for my future.

The film was everything I expected and more. I loved it despite imperfections, but it was the spontaneous moment that it seemed to capture, a lost episode in so many filmographies, a buried bit of Singapore history. Before the credits rolled, I knew that I was going to research the 'making of' as soon as I arrived in the Lion City.

I wanted to make a documentary. The opening shot is still with me... a helicopter shot above the skyscrapers of the gleaming hypercity, Louis Armstrong's music (used in the film) lazily plays over the scene, tiny credits appear in the corner of the screen - 'The Making Of Saint Jack'.

Suffice to say it never happpened. In fact I did almost nothing about The Saint Jack Project for two years. Then I had much more free time than I wanted or was prepared for, and to fill in the hours I began a blog - called harrylimetheme - and began to look for things to write about. After a few weeks, I wrote about Saint Jack, detailing why I was so interested in the film, and beginning to tell the story.

Feedback was good. Some kind people emailed me to say they loved reading about it. Then I realised that maybe, just maybe it could be a book.