The indescribable Ben Gazzara plays a sort of Casablanca's Rick in Singapore, though in this version - as friend Denholm Elliott comments - he's a 'ponce'. He's lovely to him and everyone else e.g. to old lady 'don't stay up with your Mah Jong too late', but gets mixed up with gangsters who don't like him opening his own 'house'.
Peter and Ben did a lot of 'research' with the local girls, who end up in the film (giving some of them enough money to go home), and rewrote the script - the ending, in which Ben is supposed to deliver to Peter a speech about why he doesn't go through with the blackmail scheme, was reduced to 'fuck it', and is all the more successful - an interesting writers' note. Based on Paul Theroux novel.
Shot with grainy realism by Robby Müller.
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