Item: Handsome Gigolo, Poor Gigolo
Rating: 7
Author: Archivist John

Is it worth the watch?

If you have a soft spot for the kind of movies that feel like they were filmed through a layer of cigarette smoke and expensive perfume, then yeah. You'll probably dig this.

It is definitely for people who like to look at costumes and old-school military uniforms. If you hate slow-moving stories where not much happens besides people looking sad in ballrooms, you should probably skip it and go watch something with explosions instead.

The man with the face

Igo Sym plays Rudi, and honestly, the camera is totally obsessed with him. There are moments where he’s just standing there, and the movie stops just to admire how his hat sits on his head.

He is a first lieutenant, which sounds fancy, but he is completely broke. The movie does this thing where it shows his poverty through small stuff—like how he looks at a bill or the way he carries himself when he's around people with real money.

It reminded me a bit of the lead in Money to Burn, where you have that same vibe of a guy trying to keep his chin up while his world is basically falling apart financially.

The music is almost a character

The "Hungarian Rhapsody" pops up, and it’s not just background noise. It feels like the movie is trying to breathe through the music.

There is this one scene in a club where the song "The Night is Ours" starts, and you can see the shift in the room. People look a little too desperate to have a good time.

The extras in these scenes are fascinating to watch. Some of them look like they were pulled right off the street and told to look rich, but they don't quite know what to do with their hands.

Wait, what was the plot again?

The story is kind of thin, if I’m being honest. It’s more about a series of moments than a big, sweeping narrative.

Sometimes the movie feels like it’s wandering around, much like All at Sea, where the atmosphere is the whole point.

Rudi is a dancer, and he’s charming, and women love him, but there is this underlying sadness to the whole gigolo thing. He’s a "gentleman," but he's also a product being sold for the night.

I think the writers—Emmerich Hanus and the rest of them—were trying to say something about how the old world was dying. But they didn't want to be too heavy-handed about it, so they just made it look pretty instead.

Small things I noticed

The way the light hits Erna Morena in her close-ups is almost too bright, like they were trying to hide her wrinkles with pure sun.
There is a guy in the background of the cafe scene who spends about three minutes trying to light a cigar and failing. I couldn't stop watching him.
The military uniforms are so stiff that the actors look like they can barely turn their heads. It makes the emotional scenes look a bit robotic.
One of the transition shots is just a blurry image of a chandelier that lingers for way too long. It felt like a mistake they just kept in.

The vibe is everything

The movie gets way better once you stop waiting for a big twist. It isn't that kind of film.

It’s more like The Traitor in the sense that it relies on you caring about the social standing of the characters more than the actual events.

Rudi’s struggle isn't about life or death, its about whether he can afford to keep being the person everyone thinks he is.

There is a scene toward the end where he just looks at his reflection in a window, and the silence goes on for about thirty seconds. It’s actually quite moving, even if it feels a little melodramatic by today's standards.