Monaco Forever (1984)

An American jewel thief in Monaco encounters various characters while trying to set up a robbery.

Absolutely ridiculous film that is notable for being not only Jean-Claude Van Damme's screen debut, but also his debut as a gay man on screen! Laughable.

This cheesy short film, from the director of Skatetown USA, has recently been released on video with Jean-Claude Van Damme's face and muscles prominently displayed on the cover. Tricky promotion, because Van Damme is actually in the film for only a little over two minutes -- but what a two minutes! With the credits naming him "the gay karate man," our hunky star-to-be plays a driver of a XK150 Jaguar who picks up a hitchhiker, makes some "advances" by placing his hand on the hitchhiker's crotch and when he is rebuked and threatened (the passenger was obviously deranged), tears off his shirt and teaches the unresponsive tease a lesson.

The version of this that I saw was 23 minutes shorter than the runtime listed in the IMDb, so, these comments may be only half valid. It was a multi-lingual effort, with English subtitles when the dialogue was in French, German or Italian - no dubbing. (The narration was in English.) Perhaps we are to be impressed with the language skills of the leading man. It's set in Monaco in the second half of the 1950s, about twenty years after the guy went from his native Germany to Washington, D.C. It fits that this occurred because of his mastery of linguistics. But then he returned to the fatherland to participate in WW II, his memories of which are shown to parallel much of what he experiences today. Now he is a jewel thief, and, we share some of his encounters on the day after a partially successful swipe: while hitchhiking, he is picked up by a gay, martial-arts-accomplished, French-speaking John Claude van Damme; he woos a lady-photographer, who, it turns out, is a pick-pocket, herself; and he demonstrates that craft, with a trio of females as his victims. My only negative impression is an occasional over-attempt at humor. Otherwise, it's a fairly unobjectionable depiction on film.
KDWms from Pocono Summit, PA (in IMDb)

This is a rare copy and I sincerely believe that's the only film of Jean-Claude Van Damme that you can't find in the net.
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INFO:
ORIGINAL TITLE: Monaco Forever
ALSO KNOWN AS: Gay Karate Man
YEAR: 1984
DIRECTOR: William A. Levey
GENRE: Comedy
RUNTIME: 48 min
COUNTRY: USA
LANGUAGE: English
CAST: Jean-Claude Van Damme, Charles Pitt, Nancy Brock, Danielle Rome
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INTERNET MOVIE DATABASE:
USER RATING: 3.1/10
KEYWORDS: Masturbation | Homosexual | Independent Film