The Spider Man / 蜘蛛男 / Kumo-otoko (1958)

Obscure Japanese Film #89

Susumu Fujita

 

Based on a 1929 novel of the same title (yet to be translated into English) by Edogawa Ranpo, this low-budget thriller stars Susumu Fujita in the role of Ranpo’s regular detective character, Kogoro Akechi. Fujita – best-known for playing the title role in Akira Kurosawa’s debut feature Sanshiro Sugata (1943) – first appears around 30 minutes in when Akechi is called in to investigate a gruesome murder. A young woman has been abducted and killed while attending a job interview, after which her dismembered body was found concealed inside a number of body sculptures. Akechi is soon on the trail of mad master criminal Dr. Kuroyanagi (Joji Oka), who gets his kicks out of murdering young women resembling the wife who betrayed him. He next sets his sights on movie star Yoko (Chikako Miyagi). However, using a series of increasingly bizarre disguises culminating in an outsize Cyrano de Bergerac nose, he continually eludes capture. His fiendish schemes reach their strange climax when he abducts a whole busload of young beauties and forces them to be models in a tableau of hell he presents before a live audience. 

Joji Oka

 

The Spider Man was originally released in two parts – the first entitled Satsujinki Kumo-otoko (literally ‘Murderer Spider Man’) running 97 minutes, the second Kumo-otoko no gyakushu (‘Spider-Man’s Counterattack’), which I haven’t been able to find a running time for. The version I saw displayed the title of part 1 in the opening credits, but was actually a re-edit of both parts combined. It appears that each part was edited down to around 55 minutes and simply spliced together, making a total running time of 109 minutes. The print was a fairly low-res VHS transfer which is watchable but far from ideal. 

Chikako Miyagi

 

The picture was directed by one Hiroyuki Yamamoto (1908-?), a name that could hardly be any more obscure. Oddly, it was his first film since 1943 and was also to be his last, perhaps because the production company (Shin Eiga) folded shortly after this was released. He first directed in 1937, and it appears that the majority of his 11 previous films were military propaganda works. 

 

The Spider Man is quite fast-paced, entertaining hokum which was evidently shot quickly and cheaply. For this reason, it never fully realises its potential and fails to make the most of its hell-tableau climax, which could have been far more memorable with a little extra care. Overall, the film is a fairly tame affair despite the potential nastiness of the story, and it’s perhaps just as well that it remains the only version of this particular Ranpo novel given how explicit a treatment it might have been given in more recent years. 

Joji Oka

 

Susumu Fujita had played Akechi before in a 1948 film, Issunboshi (now lost), but mostly phones it in here. Much better value is Joji Oka, who attacks his role with a gusto appropriately reminiscent of Lionel Atwill. Intriguingly, Oka had played Ranpo’s detective himself in a 1950 film entitled Tsurara no bijo, which received a limited Japanese DVD release in 2016 courtesy of collectors’ magazine publisher DeAgostini.

Watched without subtitles.

 

Crossroads of Death / 死の十字路 / Shi no jujiro (1956)

Obscure Japanese Film #19

Rentaro Mikuni

This Nikkatsu production is based on an untranslated 1955 novel credited to the famous mystery author Edogawa Ranpo (1894-1965) and published simply as Jujiro (‘Crossroads’). However, the novel was apparently based on a draft by one Kenji Watanabe, who was also responsible for this film’s screenplay, so one wonders how much Ranpo – whose health was failing and output dwindling at the time – really had to do with it. In any case, the plot has plenty of bizarre twists to keep mystery fans happy – although it should be said that there are also some serious plausibility issues, as we shall see!

Michiyo Aratama and Mikuni

 

The story concerns successful businessman Shogo (Rentaro Mikuni), who has become estranged from his wife Tomoko (Hisano Yamaoka) due to her conversion to a new religion, to which she has become wholly devoted. Shogo has found solace in the arms of his secretary, Harumi (Michiyo Aratama), now his mistress. One night, when Shogo is at Harumi’s apartment, his wife suddenly bursts in brandishing a knife and attacks Harumi, who is taking a bath. Trying to protect his mistress, Shogo is horrified to discover that he has accidentally killed Tomoko in the struggle. He carries her body to the boot of his car in order to secretly dispose of it in a disused well.

 

While this is happening, Yukihiko (Ko Mishima) gets into a fight at a bar when he asks Ryosuke (Shiro Osaka), the drunken brother of his girlfriend Yoshie (Izumi Ashikawa), if he will consent to their marriage. During the fight, Ryosuke falls and hits his head on a washbasin. After a few minutes he seems to be alright and staggers out into the street. Yukihiko goes after him but takes a wrong turn and loses him. Meanwhile, Shogo has been involved in a traffic accident on his way to the well. While dealing with the police, he fails to notice Ryosuke crawl into the back seat of his car, perhaps mistaking it for a cab, where he expires. Shogo manages to get away from the police and continues his grim journey, only to discover he now has a random extra corpse to deal with (!). Finally arriving at his destination, he simply throws two bodies down the well instead of one and goes home.

Shiro Osaka and Mikuni

 

A day or two later, Yoshie is standing in front of a shop window looking at a portrait of herself painted by Ryosuke when she is approached by Minami, a man who looks remarkably like her missing brother (and is also played by Shiro Osaka). He turns out to be a private detective and offers to help look for Ryosuke. However, when he uncovers the truth, he decides to blackmail Shogo. Things end badly for everyone involved.

 

Izumi Ashikawa and Shiro Osaka in a shot which seems to be a homage to Fritz Lang's The Woman in the Window

This is an enjoyable film with a fine performance by Rentaro Mikuni playing 15-20 years older than he actually was (33) as the largely sympathetic Shogo, a character who becomes a criminal purely through force of circumstance. On this occasion, Mikuni never overplays the role and it’s as if we can read Shogo’s every thought and feeling expressed in the actor’s face without his ever resorting to broad gestures. Mikuni is not always so effective, but in Crossroads of Death, he’s at the top of his game. Michiyo Aratama (who played the wife of Tatsuya Nakadai’s Kaji in The Human Condition) seems a little too wholesome to be anybody’s mistress, but is otherwise fine, while Shiro Osaka is memorably oily as the blackmailing detective.

Shiro Osaka and Mikuni

 

I’ve seen two other films by director Umetsugu Inoue: Black Lizard (Kurotokage, 1962), also based on a Ranpo novel, a weird and wonderful movie starring Machiko Kyo as a whip-cracking, cross-dressing super-villain, and The Third Shadow Warrior (Daisan no kagemusha), a real gem which deserves to be much better known and is a fascinating antecedent of Akira Kurosawa’s Kagemusha. Inoue’s direction of Crossroads of Death is not especially distinguished on the whole but the opening murder and the night-time disposal of the two bodies are very well-executed and memorable sequences.

Watched without subtitles.

Crossroads of Death can be streamed on Amazon Japan here.