Koroshita no wa dareda / 殺したのは誰だ (‘Who is the Real Killer?’, 1957)

Obscure Japanese Film #286

Ichiro Sugai

Misako Watanabe

Eikichi (Ichiro Sugai) is a widowed 55-year-old car salesman with two adult children: Katsuko (Misako Watanabe), a bar hostess who sometimes sleeps with her customers, and Jiro (Asahi Kobayashi), a student who seems to have dropped out, works part-time at a car wash and plays billiards for high stakes when he has the cash. Eikichi has shacked up with Yurie (Toshiko Yamane), who has a cheap eatery ironically named the ‘Peaceful Oasis Diner’. However, nobody seems to actually eat there, only to drink, and it’s patronised mainly by a former salesman turned chronic alcoholic (Jun Hamamura) and assorted flies.

Sugai, Toshiko Yamane and Ko Nishimura

Eikichi is having a run of bad luck at work, partly because he keeps getting undercut by ruthless rival salesman Nakagawa (Ko Nishimura), who has also taken a liking to Yurie. When Nakagawa tempts Eikichi and his friend Frank (Taiji Tonoyama) into a dangerous criminal scheme for some supposedly easy money, more than one person ends up dead…

Yamane, Sugai and Taiji Tonoyama

The title of this Nikkatsu production might lead you to expect a whodunit but, written as an original screenplay by leftist Kaneto Shindo, the answer to the titular question is presumably supposed to be ‘society’. Unusually, Shindo places the focus largely on middle-aged failure Eikichi rather than his troubled offspring. The 50-year-old Ichiro Sugai suits this part very well (it was likely tailor-made) and gives a fine performance in what was a rare leading role for him. Apparently, he had first come to prominence playing Inspector Javert in a now lost film version of Les Miserables directed by Tomu Uchida in 1931. He went on to become a favourite not only of Shindo, but also of Mizoguchi, Kurosawa, Kozaburo Yoshimura and Kon Ichikawa and appeared in over 300 films, even directing two himself, before his passing in 1973.

Sugai with Toshiko Yamane

The film was directed by Ko Nakahira*, best-known for Crazed Fruit (1956). With his customary flair and economy, he paints a vivid picture of a cutthroat post-war world in which people are desperate enough to do almost anything to make a few yen and American culture has been unquestioningly embraced, along with all the emphasis on materialism and capitalism that goes with it. It’s significant that the film opens with a driver’s POV shot of a dashboard bearing the legend ‘Cadillac’; yet when we see the driver’s hand turn on the radio, it’s not American rock and roll or jazz we hear, it’s a melancholy theme provided by the film’s composer, Akira Ifukube, of Godzilla fame. This is the first indication that this will be a film that does not play out along familiar lines.

Jun Hamamura with fly

There’s some effective if not especially subtle symbolism involving spiders and flies, while performances are solid all round, although Jun Hamamura is given a little too much license to scene-steal and be weird. And that’s not the only element which doesn’t always work – Sugai’s drunk scene is over the top and a billiards scene, though cleverly shot and edited, goes on too long – but there are some great, unexpected moments along the way that make this one well worth watching, and it’s stylishly shot by Shinsaku Himeda, who would later win awards for his work with Shohei Imamura.

*IMDb lists Shindo as co-director, but Japanese sites do not.

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Misako Watanabe

Dorodarake no junjo / 泥だらけの純情 (‘Mud-Spattered Purity’/ ‘Trampled Innocence’, 1963)

 Obscure Japanese Film #230

 

Sayuri Yoshinaga and Mitsuo Hamada

 

Jiro (Mitsuo Hamada) is a teenage yakuza who rescues high school girl Mami (Sayuri Yoshinaga) from being harassed in the street by a couple of young yakuza from a rival gang. When one pulls a knife, Jiro gets stabbed and his assailant ends up dead by his own blade. Despite his injury, Jiro manages to complete the drug delivery he had been assigned before collapsing. After receiving medical attention he makes a full recovery and ends up meeting Mami again when she wants to thank him. The two fall in love, but she’s an ambassador’s daughter while he was brought up in poverty – is there any way for them to be together in a society determined to keep them apart? 

 

This Nikkatsu production was based on a 1962 short story by the prolific Shinji Fujiwara (1921-84), whose fiction also provided the basis for Imamura’s Endless Desire (1958) and Intentions of Murder (1964), Yoshida’s Akitsu Springs (1962) and many others. The adaptation is by Masaru Baba (1926-2011), a screenwriter associated with the new wave who went on to win an award for penning Imamura’s Vengeance is Mine (1979). 

 

The story is the sort which could easily have been treated with an excess of sentimentality, but fortunately the director is Ko Nakahira, a director definitely not known for that particular characteristic. Having said that, this is an unusually warm-hearted film for him. Jiro is basically a good-natured kid who’s pretty likeable when not trying to show off and impress other yakuza, while Mami has somehow grown up free from the snobbery of most of her class. After their first date, Jiro starts watching wildlife programmes and reading the Bible like Mami; she reads a boxing magazine and tries whisky so that she’ll be able to understand him better. Upping the ante, Jiro even agrees to attend a concert of contemporary music, where he’s baffled by the strange racket of the avant-garde. 

 

Young stars Mitsuo Hamada and Sayuri Yoshinaga were a joint box office phenomenon in Japan in the 1960s, and this was the 15^th of 43 films in which they co-starred, all of which were made in that single decade. Mitsuo Hamada (then 19) later came very close to being permanently blinded in an assault in 1966, but gradually recovered and continued acting until 2015. Like Yoshinaga (then 17), he was also a popular singer. She had won the Blue Ribbon Best Actress award for Foundry Town the previous year and is still acting at the time of writing. It’s not difficult to see why they were popular, and the fact that this film – one of their biggest hits – works as well as it does is partly down to them, even if Hamada goes overboard at times. It also helps that the film’s point about class is made effectively without the filmmakers feeling the need to patronise the audience by spelling it out. Furthermore – in my opinion anyway – the ending of the picture is exactly the right one. 

 

Dorodarake no junjo was remade in Korea the following year as Maenbaleui cheongchun (‘Barefoot Youth’), again in Japan in a 1977 version directed by Sokichi Tomimoto and starring Momoe Yamaguchi as Mami and Tomokazu Miura as Jiro, and finally as a Japanese TV movie in 1991. 

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

English subtitles at OpenSubtitles 

The Seasons of Love / 四季の愛欲 / Shiki no aiyoku (‘Four Seasons of Love’, 1958)

 

Shoji Yasui

 

Gyo (Shoji Yasui) is a famous writer married to self-centred model Ginko (Yuko Kusunoki), but their marriage is not registered and they have told few people about it, fearing that to make it public might damage their careers. Ginko hates Gyo’s mother, Urako (Isuzu Yamada), believing that she abandoned Gyo when he was a child and only got back in touch after he became famous so she could sponge off him. Now 48, Urako is a widow, but in many ways she behaves like a young woman and has a lover, Hirakawa (Tomo’o Nagai), who owns a fabric wholesale business (at one point, she even takes him to see a blue movie). 

 

Yuko Kusunoki

 

Tomo'o Nagai and Isuzu Yamada

She also has two other adult children. One, Momoko (Yoko Katsuragi), is married to the older Tatabe (Jukichi Uno), but does not love him even though he treats her kindly and they have a young son. Unfortunately, she’s fallen in love with Tatabe’s cousin, Akaboshi (Yuji Odaka), a two-faced womaniser who laughs at her love letters behind her back. (After he tears one up and throws it in the wastepaper basket, we see his secretary taping it back together so she can read it). 

 

Yoko Katsuragi and Yuji Odaka

 

Urako’s other daughter is Harue (Sanae Nakahara), who dislikes Ginko and wants her brother, Gyo, to dump her and date her friend, Shinako (Shinako Mine) instead. However, when he takes them both to a hot spring inn for a treat, he gets chatting to the barmaid, Yuriko (Misako Watanabe), and when she casually mentions being troubled by athlete’s foot, he jumps behind the bar, removes her socks and smears her toes with a remedy he happens to have handy, kick-starting a love affair… 

 

Misako Watanabe

 

This Nikkatsu production was based on a 1957 novel entitled Shiki no engi (‘The Four Seasons of Acting/Performance’) by Fumio Niwa (1904-2005), whose work also provided the basis for Women of Tokyo (1939), The Beloved Image (1960) and Four Sisters (1962) among other films. Like many films by director Ko Nakahira, it takes a pretty dim view of human nature on the whole, although in this case some of the characters are quite sympathetic despite the amount of adultery going on. In any case, it’s clear that we’re a long way from Ozu and the world of Tokyo Story here, and perhaps that’s partly the point. There’s no genial Chishu Ryu-type father figure in this film, nor any father figure at all for that matter. The screenplay was written by the intriguing if not very prolific Keiji Hasebe, also known for his collaborations with Shohei Imamura, so new-wavers like him and Nakahira were likely reacting against the cosier domestic dramas of Ozu and others. In fact, the ending piles coincidence on top of coincidence in a way that strongly suggests that Nakahira and Hasebe were taking the piss. 

 

Yoko Katsuragi

 

If you can accept the film’s (possibly deliberate) absurdities, there’s much to enjoy, with Isuzu Yamada and Yoko Katsuragi taking the acting honours among a strong cast. There’s also an effective score by Toshiro Mayuzumi, albeit one of his more conventional efforts.

Thanks to A.K.

The Flesh is Weak / 美徳のよろめき / Bitoku no yoromeki (‘Faltering Virtue’, 1957)

Obscure Japanese Film #174

Yumeji Tsukioka

 

28-year-old Setsuko (Yumeji Tsukioka), a former member of the aristocracy, has come down in the world somewhat after the war and ended up marrying below her class to Ichiro (Rentaro Mikuni), whose uncouth table manners appal her. 

 

Rentaro Mikuni

 

Despite being a wife and mother, she’s unable to forget her first love, Tsuchiya (Ryoji Hayama), especially as she keeps running into him (small place, Tokyo!). When her mother dies, Tsuchiya attends the funeral and, while paying his respects, whispers in Setsuko’s ear that he will be waiting for her the following day at 3 pm at a shrine. They start seeing each other on the sly, but he seems like such a nice guy that she believes it will remain platonic and her conscience will be clear. However, he has a weird fixation with eating breakfast naked… 

 

Ryoji Hayama

 

When Setsuko’s best friend, Yoshiko (Chikako Miyagi) – who is cheating on her own husband – arranges an excuse for Setsuko and Tsuchiya to sneak off to a hotel in Izu together, Setsuko freaks out when her uncle turns up at the hotel with some golfing buddies, stretching this film’s coincidence quota to the limit. Furthermore, Tsuchiya starts having non-platonic thoughts and tries to act on them, but finds himself rebuffed by Setsuko, who feels that she must remain faithful to her husband and certainly doesn’t want to eat breakfast naked with anyone…

 

 

This Nikkatsu production was adapted by Kaneto Shindo from a newly-published bestselling novel by Yukio Mishima (yet to be translated into English, but available in Chinese and Italian). The opening narration by actor Masaya Takahashi goes on for over 10 minutes and betrays the film’s literary origins. However, while the ending is apparently close to that of the novel, what happens in between is quite different, and it appears that Mishima’s original had Setsuko carrying on an extended sexual affair with Tsuchiya which results in two pregnancies, both of which are aborted. They also eat breakfast naked together, but I guess you couldn’t show that in a film in 1957 (so why have them talk about it, you may well ask). Anyway, although Mishima himself did not regard the novel as one of his serious literary efforts, he was not impressed and wrote in his diary that he could not imagine a more stupid movie. 

 

 

It doesn’t help that Setsuko is a self-pitying snob who is unnecessarily stern to her good-humoured maid, making it hard to feel much sympathy for her. Nikkatsu’s biggest female star at the time, Yumeji Tsukioka, does as well as can be expected under the circumstances, but Rentaro Mikuni is wasted in a role with little substance and Ryoji Hayama fails to make much impression as Tsuchiya. 

 

Chikako Miyagi

 

Chikako Miyagi fares better as the cheerfully amoral and flashily-dressed Yoshiko, and it’s nice to see Koreya Senda – who had just played a rare leading role in director Ko Nakahira’s Temptation – pop up again here as Setsuko’s dad. 

 

Koreya Senda

Nakahira also seemed to have a fondness for his namesake, actor Ko Nishimura, who appeared in at least half a dozen of his films, including this one in which he has a small part as a blind masseur who sees things his client (Setsuko) can’t. If only Nakahira could have seen the defects in the script… 

 

Ko Nishimura

 

Thanks to A.K.

A Town Not on the Map / 地図のない町 / Chizu no mai machi (aka ‘The Jungle Block’, 1960)

Obscure Japanese Film #127

Yoko Minamida

Ryoji Hayama

 

Shinsuke (Ryoji Hayama) is a young doctor who has had to resign from his post at a hospital after failing to save a patient. Returning to the shanty town where he grew up, he begins assisting the local doctor, Kasama (Jukichi Uno), who is greatly respected by the poor community he serves. 

 

Jukichi Uno

Unfortunately, the local yakuza boss, Azusa (Osamu Takizawa), has managed to obtain a contract to clear the shanty town and replace it with modern apartment blocks. Meanwhile, Shinsuke’s sister Sakiko (Kazuko Yoshiyuki) is out walking one night with her fiancé Kajiwara (Yasukiyo Umeno) when they are attacked by a gang of yakuza and she is gang-raped. Shinsuke is appalled to find that, not only is Kajiwara too spineless to go to the police, but he no longer wants to marry Sakiko. If that wasn’t bad enough, he then learns that not only has his childhood sweetheart Kayoko (Yoko Minamida) become a prostitute, but she has accepted an offer to become Azusa’s mistress instead in order to pay off a debt owed by her father (Jun Hamamura). Shinsuke decides to take matters into his own hands, but what can he do against such a powerful mob?

Osamu Takizawa

 

There’s a lot going on in this Nikkatsu picture, which starts out almost like one of Satsuo Yamamoto’s leftist dramas in which an oppressed community band together to take on their corrupt oppressors, but morphs into a Seicho Matsumoto-style murder mystery at the end. Based on a story by Kaoru Funayama,* it was adapted by director Ko Nakahira and regular Kurosawa collaborator Shinobu Hashimoto. In the film, the story unfolds in a series of consecutive flashbacks (probably Hashimoto’s idea). This is an unusual approach, but one that works well in this instance, with the tension building nicely as events reach their climax. When they do, there is perhaps a twist too many, with the result that things become a little absurd – almost comic, in fact (something I doubt was intended).

Shobun Inoue

 

A Town Not on the Map benefits from a strong all-round cast. In the lead, Nikkatsu contract star Ryoji Hayama makes for a sympathetic hero despite being better known for playing bad guys, while the underrated Yoko Minamida is equally good as the troubled cat-loving heroine, Osamu Takizawa makes a suitably loathsome villain, Jukichi Uno exudes integrity as only he could, Shobun Inoue is convincingly tough as a scar-faced yakuza, and Jun Hamamura manages to look even more like death warmed up than usual. 

 

Jun Hamamura

The score by the great avant-garde composer Toshiro Mayuzumi is surprisingly conventional for him, but nonetheless highly effective. Director Ko Nakahira brings his customary flair to the proceedings, with impressive staging and camerawork (by his regular collaborator Yoshihiro Yamazaki) which is seldom pedestrian and often memorably stylish. 

Yoko Minamida

 

Excellent subtitles by Stuart J Walton can be found here: https://www.opensubtitles.org/en/subtitles/9880312/the-jungle-block-en

*The original story, ‘Satsui no kage’ / 殺意の影 (‘Shadows of Murder’), appeared in Funayama’s 1957 collection Akutoku /悪徳 (Vice).