Obscure Japanese Film #43
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| Junko Ikeuchi |
Based on a novel by prolific social realist crime writer Seicho Matsumoto, Beast Alley is a Toho production directed by Eizo Sugawa, who also made the excellent Tatsuya Nakadai vehicle The Beast Must Die (1959). An impressive array of talent is on display in other departments, too – the music score is by Japan’s foremost film composer, Toru Takemitsu, while the cast is littered with excellent actors, many of whom will be familiar from the films of Akira Kurosawa.
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| Ryo Ikebe |
Giving a flawless performance in a role which was probably the highlight of her career, Junko Ikeuchi stars as Tamiko, a young woman working as a maid to support her older, bedridden husband, Kanji (Satoshi Morizuka), a man with bad teeth and a foot fetish who, despite his condition, is carrying on with another woman. When Tamiko comes home one day and catches him in the act, the other woman flees and a disgusted Tamiko has to fight off the advances of the frustrated Kanji.
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| Yunosuke Ito and Junko Ikeuchi |
At
the inn where she works, Tamiko has attracted the attention of a wealthy
customer, Kotaki (a typically wooden Ryo Ikebe). She becomes his favourite and
he offers her the chance of a better life, putting a dangerous idea into her
head – in order to take full advantage of her new opportunity, she decides to
get rid of her troublesome husband permanently. Kotaki introduces her to Hadano
(Yunosuke Ito), a dodgy lawyer who finds her a new position looking after the
rich and powerful Kito (the ubiquitous Eitaro Ozawa in convincing old-age make-up). Kito keeps a gruesome statue of the
fearsome Buddhist deity Fudo Myo-o in his bedroom - surely a red flag if ever there was one! In a cruel twist of ironic
fate, it turns out that Kito is another randy, bedridden monster with bad teeth,
and she is forced to become his mistress while continuing her relationship with
Kotaki (Tamiko seems oddly sanguine about this, I'm not sure why).
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| Eitaro Ozawa |
Meanwhile, the death of Kanji is being investigated by a police detective, Hisatsune (Keiju Kobayashi). Becoming convinced that Tamiko murdered her husband, he tries to use the information to pressure her into having sex with him. Hisatsune has also uncovered some information about the murky pasts of Kito and Hadano; as a result, strings are pulled behind the scenes and he is fired from the police force. His attempt to get revenge by giving the story to a newspaper backfires, and soon nobody involved is safe…
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| Keiju Kobayashi |
The shocking denouement of Beast Alley features a further cruel irony for Tamiko and provides an appropriate ending to a misanthropic movie in which everyone turns out to be a scumbag. This is especially surprising in the case of Keiju Kobayashi's character. Kobayashi, who played the lead in Kihachi Okamoto's The Elegant Life of Mr Everyman, was best-known for comic parts but was also a fine straight actor when given the chance. The detective he plays here seems quite genial initially so, when his true character is revealed, it's entirely unexpected.
Also notable among the cast are Kurosawa favourite Noriko Sengoku as a scene-stealing maid and Tatsuya Nakadai’s mentor, Koreya Senda, in a tiny but significant non-speaking part.
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| Noriko Sengoku |
Takemitsu’s music is typically subtle and there is fine high-contrast black and white ‘scope photography throughout by Yasumichi Fukuzawa (who has oddly few credits but also worked for Kurosawa and Mikio Naruse).
However, the film’s most impressive asset is the remarkable lead performance by Junko Ikeuchi, who has to play just about every emotion in the book and is never less than entirely convincing. In 1966, she travelled to Argentina, where the picture had been nominated for Best Film at the Mar del Plata Film Festival. Unfortunately, it lost out to Czechoslovakia’s entry, Long Live the Republic! Although she never enjoyed such a good role again in the cinema, Ikeuchi went on to become one of the most successful actresses in Japanese television drama. A heavy smoker, she died of lung cancer in 2010 at the age of 76.
Watched without subtitles.
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| Fudo Myo-o |
