Obscure Japanese Film #57
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| Teruo Matsuyama |
Perhaps the first thing to note about this independent production is that it has nothing whatever to do with the famous Arthur Koestler novel of the same name, although it does have certain themes in common – namely, incarceration and interrogation. However, the techniques employed by the interrogators in this film are considerably less subtle than the more psychological methods detailed in Koestler’s book.
In a brief pre-credits sequence, we see the bodies of an elderly couple being discovered by the police. The man has been killed with an axe, while the woman is found hanging in the doorway, but this is no whodunit – once the credits roll, the cops waste no time tracking down the murderer and soon arrest Kojima (Teruo Matsuyama), a juvenile delinquent. He cracks easily and confesses that he had sneaked into the couple’s house to steal money to pay off his debts. When the old man woke up, he panicked and killed him, then decided to murder the wife as well, hoping that the police would think she had done her husband in, then committed suicide in a fit of remorse. Unfortunately, the police don’t believe the crime could be the work of one person, so they put pressure on Kojima to name his accomplices, telling him that he’s sure to get the death penalty if he insists he acted alone. Kojima tells them what they want to hear, saying there were four others involved and the whole thing was masterminded by Uemura (Kojiro Kusanagi). The police arrest Uemura, dragging him away from his fiancee (Sachiko Hidari), and proceed to beat the living crap out of him in the hope of extracting a confession…
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| Kojiro Kusanagi |
Shinobu Hashimoto’s screenplay is based on a best-selling non-fiction book by former lawyer Masaki Hiroshi (1896-1975) which told the story of a case known as the Hakkai Incident (although Hashimoto apparently made little use of the book and conducted his own research). The original crime took place in 1951, and the events which followed were widely reported in the press and stirred up a great deal of public interest. As the film was released while the first Supreme Court appeal was pending, Hashimoto had to change the names of the accused men, but otherwise appears to have stuck to the facts as far as possible. Like Satsuo Yamamoto, director Tadashi Imai was a left-wing filmmaker who specialised in making pictures dealing with social issues – in this case how a miscarriage of justice is brought about as a direct result of police brutality. This theme seems rather old hat now, but it was one of the first Japanese films to tackle such a subject and was viewed as an important picture at the time, scoring a hit at the box office and winning a number of awards. In terms of directing, the most striking thing that Imai does here is use both slow motion and speeded-up film in the courtroom sequence to illustrate the events described by Kojima and demonstrate how they could not have happened within the time period he claims they did.
It’s debatable how much of an influence the film had on the fates of those wrongly convicted as the real case was to drag on for many more years. After a series of U-turns, a third Supreme Court appeal finally decided that ‘Kojima’ had acted alone, and acquitted the others, most of whom had already spent many years in prison by then. ‘Kojima’ himself was released on parole in 1971 after having served 20 years, but was arrested 5 years later on suspicion of a new murder. He died of natural causes while the trial was in progress.
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| Sachiko Hidari |
Darkness at Noon has no real ‘stars’ as such – the producers probably felt that the publicity already generated by the case would be enough to put bums on seats, and proved to be right, while Imai deliberately cast an unknown, Teruo Matsuyama, in the central role of Kojima. Matsuyama's film career never really took off, but he went on to enjoy a long career on stage and television, popping up in the occasional movie along the way. The best-known cast member is probably Sachiko ‘Insect Woman’ Hidari; it has been said that this was the role which led to her being taken seriously as a dramatic actor. However, in this case she’s really just part of an ensemble which includes such familiar faces as Tanie Kitabayashi, Taiji Tonoyama and So Yamamura.
On the whole, it’s a fairly interesting, well-made film, but one that’s not quite distinguished enough in its treatment to hold up as a forgotten classic. The choral singing on the soundtrack at the end in particular has not dated well and the relevance of the picture has inevitably faded.
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