Aku no kaidan / 悪の階段 (‘Stairway to Evil’, 1965)

Obscure Japanese Film #260

Tsutomu Yamazaki

Ko Nishimura

Daisuke Kato

Akira Kubo

Iwao (Tsutomu Yamazaki, the kidnapper from Kurosawa’s High and Low) heads a gang of robbers comprised of Shimoyama (Ko Nishimura), the muscle; Konishi (Daisuke Kato), the getaway driver; Kumagai (Akira Kubo), the safecracker, and himself as mastermind. After making a huge score of over 40 million yen, they agree to split the loot equally four ways and leave it untouched for six months until the heat has cooled. However, it turns out that there’s little honour among thieves, and the men soon begin to fall out, partly due to greed, but also because of lust for Iwao’s girlfriend and accomplice, Rumiko (Reiko Dan)...

Reiko Dan

This Toho production was based on a 1964 novel entitled Ore no yumi wa… (‘My Dream Is…’) by Norio Nanjo (1908-2004), who had also supplied the source material for Masaki Kobayashi’s The Inheritance (1962) and Umetsugu Inoue’s The Third Shadow Warrior (1963). Like those stories, this one takes a rather jaundiced view of human nature, something which Nanjo seems to have shared with this film’s writer and director, Hideo Suzuki, who had made the similarly misanthropic Structure of Hate in 1961.

Reiko Dan

This is noir at its noirest, with dark shadows dominating the visual design throughout. Unusually for a Japanese film of its time, it’s shot in academy ratio, so whenever we get a close-up (which is often), the actor’s faces completely fill the screen. The film not only looks striking, but also sounds great due to Masaru Sato’s cool jazz score. The only element which I found a little disappointing was the plot – once you know where it’s going (which is quite early on), everything unfolds all too predictably.

Thankfully, the excellent cast help to keep the interest with the usually vivacious Reiko Dan successfully cast against type as a cold and gloomy moll, and – looking like the sinister love-child of Peter Lorre and Christopher Lee – the diminutive Ko Nishimura managing to be totally convincing as a man who could kill you with his bare hands (and probably would given half a chance).

Thanks to A.K.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles)

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The Naked Executive / 裸の重役 / Hadaka no juyaku (1964)

Obscure Japanese Film #151

Hisaya Morishige

Hidaka (Hisaya Morishige) is a widowed office manager with a grown-up daughter, Keiko (Yuriko Hoshi). Now 50 years old, he has a reputation for strictness and is, in fact, a bit of a bastard who has no sympathy for those less fortunate such as Hamanaka (Seiji Miyaguchi), an employee nearing retirement age who begs to be kept on as he has a sick wife to support. 

Yuriko Hoshi

 

Seiji Miyaguchi

When Hidaka gets promoted to senior manager and is to be sent on a lengthy business trip abroad, he reluctantly agrees to help Hamanaka before he departs, but seems to have an ulterior motive. Hidaka has learned to his horror that Keiko has been seeing Okuda (Kiyoshi Kamoda), whom he regards as his most useless employee, and he wants Hamanaka’s help in ending their relationship. 

Kiyoshi Kamoda (not Kodama)

 

However, upon his return, Hidaka is disconcerted to find that Keiko has not only stubbornly refused to cut ties with Okuda, but encouraged him to marry her in spite of her father’s opposition. Hidaka realises he has no choice but to accept the situation, but as a result he finds himself humbled in the eyes of the big boss (Eijiro Tono) and loses his self-confidence. Beginning to suffer from insomnia and depression, he finds unexpected solace in the arms of streetwalker Sakiko (Reiko Dan)…

Eijiro Tono

 

This Toho production is the sort of Japanese film not shown very often in the West, probably because Westerners used to marrying whoever they want and not having to kow-tow to their bosses to the extent we see here may find it hard to relate to. An awful lot of arse-kissing goes on in Hidaka’s office, although it’s simply portrayed as perfectly normal and not satirised at all. In fact, I was surprised to see barely a hint of true criticism of the money- and career-obsessed world Hidaka inhabits. However, the very uber-Japaneseness of the film does lend it a certain cultural curiosity value. 

Hisaya Morishige

 

It’s unusual to see a character like Hidaka as the protagonist of a movie. The fact that he’s played by Hisaya Morishige led me to expect a comedy, but I think this is supposed to be a drama, toothless as it may be. Morishige is an actor little-known abroad, but who played leads for director Shiro Toyoda in Marital Relations (1955) and Shozo, A Cat and Two Women (1956). Hidaka is a character who undergoes a complete, almost Scrooge-like transformation by the end of the film. The problem is that none of it is at all convincing. We are in some weird kind of male-wish-fulfilment fantasy land here with the vivacious Reiko Dan as a highly unlikely streetwalker. It’s not Dan’s fault, though, it’s just a whitewashed portrait of someone reduced to this profession – the contrast with Miyuki Kuwano in the same year’s The Shape of Night could not be more pronounced. 

Reiko Dan

 

From an original screenplay by regular Naruse collaborator Toshiro Ide, The Naked Executive is competently but rather blandly directed by Yasuki Chiba, a veteran who was then under contract to Toho. He seems to have been well-regarded in his time, but the only other film I’ve managed to see by him so far is a rather wonderful comedy entitled Tokyo Sweetheart (1952) starring Toshiro Mifune and Setsuko Hara. 

Yuriko Hoshi

 

All About Marriage / 結婚のすべて / Kekkon no subete (1958)

Obscure Japanese Film #51

Michiyo Aratama and Izumi Yukimura

Kihachi Okamoto’s directorial debut is a light comedy which begins with a shot of a young couple kissing in a boat on a beach before the camera pulls back to reveal it’s merely a scene being shot for a movie. For the next few minutes, the film continues in faux-documentary style with some narration by an uncredited Keiju Kobayashi before settling down to focus on the main story. It’s a tale of two contrasting sisters – Yasuko (Izumi Yukimura), a very modern young woman who has fully embraced the new Westernised culture of post-war Japan, and Keiko (Michiyo Aratama), her older sister, who is always seen in Japanese dress and represents more traditional and conservative values. However, Michiyo is married to Saburo (Ken Uehara), a staid university professor who takes her somewhat for granted, as a result of which she indulges in a flirtation with Koga (Tatsuya Mihashi), the editor of a woman’s magazine. Meanwhile, Yasuko falls for a student, Hiroshi (Shinji Yamada), before discovering that he’s two-timing her with carefree young hedonist Mariko (Reiko Dan). Disillusioned, she finally takes up instead with Akira (Tatsuya Nakadai), a young man who works for her father’s company and of whom her father approves as a potential future husband.

Ken Uehara

Although handed such routine material for his first assignment as director, Okamoto invests it with considerable wit and invention along the way and certainly puts his unique stamp upon it, filling out the supporting cast with a variety of eccentric characters, several of whom verge on caricature. At times, he seems to intend a satire of a consumerist society in thrall to America and embracing everything from chewing gum to bad Elvis pastiches. In any case, his film is not only an enjoyable entertainment, but an interesting cultural artefact and I’d love to see it again with subtitles (there’s a lot of dialogue).

Toshiro Mifune

 

 

Among the colourful cast, Toshiro Mifune appears for a few seconds in an uncredited cameo as an acting teacher, while Tatsuya Nakadai’s part is larger but still brief – he first appears 52 minutes in and then is not seen again until the final couple of minutes. Pre-Human Condition, Nakadai was not yet a major star, but must have gained some popularity in the wake of his role for Masaki Kobayashi in Black River (1957) as he’s featured quite prominently in the trailer. It’s Reiko Dan who steals the show, though – given an attention-grabbing entrance dancing down the street to a rock and roll tune, she’s vivacity on legs. 

 

Tatsuya Nakadai and Izumi Yukimura

 

 

 

Reiko Dan

 

Watched without subtitles. 

 

You may also enjoy reading Robin Gatto’s review.  

DVD at Amazon Japan