Niwatori wa futatabi naku / 鶏はふたゝび鳴く (‘The Cock Crows Twice’, 1954)

Obscure Japanese Film # 259

Eijiro Tono and Yoko Minakaze

After a man trying to find oil in order to revive the fortunes of his dying seaside town commits suicide, the locals blame Fumiko (Yoko Minakaze), a young woman who had rejected his sudden offer of marriage. Fumiko lives with her father, Tokinosuke (Eijiro Tono, great), who has been going to pieces since his wife ran off with another man. Ostracised by the townsfolk, Fumiko heads towards the sea with the intention of ending it all, but is spotted by an itinerant oil worker (Shuji Sano) who prevents her from going through with it. He and four other men have been left stranded since the suicide of their boss and Fumiko is moved by their kindness and relates to their outside status.

Shuji Sano

Sachiko Hidari, Minakaze and Yoko Kozono

It emerges that Fumiko has two female friends, Yoko (Yoko Kozono/Kosono) and Taniko (Sachiko Hidari), with whom she has made a suicide pact, each carrying a deadly pill in a locket around their necks. Yoko’s reason for being miserable is that she’s the daughter of a concubine (Sadako Sawamura), while Taniko’s is that she’s physically disabled and has to walk with a crutch. The women have agreed that they will all commit suicide together. Meanwhile, the stranded workers are debating whether to flee the town and escape the debts they’ve incurred or stick it out, hoping that a long-awaited telegram will arrive telling them to come to a new oil field. Then Kurama (Yunosuke Ito), an embezzler on the run from the police, arrives and claims to be an oil surveyor who intends to restart the drilling…

Yunosuke Ito

This Shintoho production has an unusual story which is a creation of Rinzo Shiina (1911-73), who wrote the original screenplay and had written the novel on which director Heinosuke Gosho’s Where Chimneys are Seen (1953) had been based. However, there are certain similarities to Vittorio De Sica’s Miracle in Milan (1951), which I strongly suspect influenced this film. With all the talk of suicide, it first appears to be a rather bleak drama, but gradually transforms into a comedy. It’s not like any other Gosho film I’ve seen, and I found it quite engaging and charming in the way it takes delight in continually subverting our expectations. For example, when Fumiko’s wealthy aunt who has been turning down her father’s requests for money appears, we expect that she’ll be a terrible harridan – especially as she’s played by Eiko Miyoshi – but this proves not to be quite the case.

Eiko Miyoshi

It’s surprising to see Yoko Minakaze (1930-2007) in the lead role. She doesn’t look like a film star and, indeed, wasn’t one, but for some mysterious reason I felt her lack of star quality somehow worked in this film’s favour. Coming from the theatre, she enjoyed a long career on stage as well as screens both big and small, but this may well be her most major role in movies.

It’s worth noting that screenwriter Rinzo Shiina had converted to Christianity in 1950 and it’s easy to see how his beliefs influenced this work. It’s also perhaps the reason composer Toshiro Mayuzumi used choral music for his score, although this is one element I didn’t particularly care for. In most respects, though, this film is a gem and it’s also beautifully shot by Joji Ohara, who won a Mainichi Film Concours Award for Best Cinematography for his pains, making this a film crying out for a good quality release.

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Mogura Yokocho / もぐら横丁 (‘Mole Alley’, 1953)

Obscure Japanese Film #244

Shuji Sano

This Shintoho production was based on episodes from a number of autobiographical novels by Kazuo Ozaki (1899-1983), one of which gives this film its title. Ozaki is renamed Kazuo Ogata here and played by Shuji Sano. In the originals, Ozaki was writing about his life as a struggling author in the 1930s before winning the coveted Akutagawa Prize in 1937. Perhaps for budgetary reasons, director Hiroshi Shimizu chose not to recreate the period and, in one scene, Ogata’s wife (played by Yukiko Shimazaki) goes to the cinema to see the 1952 French-Italian co-production The Seven Deadly Sins. However, apart from a few minor details such as this, the film could almost be set in the 1930s as there is no mention whatsoever of the war or of issues specific to the post-war period. Instead, it focuses entirely on the problems of the young couple as they try to find ways of paying the bills and avoiding homelessness while he maintains a writing career and she becomes a mother. 

Yukiko Shimazaki

Ozaki was a respected literary author in Japan, but almost none of his work has been published in English. His mentor was the better-known Naoya Shiga, who has several works published in English, including the novel A Dark Night’s Passing and the collection The Paper Door and Other Stories. Humour and anger at injustice are said to be among the prime characteristics of Ozaki’s work, which Mishima reportedly described as being like ‘Naoya Shiga in a kimono.’ Incidentally, there have been only three other films based on his writing: Koji Shima’s Nonki megane (1940). Tadao Ikeda’s Tenmei Taro (1951) and Seiji Hisamatsu’s Aisaiki (1959), none of which are easily accessible.

Shimizu co-wrote the screenplay with Kozaburo Yoshimura, already a well-established director himself by then, and this film seems to have been their sole collaboration. Shimizu was at this point dividing his time between making his own independent pictures and working for Shintoho. Unsurprisingly for a Shimizu picture, it’s an understated piece which avoids melodrama for the most part and has very little plot but plenty of gentle humour. On the other hand, it’s not one of his most characteristic or memorable films – unlike Tomorrow will be Fine Weather in Japan, for example, which feels like it could only have been made by Shimizu. 

If leading lady Yukiko Shimazaki, who plays Ogata’s rather child-like wife, is unfamiliar, that’s perhaps a symptom of Shimizu’s lack of interest in working with big names – she was not a major star, although she had been active in films from 1950 and went on to appear in Seven Samurai. She was also a chanson singer and, in 1963, she left the film business and opened her own chanson bar in Ginza named Epoch, which she ran for many years. A more familiar face among the supporting cast is Jukichi Uno, who plays a kindly landlord and seems to have appeared in almost every shomin-geki made during this period. 

Jukichi Uno

A note on the title:

As far as I’m aware, ‘Mole Alley’ is not an official English title. While ‘alley’ seems a fair translation of yokocho (which can also be translated as ‘side street’, ‘lane’, etc), mogura can also mean ‘creepers’ or ‘trailing plants’ as well as ‘mole’. Mogura Yokocho is the name of the street that Ogata and his wife move to, but whether that street is named after moles or creepers is unclear.

Bonus trivia:

Three well-known Japanese writers are glimpsed briefly in the Akutagawa Prize ceremony scene: Fumio Niwa, Kazuo Dan, and Shiro Ozaki (no relation to Kazuo Ozaki). 

Japanese DVD to be released 13 May 2026

Thanks to A.K.

The Maid’s Kid / 女中ッ子 / Jochukko (1955)

Obscure Japanese Film #239

Sachiko Hidari

This Nikkatsu production stars Sachiko Hidari – best-known for The Insect Woman (1963) and A Fugitive from the Past (1965) – as Hatsu, a young woman from snowy Akita Prefecture who goes to Tokyo to work as a maid in the house of middle-class couple Kyohei (Shuji Sano) and his wife Umeko (Yukiko Todoroki). 

Shuji Sano

Yukiko Todoroki

At first, Hatsu seems like the stereotypically naive country bumpkin, but she’s also a hard-working, cheerful bundle of energy who turns out, in many ways, to be the perfect maid. The family also includes two young boys who have been left to their own devices by their parents and become totally out of control. When Hatsu develops a strong bond with the younger child, Katsumi (Teruo Iba), he begins to be mocked by his classmates, who call him the ‘son of a maid’...

Teruo Iba

Based on a just-published novel by female author Yuki Shigeko (1900-69), The Maid’s Kid was directed by the underrated Tomotaka Tasaka, who also co-wrote the screenplay together with Katsuya Susaki. Tasaka had a tendency to make long films, and this one is no exception at 142 minutes, but he also had a rare gift for never making them feel overlong. In fact, his readiness to linger on a shot feels quite modern today in the wake of the Slow Cinema movement. He also makes excellent use of real locations and elicits fine performances from all involved – most notably Hidari, of course; it’s difficult to imagine any other actor pulling this role off as well as she does here. It’s the sort of drama that stands or falls on its main performance, and Hatsu could easily have ended up seeming too unconvincingly saintly if played by a less skilled or less suitable star. Other familiar faces among the supporting cast include Chieko Higashiyama, Tanie Kitabayashi and, in one of his earliest film appearances, a pre-cheeky Joe Shishido.

Perhaps the main point of the story is that a person’s social status bears no correlation to their worth as a person; Kyohei and Umeko say they don’t believe in titles like ‘master’ and ‘mistress’, but they act with oblivious selfishness and disregard for Hatsu, at times treating her more like a slave than a servant so that she barely gets a moment’s rest. At one point, she’s even rebuked for not understanding that some people are more important than others. However, another strength of the film is that, although the couple’s hypocrisy is quite evident to the viewer, they are not reduced to one-dimensional villains and are portrayed as basically decent, if misguided, people.

Tasaka’s avoidance of melodrama and intelligent handling of the material is complemented by the work of his regular cinematographer Saburo Isayama as well as by Akira ‘Godzilla’ Ifukube’s fine score. The film was ranked 7^th best of its year by Kinema Junpo magazine, but is less well-known than it deserves today. It was remade in 1976 as Dongurikko by director Katsumi Nishikawa in a version starring the singer Masako Mori.

Thanks to A.K.

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Kaei / 花影 / (‘The Shade of Blossoms’, 1961)

Obscure Japanese Film #194

Junko Ikeuchi

 

Yoko (Junko Ikeuchi) is an ageing Ginza bar hostess who has never been sufficiently calculating to hook a wealthy patron and get herself set up with her own bar or restaurant. Seeing little future for herself, she plans to commit suicide with pills she’s been saving up. As she prepares to do so, her story is told in flashback and we learn that she was adopted as a child and, as an adult, has had a series of disappointing relationships with a variety of men. These include university lecturer Matsuzaki (Ryo Ikebe), middle-aged lawyer Hata (Tadao Takashima), young TV producer Shimizu (Ichiro Arishima), and old-flame-made-good Nogata (Tatsuya Mitsuhashi). However, the only one she’s ever really loved is older art critic Takashima (Shuji Sano), as he’s the only one who’s never made a pass at her, but perhaps she’s idealised him too much…

 

Ikeuchi and Shuji Sano

 

Based on a prize-winning novel of the same name by Shohei Ooka – best known for Fires on the Plain – the story of this Tokyo Eiga production (distributed by Toho) was inspired by the life of Mutsuko Sakamoto (1915-58), a Ginza bar hostess with whom Ooka had had an eight-year-long affair before she committed suicide. The adaptation by Ryuzu Kikushima (one of Kurosawa’s regular collaborators) is extremely faithful to the book, which was translated into English as The Shade of Blossoms by Dennis Washburn and published in 1998 by the University of Michigan Press (the title refers to the shade under blossoming cherry or plum trees). Both film and novel have an almost shockingly sad ending without a trace of sentimentality, and director Yuzo Kawashima has done a fine job of bringing the story to life without imposing his own ego upon it. When he (or perhaps Kikushima) does add something – like Hata’s adopted daughter killing a worm in the garden after her father has thoughtlessly pointed out to Yoko that she’s not his by blood – it’s entirely appropriate and helps to illustrate the emotions of the characters. 

 

 

Yoko, a hostess who is weary of men, knows every seduction trick in the book only too well and seems in danger of sliding into alcoholism, is 38 years old in the novel, and would have been a perfect fit for Hideko Takamine, then 37. However, Tokyo Eiga went with the 28-year-old Junko Ikeuchi, whom they had just signed after her previous studio Shintoho had gone bankrupt. Although she’s a little young for the role, Ikeuchi could perhaps pass for a very well-preserved 38, but in any case she gives an excellent performance and manages to put Yoko’s complex emotions across very well. The remainder of the cast are left fighting for screen time as there are an unusually large number of important characters – indeed, it’s unusual to see Ryo Ikebe and Chikage Awashima in such small roles (Awashima plays the former mistress of Nogata’s deceased father). Sei Ikeno’s harpsichord-dominated score also adds a touch of class to the proceedings and never tries to manipulate our emotions in an obvious way. 

 

Tatsuya Mihashi, Ikeuchi and Chikage Awashima 

 

Shohei Ooka is on record as saying that Yukio Mishima was effusive in his praise of the book and that, after Mishima’s suicide, he felt convinced that it was this theme of Yoko wanting to end her own life while she was still beautiful that had appealed to him so much. 

 

Ryo Ikebe and Ikeuchi

Thanks to A.K.

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles) 

Shunsetsu / 春雪 / (‘Spring Snow’, 1950)

Obscure Japanese Film #164

Yasuko Fujita

 

Takako (Yasuko Fujita) is a young woman who works on the ticket desk at her local train station in Denenchofu on the outskirts of Tokyo. The eldest child of a father (Takashi Shimura) who has been made redundant - though he doesn’t tell his family for a month - she hopes to wed train driver Toshio (Shuji Sano), but they cannot yet afford to marry. Not only are the family are struggling to get by, but Takako’s mother (Yuriko Hanabusa) is unwell and her younger brother (Teiji Takahashi) has started hanging out with a bad crowd. But when Takako’s younger sister Tomoko (Akiko Sawamura) finds work as a maid to a wealthy orchestra conductor (Ichiro Ryuzaki) who takes a shine to Takako, it looks like the family’s problems could be solved if she would only forget Toshio and marry him instead…

Takashi Shimura

 

Shuji Sano

 

Teiji Takahashi

Akiko Sawamura

This Shochiku production is unrelated to the later Yukio Mishima novel which shares its English title and was written as an original screenplay by Kaneto Shindo, one of around 40 he wrote for the director of this film, Kozaburo Yoshimura. I don’t remember the war itself being mentioned, but the poverty of the post-war years is emphasized throughout, and the family even try to grow vegetables in their garden to save a few yen. They tend to put up a  cheerful front when together, but often fall into depression on their own. We see Takiko riding a train and staring at the tracks as it speeds along as if seeing her life laid out before her in a straight line leading to nowhere, while her father eats his packed lunch in the ruins of the steelworks where he used to be employed and which was, presumably, demolished due to the war ending. Typically for Japanese drama, the story revolves around a classic giri (obligation) versus ninjo (inclination) conflict – in this case, if Takako marries the rich guy, her family will be saved. As it was made during the American occupation, however, the film also promotes western culture and values, and on one occasion we see Takako attending a ballet, while on another she and Toshio are seen sitting outside a Christian church where a wedding is taking place and admiring the sound of the choir singing a hymn within. 

 

Yasuko Fujita

The star of this film, Yasuko Fujita, was a theatre actress who had been hand-picked by Yoshimura to play the lead role despite never having appeared in a film before. It’s an impressive debut, and she not only looks the part, but acts it in such a way that she seems like a natural for the movies, betraying not even a hint of theatricality in her performance. Unfortunately for the Japanese cinema, she married a well-known music promoter in 1953 and retired from acting having made a dozen films, the most widely-seen of which is probably Yoshimura’s Clothes of Deception (1951), in which she co-starred opposite Machiko Kyo. Her Japanese Wikipedia page contains the enigmatic comment that ‘She reportedly made the most of her good looks when interacting with foreign celebrities.’ Yasuko Fujita passed away in 2015 aged 88.

Among the rest of the cast, the most notable is Takashi Shimura, and it’s nice to see that he’s not totally wasted here as he was so often when not working with Kurosawa. In Spring Snow, he gets to play a character with more than one dimension who goes through his own struggle against both himself and his circumstances. 

 

Although I wouldn’t go as far as to claim it as any kind of forgotten masterpiece, Spring Snow has quite a lot going for it, including the cinematography of Toshio Ubukata (who also worked for Kurosawa) and the mostly well-developed characters, who feel worth spending time with.

Thanks to A.K.

The Horse Boy / 暴れん坊街道 / Abarendo kaido (1957)

Obscure Japanese Film #122

Shuji Sano

 

Isuzu Yamada

Yosaku (Shuji Sano) is a low-ranking samurai employed at Yurugi Castle in Tanba Province. He has a secret affair with Shigeno (Isuzu Yamada), the daughter of senior retainer Inaba Kotayu (Kenji Usuda). When she becomes pregnant, he is banished from the castle, while she gives birth to a baby boy, but is not allowed to keep him and has to watch helplessly as he is taken away. Shigeno is then assigned to act as wet nurse and carer for another infant – a new-born princess. 

Motoharu Ueki

 

Ten years pass, and Yosaku has become a wandering ronin. While travelling, he hires a horse from Sankichi (Motoharu Ueki), a precocious urchin who gambles and smokes a pipe. Looking for somewhere to rest up, Yosaku is taken to an inn next to the little shack in which Sankichi lives. Yosaku becomes friendly with the boy as well as with Koman (Shinobu Chihara), a young woman who works at the inn. 

Shinobu Chihara with Ueki an Sano

 

When a procession from Yurugi Castle passes through, it gets delayed when the young princess has a tantrum and jumps out of her palanquin. Shigeno fails to persuade her to get back in so they can continue her journey, but the princess discovers Sankichi gambling by the side of the road and is drawn to him, with the result that Sankichi is asked to accompany the retinue to the castle. Shigeno is shocked to discover that Sankichi is in possession of the omamori (amulet) she had tied around her son’s neck when forced to let him be taken from her all those years before… 

 

The screenplay was adapted by Yoshikata Yoda (best known for his many screenplays for Kenji Mizoguchi) from a jurori* entitled The Night Song of Yosaku from Tamba (Tamba Yosaku machiyo no komurobushi) by Monzaemon Chikamatsu (1653-1725), the dramatist later portrayed by Chiezo Kataoka in Chikamatsu’s Love in Osaka (1959). That film was, of course, directed by Tomu Uchida, as was The Horse Boy.

With a new emphasis placed on the character of Sankichi, this Toei production seems to have been intended mainly as a vehicle for child actor Motoharu Ueki, who was the eldest son of Chiezo Kataoka, a legendary actor and great favourite of Tomu Uchida. Kataoka had been the star of Uchida’s first post-war film, Bloody Spear at Mount Fuji (1955), and went on to appear in a further nine films for him, while Ueki had also appeared in that film as well as Uchida’s The Kuroda Incident (1956) and Rebellion from Below (1956) and would also be featured in The Eleventh Hour (1957).

Shigeno lives in a world of extremely refined manners in which etiquette dominates behaviour and rebellion is unthinkable, while the abandoned Sankichi has no manners at all and does what he likes. Uchida makes much of this contrast between the two very different worlds they inhabit. Unfortunately, my personal reaction was that Sankichi’s rude behaviour did not endear him to me at all, and for this reason I was never as moved as I felt I was probably supposed to be by this film, which I would definitely consider a minor work in Uchida’s filmography. I felt that Uchida saved his best bit of direction for a scene which occurs late in the film and takes place on a quiet road at night when a confrontation between Yosaku and the local moneylender (Eitaro Shindo) turns violent. Incidentally, Shindo is the stand-out among the supporting cast and could always be relied upon to play a man-you-love-to-hate effectively. 

Sano confronts Eitaro Shindo

 

It’s worth noting that, while Chikamatsu’s original apparently had a happy ending, Uchida’s film does not, and perhaps this is because he preferred to make it clear that the unforgiving rules of Japan’s former feudal society had ruined a lot of lives. 

Note on the title: The Japanese title translates as something like ‘Wild Child of the Road’.

*Wikipedia defines jurori as “a type of sung narrative with shamisen accompaniment, typically found in bunraku, a traditional Japanese puppet theatre”.

Watched without subtitles. 

David Baldwin has subsequently written a more detailed analysis of the film which can be found here.