While Yet a Wife / 妻の日の愛のかたみに / Tsuma no hi no ai no katamini (1965)

Obscure Japanese Film #141

Ayako Wakao

Chieko (Ayako Wakao) and Kitahara (Eiji Funakoshi) are country schoolteachers who get married and appear to be the perfect couple. Liked but a little envied by the locals for having such a happy relationship, the two are looking forward to having a child. Then one day Chieko begins to suffer from mysterious pains which won’t go away. A doctor diagnoses arthritis, and the young couple find their lives changed forever…

Eiji Funakoshi

 

This Daiei production was based on a memoir by Mieko Ikegami and adapted by Keisuke Kinoshita, but directed by Daiei contract director Sokichi Tomimoto, who made six films with Ayako Wakao. It has something of the feel of a Kinoshita film – albeit a minor one – due to the rural setting and score by Kinoshita’s brother and regular collaborator, Chuji Kinoshita. Unfortunately, this is one of those times when the composer does not seem to realise that silence would sometimes be preferable, and the film suffers from an overuse of maudlin harp and strings throughout. 

 

The story’s pretty thin for a 90-minute picture, hence the brevity of my synopsis, and it’s not convincing as a portrait of someone suffering from severe arthritis, probably because the studio didn’t want to risk making Wakao look unattractive. It’s nice to see the underrated Eiji Funakoshi in a serious leading role for a change, and he does as good a job as anyone could be expected to under the circumstances, as does his more celebrated co-star. Although he was often cast in comic roles, the highlight of Funakoshi’s career was undoubtedly in Kon Ichikawa’s Fires on the Plain (1959), an atypical part for him, but a good example of successful casting against type. 

All in all, this is a decent enough tearjerker, but nothing more.

 

Note on the title: The Japanese title translates as something like ‘In the Spirit of Love on My Wife’s Day’

Thanks to A.K. 

DVD at Amazon Japan (no English subtitles).

 

She Came for Love / 女が愛して憎むとき / Onna ga aishite nikumu toki (‘When a Woman Loves and Hates’, 1963)

Obscure Japanese Film #138

Ayako Wakao

Toshiko (Ayako Wakao) is the madam of a bar in Osaka who tries to keep her private life private and claims not to have a lover. However, she is in fact having a secret affair with Ozeki (Jiro Tamiya), a concert promoter who specialises in booking American artists and dreams of bringing Elvis to Japan. Ozeki is married and reluctant to leave his wife (Tazuko Niki), as she can speak English, which is very helpful to his business. Toshiko is well aware of all this but is apparently satisfied with the arrangement. 

Jiro Tamiya and Ayako Wakao

 

Although Toshiko’s bar is successful and she is a popular hostess, problems begin to arise. Her despised ex-husband (Akihiko Katayama) reappears and keeps bugging her; one of her employees, Nobuko (Kyoko Enami), is being a bit too flirtatious with the customers; Ozeki is making some risky deals and getting in over his head; and her former boss and mentor, Rie (Mitsuko Mori), is unhappy with her because Toshiko’s cheap whisky is tempting customers away from Rie’s bar…

Kyoko Enami

 

At times watching this, I was reminded of Naruse’s When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (1960), which is understandable as not only does this Daiei production cover similar territory, but it turns out that, like Naruse’s film, it also has an original screenplay by Ryuzo Kikushima (a frequent collaborator of Akira Kurosawa). The story is character-driven rather than plot-driven – something which is a major strong point of the script for me, and gives Wakao an excellent role which she plays to perfection. Toshiko undergoes a rather bitter inner journey and is not the same person at the end of the film that we met at the beginning. She Came for Love may well be a case of the script and cast being more important than the director, though the little-known Sokichi Tomimoto handles all aspects well. In any case, it’s a fine film which deserves to be better-known, and it should be a must for all fans of Ayako Wakao.

Mitsuko Mori

 

Although quite famous in her home country, Mitsuko Mori (who plays the important role of Rie so convincingly) is unlikely to be familiar to many non-Japanese viewers as she had a patchy film career, first appearing in 58 films between 1935 and 1941, most of which were undistinguished B-pictures. After a long hiatus from the big screen, she made two films in 1957, and then worked in films fairly steadily – mainly in supporting roles – from 1961 until the early 1970s. However, during most of her periods of absence from the cinema she was busy with radio, television and stage work. Her signature role was as author Fumiko Hayashi in the stage version of Hayashi’s autobiographical work, A Wanderer’s Notebook; she performed this over 2,000 times from 1961, although when Mikio Naruse filmed it the following year, it was Hideko Takamine who won the part. No surprise, then, that Mori never went on to make a film with Takamine, although Naruse subsequently employed her for a part in his final film, Scattered Clouds (1967). 

 Thanks to A.K., and to Coral Sundy for the subtitles, which can be found here. 

 DVD at Amazon Japan.

Forest of No Escape / 花実のない森 / Kajitsu no nai mori (1965)

Obscure Japanese Film #104

Ayako Wakao

Umeki (Keisuke Sonoi) is a car salesman who gives a lift to two women whose car has broken down. He’s immediately attracted by the beauty and well-dressed sophistication of one of his passengers, Miyuki (Ayako Wakao), with whom he soon becomes obsessed, even though she’s clearly out of his league. After Umeki questions a hotel clerk about her, he is approached by Hamada (Eiji Funakoshi), who invites him for a drink and confides that he is pursuing the same woman. The two men agree to remain friendly rivals and exchange information about Miyuki, who is extremely reticent about her private life. It turns out that she lives with her half-brother, Hidemichi (Takahiro Tamura), who harbours an incestuous desire for her. Umeki decides to install his current girlfriend, Setsuko (Kyoko Enami), in their household as a spy by getting her to work as a maid there. It becomes apparent that there are other men in Miyuki’s life as well, and the feelings of obsession and jealousy she inspires in the various men competing for her attentions soon leads to murder… 

 

Based on an untranslated novel by Seicho Matsumoto, this Daiei production reunited star Ayako Wakao with director Sokichi Tomimoto, with whom she had recently made Frolic of the Beasts. He does a decent but unremarkable job, while Wakao is terrific as usual, especially in a scene in which she learns about a murder and you can really see the wheels turning in her head as she processes the information. It's a masterclass in reactive acting.

Keisuke Sonoi

 

As the male lead, the little-known Keisuke Sonoi is competent but lacking in star quality, while Takahiro Tamura is a little over-the-top at times as the jealous and possessive brother. Eiji Funakoshi, on the other hand, hits the right note as a man who has completely given himself over to his obsession, while behind the horn-rimmed glasses of Miyuki’s fashion-designer friend lurks Rieko Sumi, aka Natsuko from Natsuko’s Adventure in Hokkaido (see previous review). 

Eiji Funakoshi

As Umeki's girlfriend, Kyoko Enami gives a strong performance in an underwritten role - she was soon to become a major star after Ayako Wakao hurt herself when she slipped in her bathroom and had to withdraw from the title role of Onna no toba (Lady Gambler), leaving Enami to step in and score a big hit which sparked a series of 17 films.

Kyoko Enami

 

As one would expect from a Matsumoto story, there is a good twist at the end but, unfortunately, there is also some very lazy writing – we get zero explanation of exactly how Umeki manages to get Setsuko a job as Miyuki’s maid, for instance. It also seems as if we’re supposed to take Umeki’s behaviour – which we would call stalking today – as perfectly normal, and the ease with which people provide him with sensitive personal information about Miyuki is entirely unrealistic. Having read a couple of books by Seicho Matsumoto (in translation), I wouldn’t be at all surprised if these weaknesses are present in the original, especially as screenwriter Kazuo Funahashi, who also adapted Mishima’s Frolic of the Beasts and Tsutomu Mizukami’s Temple of Wild Geese, tended to be faithful to his literary sources as far as possible. It’s perhaps also worth noting that Daiei seemed to have a policy of restricting the running times of their films to around 90 minutes, which would have made any extra exposition challenging.

 

Featuring what sounds like a musical saw, Sei Ikeno’s music is too often eccentric and distracting, although it does become highly effective at the end when events reach their climax. Overall, the film holds the interest fairly well despite its unconvincing set-up, and it makes a pretty good vehicle for the great talent of Ayako Wakao, who also changes hairstyles and clothes numerous times throughout.

 

The Japanese title can be translated as either ‘Forest without Flowers and Fruits’ or ‘Forest without Substance’; in my opinion, the latter reading makes more sense. In either case, it’s a metaphor, so any tree fans out there may be disappointed to learn of the absence of an actual forest. 

Bonus trivia: In 1975, actor Keisuke Sonoi was sentenced to ten years in prison for tax evasion.