Tokai no kaii 7-ji 03-bu / 都会の怪異 七時三分 (‘Mystery of the City: 7:03’, 1935)

Obscure Japanese Film # 271

Eiji Nakano

A newspaper reporter, Tarama (Zenpei Saga), gets a call from an old friend, Miyamoto (Eiji Nakano), who’s broke but about to become a father with Noriko (Sachiko Chiba) although they’re not yet married. Miyamoto works for a dubious company specialising in insider trading but his boss won’t lend him a penny and he’s hoping that Tarama can help him financially. They arrange to meet that night for a drink in Ginza; later, on his way to meet Tarama, Miyamoto is approached by an old man (Yoyo Kojima) in the street who wants to sell him the evening paper – only it’s not that evening’s paper, it’s the one for the following day. Miyamoto assumes he’s a crackpot and buys a paper to get rid of him.

Yoyo Kojima

At a bus stop, Miyamoto notices a young homeless woman sleeping in the street next to a newspaper advert with the headline ‘Brutally murdered body of a young girl found in a sewer. Murder thought to have been committed by prostitute due to financial hardship.’ After boarding a bus, he begins perusing his paper and is astonished to see that it does indeed bear the following day’s date. Among the headlines are ‘Shock news! Murder suspect is popular singer, Hanako Hanamura’,  ‘Robbery on the bridge at 4:30 in the morning!’, and ‘Earthquake causes fire at Chameleon Bar’ – the very bar in which Miyamoto has arranged to meet his friend and where the proprietress (Chikako Hosokawa) favours oil lamps over electric ones. However, the item which most piques his interest is the following day’s racing results, but at this point he still assumes it’s all some kind of elaborate joke. 

Sachiko Chiba

Tarama fails to show, so Miyamoto heads home. When an earthquake hits and the fire brigade rush past him on their way to the Chameleon Bar, he realises that the contents of his mysterious newspaper should be taken seriously after all. Determined to raise some money to bet on the horse races, he decides to ask Noriko for some things to pawn and leaps into a taxi, where he’s disconcerted to learn that the driver keeps his wife’s ashes in an urn on the back seat. After visiting Noriko, he wakes up a pawnbroker (Osamu Takizawa) who has already closed for the night, but he’s disappointed with the amount of money he receives. Remembering the newspaper story about the robbery on the bridge, he decides to head there and rob the robber. He ends up killing the man he suspects to be the robber and throwing his body in the river. The man’s wallet contains only a little money (implying that he killed an innocent man), but now he at least has the funds he needs to make a different kind of killing. After winning big at the racetrack, he starts to become nervous about the police connecting him with the dead man and decides to leave Tokyo. He gives Noriko some money and says he’s going to Osaka and will send for her later, but heads for Yokohama instead. In another taxi, he takes out the newspaper again and notices something he’d overlooked the first time – his own obituary, which states that he died at 7:03 that evening. It’s now 6:35...

Eitaro Ozawa in one of his earliest screen roles as a cop

Japanese horror films from the 1930s are as rare as hen’s teeth, so it was a real treat to see this obscurity, especially as it turned out to be pretty good. Running a mere 55 minutes, I’m uncertain whether or not it’s complete – the fact that the newspaper story about a popular singer becoming a murder suspect is not followed up made me suspect there are scenes missing. 

Nakano and Chiba

The film begins with a title stating that it’s based on the final work of Itsuma Maki. Born at the turn of the century, Maki had died of a heart attack* aged just 35 shortly before the film was made (whether or not he died at 7:03 I don’t know). Itsuma Maki was actually one of several pen names of Kaitaro Hasegawa. Under the name Fubo Hayashi, he had created the famous one-eyed, one-armed swordsman Tange Sazen, while Maki was his chosen name for crime and horror stories, of which this last had been finished by Maki’s editor (who knew the intended ending) after the author’s death. However, Maki had spent time in London in the late 1920s, where he’d purchased numerous books of crime and horror stories, and ‘7:03’ is, in fact, closely based on the short story ‘The Old Man’ by the British author Holloway Horn.** Incidentally, Maki’s version of the story is apparently more humorous than the film, which plays it nightmarishly straight throughout. 

Kojima and Nakano

One nice touch is that actor and opera singer Yoyo Kojima plays not merely the old man, but also pops up in four other roles: a driver, the man Miyamoto kills, the disconcerting man who wants to use the phone box, and a racetrack spectator. When Miyamoto walks the deserted streets just before meeting the old man who sells him the paper, there’s also an effective use of sound and shadows to suggest a hidden danger which brings to mind Val Lewton’s later approach to similar material. It’s atmospherically shot by cinematographer Akira Mimura, who would go on to shoot Sanshiro Sugata (1943) for Kurosawa. 

Nakano

This is the only film I’ve seen by director Sotoji Kimura (1903-88), though he made quite a few during his 30-year-plus career. This seems not to have been at all typical of his work, much of which was on musicals and comedies – something I found pretty surprising after watching this! Perhaps the film was a box office flop, but to me it’s a pity he didn’t make more like it.

Leading man Eiji Nakano was a star of contemporary dramas known for his fashion sense, bad boy image and violent temper – his Japanese Wikipedia page states that film critics were afraid to give him a bad review in case he beat them up. In this case, I need not fear his ghost as I thought he gave a fine performance. He appeared in a dozen films for Mizoguchi but more or less retired from the cinema in 1939 to pursue other interests. 

The film was made for PCL Film Productions, which was active from 1933-37 and later became part of Toho. 

*English Wikipedia states that he died of acute bronchial asthma, but Japanese Wikipedia gives the cause as a heart attack. 

**The easiest way to access the original Holloway Horn story is probably via Gav Cross’ likeably eccentric reading on YouTube.

Japanese sources:

https://borderland.txt-nifty.com/weblog_on_the_borderland/2009/03/post-7ed1.html

https://nihoneiga1920-1960.hatenablog.com/entry/2022/11/23/125253

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Yotsuya kaidan - Oiwa no borei / 四谷怪談 お岩の亡霊 (‘Yotsuya kaidan: The Ghost of Oiwa,’1969)

Obscure Japanese Film #233

 

Kei Sato

 

This Daiei production was the seventh post-war film version of Japan’s most famous ghost story and the last made for the cinema until 1981. Coming just four years after Shiro Toyoda’s adaptation (known in English as Illusion of Blood), this one may have felt somewhat unnecessary, but it does add a couple of new twists and turns out to be surprisingly good. For those unfamiliar with the story, it concerns Iemon, a masterless samurai married to Oiwa and struggling to get by. When an opportunity to better his situation presents itself, he’s only too willing to take it even if it means poisoning his wife so that he can marry another woman (I’ll leave you to guess the rest). 

 

Tatsuya Nakadai had starred in the previous film, whereas here it’s his former classmate from the Haiyuza theatre school, Kei Sato, who may be the most cold-blooded Iemon of them all. This is partly down to the perfectly-cast Sato’s almost reptilian performance, but also the script, as I think this is the only version in which he knows in advance that the poison will disfigure his wife. Iemon is also clearly not haunted by guilt in this one, so the ghosts cannot be interpreted as a manifestation of his conscience. 

 

Sonosuke Sawamura and Sato

Fortunately, Sato is not the sort to overact, although the same cannot be said of certain members of the supporting cast, especially Sonosuke Sawamura, who plays the masseur, Takuetsu. The other major role, of course, is that of Oiwa herself, but though it may be a famous part, in many ways it’s not a very appealing one for an actress – in most versions, Oiwa is initially little more than a doormat for Iemon to wipe his feet upon, then a messy make-up job makes her look hideous and finally she just has to jump out of dark corners as a ghost and cackle maniacally. Despite this, Kinuyo Tanaka and Mariko Okada – both big stars – had played her in the past, but in this case it’s Kazuko Inano, a theatre actress who had made other films but was not a film star. She does a decent enough job here, but it’s Sato’s performance you’ll be more likely to remember. 

 

Kazuko Inano

 

The director of this version was Kazuo Mori, a veteran who had made his first film in 1936 and directed the previously-reviewed Suzakumon (1957) and The Saga of Tanegashima (1968). He was an above-average if not exceptional talent, and his choices here are mostly good ones (although the green fireball spirits that feature in one scene are more cute than scary). The film seems rather murkily photographed, which made me wonder whether the struggling Daiei studios were trying to save on electricity at the time by restricting the lighting available (I had similar thoughts about the studio’s 1968 picture The Pit of Death). On the other hand, this could equally have been an artistic choice, and it is one that would make sense as the story takes place in the days before electric light, In any case, it certainly suits the film, which also benefits from excellent sets and costumes as well as camerawork. 

 

Jun Hamamura pops up as one of Iemon's victims

Perhaps the real star of the show here, though, is the wonderfully atmospheric score by Ichiro Saito, which features a combination of furiously-strummed shamisen, a string section, single bass notes and ominous rumbling sounds, all of which is subtly effective and adds considerably to the feeling of unease. 

 

 

AKA The Oiwa Phantom / The Curse of the Ghost / The Curse of the Night, etc

DVD at Amazon Japan 

English subtitles at Open Subtitles 

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The Pit of Death / 怪談おとし穴 / Kaidan otoshiana (aka ‘The Ghostly Trap’, 1968)

Obscure Japanese Film #147

Mikio Narita

Kuramoto (Mikio Narita) is an ambitious salaryman working at a company based in a tower block said to be haunted by the ghost of a typist who went missing. He’s in a relationship with her replacement, Etsuko (Mayumi Nagisa), who wants to marry him, but he's also being pursued by the boss' daughter, Midori (Mako Sanjo), and he wants to ditch Etsuko and marry Midori so he can get an easy promotion. Etsuko won’t let him go so easily, however, so he begins scheming about ways to get rid of her…

Narita and Mayumi Nagisa

 

As played by Mikio Narita with a Spock-like haircut, Kuramoto seems an unlikely babe magnet. Japanese Wikipedia observes that this was his only leading role in a film, and it’s not hard to see why – most of the time here, he’s so wooden that he resembles a stick with a human face (though, having said that, it’s only fair to point out that he had a reputation for being excellent at playing nihilistic villains, mainly in yakuza films). Narita is also not helped by having to play opposite an actor as expressive as Mayumi Nagisa. 

 

The film was apparently released on a double bill with Satsuo Yamamoto’s Peony Lantern, so it’s a B-movie, but even so it looks as if the penny-pinching at the struggling Daiei studios was really starting to bite. The exterior scenes are mostly shot in too-bright sunlight, and many of the interior ones are lit by equally overpowering sunshine pouring in through a nearby window or by lamps which are part of the set. It’s almost as if director Koji Shima was told that they couldn’t afford those big, expensive movie lights anymore, so he’d have to make do without. 

Narita looks out at one of Koji Shima's trademark storms

 

Recycling elements from The Ghost of Yotsuya, the script is an original work by Kazuo Funahashi – who had an impressive track record – but the thin story feels stretched out even at 78 minutes. An example of this is when a confrontation scene between Kuramoto and Etsuko on the rooftop is virtually repeated again immediately after in the stationery cupboard. However, despite its obvious flaws, The Pit of Death manages some atmospheric and creepy scenes together with a couple of clever surprises. The highlight is probably the murder scene which takes place in the basement of the office building and is accompanied by a cacophonous score evoking the sound of clanking pipes. Speaking for myself, I had low expectations for this film, but was pleasantly surprised on the whole. The film's unusual office block setting, excellent jazz soundtrack (by Shima's regular collaborator Seitaro Omori) and black-and-white VistaVision cinematography together give it a unique feel for a film of this vintage. 

Director Koji Shima ended his career at Daiei with this film, then went to Hong Kong the following year and made a longer version of the story for the Shaw Brothers (entitled Luo shi hen, aka Dear Murderer). 

 

English subtitles courtesy of Coralsundy can be found here.

DVD at Amazon Japan.

The Spider Man / 蜘蛛男 / Kumo-otoko (1958)

Obscure Japanese Film #89

Susumu Fujita

 

Based on a 1929 novel of the same title (yet to be translated into English) by Edogawa Ranpo, this low-budget thriller stars Susumu Fujita in the role of Ranpo’s regular detective character, Kogoro Akechi. Fujita – best-known for playing the title role in Akira Kurosawa’s debut feature Sanshiro Sugata (1943) – first appears around 30 minutes in when Akechi is called in to investigate a gruesome murder. A young woman has been abducted and killed while attending a job interview, after which her dismembered body was found concealed inside a number of body sculptures. Akechi is soon on the trail of mad master criminal Dr. Kuroyanagi (Joji Oka), who gets his kicks out of murdering young women resembling the wife who betrayed him. He next sets his sights on movie star Yoko (Chikako Miyagi). However, using a series of increasingly bizarre disguises culminating in an outsize Cyrano de Bergerac nose, he continually eludes capture. His fiendish schemes reach their strange climax when he abducts a whole busload of young beauties and forces them to be models in a tableau of hell he presents before a live audience. 

Joji Oka

 

The Spider Man was originally released in two parts – the first entitled Satsujinki Kumo-otoko (literally ‘Murderer Spider Man’) running 97 minutes, the second Kumo-otoko no gyakushu (‘Spider-Man’s Counterattack’), which I haven’t been able to find a running time for. The version I saw displayed the title of part 1 in the opening credits, but was actually a re-edit of both parts combined. It appears that each part was edited down to around 55 minutes and simply spliced together, making a total running time of 109 minutes. The print was a fairly low-res VHS transfer which is watchable but far from ideal. 

Chikako Miyagi

 

The picture was directed by one Hiroyuki Yamamoto (1908-?), a name that could hardly be any more obscure. Oddly, it was his first film since 1943 and was also to be his last, perhaps because the production company (Shin Eiga) folded shortly after this was released. He first directed in 1937, and it appears that the majority of his 11 previous films were military propaganda works. 

 

The Spider Man is quite fast-paced, entertaining hokum which was evidently shot quickly and cheaply. For this reason, it never fully realises its potential and fails to make the most of its hell-tableau climax, which could have been far more memorable with a little extra care. Overall, the film is a fairly tame affair despite the potential nastiness of the story, and it’s perhaps just as well that it remains the only version of this particular Ranpo novel given how explicit a treatment it might have been given in more recent years. 

Joji Oka

 

Susumu Fujita had played Akechi before in a 1948 film, Issunboshi (now lost), but mostly phones it in here. Much better value is Joji Oka, who attacks his role with a gusto appropriately reminiscent of Lionel Atwill. Intriguingly, Oka had played Ranpo’s detective himself in a 1950 film entitled Tsurara no bijo, which received a limited Japanese DVD release in 2016 courtesy of collectors’ magazine publisher DeAgostini.

Watched without subtitles.