Dragnet Girl (Yasujiro Ozu, 1933)

Kinuyo Tanaka in Dragnet Girl

Tokiko: Kinuyo Tanaka
Joji: Joji Oka
Kazuko: Sumiko Mizukubo
Hiroshi: Koji Mitsui
Misako: Yumeko Aizome
Senko: Yoshio Takayama
Misawa: Koji Kaga
Okazaki: Yasuo Nanjo

Director: Yasujiro Ozu
Screenplay: Tadao Ikeda
Based on a story by Yasujiro Ozu (as James Maki)
Cinematography: Hideo Shigehara
Art direction: Yonekazu Wakita

Yasujiro Ozu clung to silent film for a long time, but who needs sound when you and your cinematographer, Hideo Shigehara, can use the camera as eloquently as they do in Dragnet Girl? Early in the film, the camera explores an office setting, panning over rows of young women at typewriters, clocks slowly ticking away the workday, and rows of men's hats hanging in a hallway. In the last take, one of the hats drops from its hook, as if impatient for quitting time. One of the typists, Tokiko, is summoned from her machine to the office of the president, where she finds his son, Okazaki, who has been putting the moves on her by giving her jewelry, this time a ruby ring. She shrugs off his advances but accepts the ring -- she's living with a gangster, an ex-boxer named Joji, and it's his world that she prefers. This is one of Ozu's forays into the underworld made familiar to us by Hollywood, and it's permeated with echoes of Warner Bros. movies of the 1930s. American culture creeps in everywhere: Even the rules of conduct in a pool hall are written in English on the wall, and in the boxing gym that Joji frequents a sign proclaims the virtues of "The Manly Art of Self-Defense." When an eager young kid named Hiroshi shows up in the gym wanting to become a champion fighter, Joji takes an interest in him, and through him meets his sister, Kazuko, who works in a record store that prominently features the RCA Victor mascot, Nipper. Tokiko gets jealous of Joji's interest in Kazuko, but when she decides to emulate her rival by taking up knitting and other domestic pursuits, she and Joji quarrel. She storms out, but later returns to persuade Joji that it might be a good thing to go straight. Things get complicated, however, when Hiroshi, Joji's protégé, steals money from the cash register at his sister's store. Joji persuades Tokiko that they should pull off one last heist, robbing from the office where Tokiko works to get cash so Hiroshi can pay back what he stole. Ah, but crime does not pay. All of this melodramatic business is elevated not only by Ozu's sure-footed direction and attention to visual detail but also by the performances, especially that of  Kinuyo Tanaka, who once again shows why she should be honored as one of the great film actresses. She has Bette Davis's toughness combined with Lillian Gish's gift for pathos.

No Blood Relation (Mikio Naruse, 1932)

Yoshiko Okada in No Blood Relation

Tamae Kiyooka: Yoshiko Okada
Masako Atsumi: Yukiko Tsukuba
Shigeko: Toshiko Kojima
Shunsaku Atsumi: Shin'yo Nara
Kishiyo Atsumi: Fumiko Katsuragi
Masaya Kusakabe: Joji Oka
Keiji Makino: Ichiro Yuki
Gen the Pelican: Shozaburo Abe
Neighbor Boy: Tomio Aoki

Director: Mikio Naruse
Screenplay: Kogo Noda
Based on a novel by Shunyo Yanagawa
Cinematography: Eijiro Fujita, Suketaro Inokai, Masao Saito

Before it settles down to become an intense domestic drama, No Blood Relation begins with a sequence of comic action: Gen, a goofy-looking purse-snatcher, is being chased through the streets until he collides with a man who holds him until the crowd catches up. Forced to strip, Gen reveals that he doesn't have the purse on him, and the cops send him away with his pants falling down around his ankles. But the man who caught him is actually an accomplice, Keiji, who hid the purse on himself when they collided. Keiji is the brother of a big Hollywood movie star, Tamae, who is returning that day to Japan for the first time in years, and Keiji and Gen see their chance for the big time as flunkies for Tamae. Her reason for returning home is to reclaim her daughter, Shigeko, whom she abandoned shortly after her birth. Her husband, Shunsaku, remarried, and his new wife, Masako, has proved to be a devoted mother to the little girl. Unfortunately, Shunsaku's business is about to go under, owing to his bad management and some shady deals that get him sent to prison. His mother, Kishiyo, is bitter about not only his business failure but also because this means they'll have to move out of their big house into a poor neighborhood. So when Tamae comes in search of her child, Kishiyo takes her side against Masako, leading to an intense battle between the birth mother and the one who is ... well, that's the point of the title. Masako fortunately has a defender, Masaya Kusakabe, whose relationship to the family is enigmatic: He's just returned from Manchuria, and since he's played by the handsome Joji Oka -- a sharp contrast to the plain and dour Shunsaku -- we begin to suspect that there's more to his relationship with Masako than meets the eye, though that part of the plot never pans out. No Blood Relation is a very effective tearjerker, with Naruse's characteristically hyperactive camera panning and dollying and zooming in to provide emphasis at key moments, and it shows Naruse's mastery of silent filmmaking, carrying the story without an overabundance of intertitles.

Filmstruck Criterion Channel