NFAJ: KAJIRO YAMAMOTO RETROSPECTIVE

After first working as an actor on the stage (a choice that resulted in his family disowning him), Yamamoto joined Nikkatsu as an assistant director, made his directorial debut in 1924 at Toa Kinema and moved to Photo Chemical Laboratories (P. C. L.) in 1934, where he first made a name filming the comedies of Kenichi Enomoto. When P. C. L. became Toho, Yamamoto began helming realist dramas like Horse (1941), starring Hideko Takamine and AD’ed by Kurosawa, as well as war films like his most famous, The War at Sea from Hawaii to Malaya (1942) and Colonel Tateo Kato's Flying Squadron (1944), both featuring special effects by Eiji Tsuburaya, creative SFX wizard behind Godzilla and Ultraman.

The director’s many Kenichi Enomoto comedies include his sixth collaboration, Enoken’s Kinta the Pickpocket (1937), which is being shown with English subs at NFAJ. An adaptation of J. McCulley's detective novel Subway Sam, Yamamoto set the musical comedy in the waning days of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Enomoto plays Kinta, a pickpocket who steals a secret book from a Satsuma clan official. Low-ranking Deputy Kurakichi (Zeko Nakamura), gives chase down the Tokaido Highway, and hilarity ensues as the two engage in a cat-and-mouse game and encounter a variety of peculiar characters. The film was a huge hit, but only the extensively cut and re-edited compilation version survives.

Enoken’s Kinta the Pickpocket, エノケンのちゃっきり金太
1937, 72min, 35mm, B&W, with English subtitles
[This is a re-edited version of #1-4.]

The director’s many Kenichi Enomoto comedies include his sixth collaboration, Enoken’s Kinta the Pickpocket (1937), which is being shown with English subs at NFAJ. An adaptation of J. McCulley's detective novel Subway Sam, Yamamoto set the musical comedy in the waning days of the Tokugawa Shogunate. Enomoto plays Kinta, a pickpocket who steals a secret book from a Satsuma clan official. Low-ranking Deputy Kurakichi (Zeko Nakamura), gives chase down the Tokaido Highway, and hilarity ensues as the two engage in a cat-and-mouse game and encounter a variety of peculiar characters. The film was a huge hit, but only the extensively cut and re-edited compilation version survives.