As I've said before this 'My Current Watches' series has become much popular than I could have imagined, four posts have made it onto the section for most viewed posts of the last thirty days. Wonder why, is it that you've enjoyed reading the shorter movie and drama reviews and most have been for such obscure ones. Or is it this beginning which is the best to you as I talk about various women such as those who have disappeared and whatever happened to them?
In the last post for this series brought up a slightly different topic, it was after I had briefly discussed Mizuki F., Miru and Manami who are all such huge faves of mine. Besides that the other connection is that their names begin with the letter M and it's unbelievable how many women I post about whose name begins with that letter. There's so many and thought an interesting list would be of my favorite women whose name begins with M, bet there would be at least a dozen on that list. Let me work on that for a while longer and actually the total could be closer to twenty women for the list. The only thing I know for now is who #1 would be and that's who is leading this post off, hope many recall Minami Sengoku! I've gushed about her more than any other woman, she's finished second and third on the yearly faves list and was in the second position on the first All Time list! A few days ago was watching a few of her ultra alluring gravure videos and can't think of any more superlatives to describe her, if Minami hadn't retired as an idol in 2017 I may have tried renaming this blog after her!!!!!!!!!!!!
But Minami and the other three are just the tip of the iceberg for this 'M List'. Here's even more of my and you reader's faves such as my top Nogi member though sure most prefer the Mai after her and I can understand that! Then there's yet another ex-Nogi gal who is Mizuki and have missed doing posts for her but not as much as I've missed them for Miona and talk about a career that's sadly gone nowhere. Have one more M woman from the group who is their current captain, another Minami and all five are such big favorites of mine yet only one will make the upcoming third 'Top Twenty Faves of All Time' list and each have two photos below. No comment is needed for the second pic, sigh....
Had three names in that previous post and above are six more for the list to bring the total to nine. Have one more to make it an even ten and finally Maria is starting to become more active, hopefully in a few days can have her fourth post in three months and that would be one more post than she had all of last year! I do watch a few other things besides dramas and movies, besides having five of Maria's DVD's for her photobooks have also created five others with her gravure videos from the past five years, the below screenshots are from her most recent one and hope my cold shower ready.... WOWOW!!!!
For today will just talk about one American drama which is a show I've discussed a few other times and will also do so in many more future posts. The other mini reviews for today will be of Japanese movies, have viewed three already for this post and unsure how many more there will be. Can feature many more movies than dramas in these posts but hadn't been watching too many films for a while but have gotten some superb ones recently and had never viewed any. I do have a slight preference in my movies, one key thing is that they be older ones from Japan, usually from the 1950's/60's. Plus I love the movies in B&W as they make the atmosphere much more eerie and suspenseful, especially for Noir films and that's the genre of the three movies I've already viewed. Let's get to these recent watches, these posts have become popular but would like to hear a few comments from you readers but sure not many have the same tastes as I do.
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The action takes place in Dodge City, Kansas back in the early 1880's. On occasion it's said the series is set about five years prior but have noticed the tombstones on the Boot Hill Cemetery say 188__. Marshal Dillon is the hero of this series and was in all 635 episodes, not much has changed in 8 1/2 seasons save for one character being added in season eight. One major change though could be that beginning with the seventh season the episodes went from 26 minutes to a little over fifty but for the most part most things have remained the same. But there will be some changes coming up for, the biggest is that near the end of this season Marshal Dillon's assistant Chester Goode will be leaving and he'll be missed by me. Chester doesn't appear in every episode in the eighth or ninth seasons but he's still a favorite character of mine, his replacement will be Festus Haggen who we haven't met yet but the man playing him has made two guest spots playing different characters. One other thing took place in this ninth season and it was the first story that took two episodes, those two may have been the best ones to date and while not every episode is an award winner can't recall one not being top notch. What's also stayed relatively consistent over nine seasons is that the writers, directors and producer have been the same.
One other major change will be happening after season eleven which is the show airing in color, that will be such a huge difference to me! I'm going to be very curious how Miss Kitty will look, she was played by the very attractive and to me seductive Amanda Blake, there's some pics of her below and you would never know that her hair was red if you only watched the first eleven seasons! As far as this season goes I think it's among the best ones ever, that two part story was so intense as Matt went over the border to Mexico to grab a killer though he had no jurisdiction there. Plus Chester had his top story, he's usually a mild mannered deputy but showed how brutal he can be when he nabbed a con man so all in all the first dozen episodes have been terrific. But the ratings for this season and the next couple did tumble down a bit, perhaps viewers were getting tired of the same characters and consistency? But then a surprising rebound happened as "Gunsmoke" once again became a top ten show in season thirteen and it stayed that way for five more seasons, by this time it was the 1970's! After the pics is a short video of Miss Kitty's top scenes and I think Amanda Blake was such an underrated beauty who tragically died at sixty, not overly young but passed away before her time.
Decided four films for this post would be more than enough, if I was to add more in it'd take so long to write and then to read, the second part could be harder. All four are from the 1960's with the first three being in B&W and those could be considered Noir films plus all four were quite suspenseful. First off are a pair of 1960 movies with this first being titled "Black Line", there were four of these Line movies which dealt with gritty topics but none of the stories were connected, may have "Yellow Line" in the next post for this series. On the right above is the main character who wasn't exactly a hero named Koji Machida and was played by Shigeru Amachi who was in 120 films but died at an early age which was 53 in 1985. Yoko Mihara is the woman and she had more screentime than any other female, she was 27 at the time. In the 1970's Yoko made more of a name for herself when approaching forty in age as she often would shed her clothes in many Pinku films, she played the role of Maya in this movie. Machida was a free lance reporter and liked to call himself Scoop for some big stories he's uncovered. In this movie Machida was working on his biggest story which was of a huge gang that was controlling the Yokohama market which dealt with drugs and prostitution. Machida made some huge strides in gathering so much info, perhaps too much as a pimp/gangster named Sabu tried to frame Machida for a killing.
The previous night Machida had visited Sabu who spiked his drink, when Machida woke up the next morning he was lying next to a corpse! This was an eighty minute movie, that took place around the ten minute mark so for the rest of the film Machida kept on his story to expose this large Yokohama gang and to also clear his name. Along the way Machida came in contact with so many shady characters such as the above woman Maya who was attractive and did come to have a minor crush on Machida. Maya slightly knew the woman that had been killed while sleeping next to Machida, she also knew the ins and outs of the strip club scene though it wasn't that kind of film. Machida also hooked up a few times with a rival reporter named Goro who helped Machida out to a small extent in this film but wouldn't have minded seeing him arrested so Goro could steal the story. There was yet another murder near Machida as he found the hotel maid who knew he had been set up, there was no way this gang would allow her to talk so in front of Machida's eyes had been run over by a car! There was zero time for any kind of filler in this movie which raced right by, there was no time to spare for Machida to prove his innocence to the police and to bring down the Yokohama gang who wanted Scoop silenced!
In these mini reviews can't to into all of the details as I try to keep them at three paragraphs but try to explain the story and key points of the film, there's also plenty of screenshots to help you follow the action. With the help of Maya Machida was able to elude the police twice when it looked like they had him surrounded, after visiting so many seedy Yokohama bars and dance halls Machida was finally able to find the gang leader who controlled the city's drug and prostitution rings. But at the same time so didn't another man who was nicknamed Killer Joe, he had been sent to slay both Machida and this gang boss. The killer had plans on taking over the gang and to call himself Boss Tokyo, in an exciting finale Machida was able to defeat the killer on the docks of Yokohama and the police dragged the thug away. A detective did thank Machida for all of his hard work but the ace reporter didn't seem too pleased, there are no winners in those kinds of stories. So this was a solid beginning to the quartet of today's films, all were simply such intense, suspenseful and entertaining movies and can't say one was better than the other. This film was directed by Teruo Ishii who is one of my top directors, he's done so many different kinds of films and after the screenshots is a trailer for this movie.
On occasion I do view movies that are two or more hours in length but I much prefer films that are in the 70-90 minute range. There's never a dull moment in a shorter film and at times you can watch two in one sitting, that's what I did for these first two films. "Intimidation" was released in 1960 and was only 65 minutes in length so it was hard to believe how much took place! The two main characters are above, on the left is Nobuo Kaneko and I've seen him in so many movies with the five part series "Battles Without Honor and Humanity" being his most known work. He played a banker named Kyosuke Takita who was based in Niigata but was about to be promoted to the bank's main HQ in Tokyo, it helps when you marry the director's daughter! In the middle is Ko Nishimura and he was also a fave of mine from the 1950's and 60's, he played the role of Matakichi Nakaike. He had grown up with Takita and worked at the same Niigata bank but Nakaike would never rise above the position of a regular clerk. The man holding the gun is Kojiro Kusanagi who is another actor I like from that era, recently rewatched for the tenth time his outstanding 1964 film "Cruel Gun Story". In this movie he played a petty criminal named Kumaki, not a lot of screentime but he was very key to the story.
When the film opened it was a scene from Takita's going away party, he would leaving in two days for Tokyo. At the bank he was the assistant branch manager but at the main HQ Takita would be a director and one day would lead the chain of banks. Growing up Takita's best mate had been Nakaike but the pair have grown a bit apart, mainly because of how well Takita has been doing. Nakaike could never beat his friend as far as sports, getting girls or having a successful career goes but in the end did he have the upper hand? For two days before Takita's departure from Niigata he was met by a lowly criminal named Kumaki, he had no clue who the man was. But Kumaki knew all about Takita and the illegal loans he had given out, if the details came to light Takita's career and marriage would be destroyed! Kumaki had somehow obtained copies of the Seals Takita used to sign for the loans, the crime would never have been known if those Seals had been destroyed. Before Takita leaves for Tokyo in two days Kumaki is demanding a sum of three million yen or the secret will be exposed, back then that was such a fortune and even a well-to-do man such as Takita didn't have the kind of money. Kumaki planted in Takita's head the scheme of robbing his own bank and gave him some tips on how to do it! But it turned out to me a mild case of Murphy's Law as so many things went wrong at the robbery but it did seem as though Takita wouldn't be caught.
At the bank when an overnight guard was sick a clerk would take his place, of all things that happened on the night when he planned the heist. Taking the guard's place would be Nakaike and Takita brought him out beforehand to get him drunk, hopefully his friend would sleep through the robbery. Which didn't happen and Nakaike had recognized his old friend as the robber, not a good disguise by Takita as he had broken his sunglasses plus knew the bank so well which gave him away. Nakaike did open the safe and quickly Takita took away the three million yen but only older notes as the bank didn't record those serial numbers, how would a robber know that Nakaike thought? With the charade blown Takita took off his flimsy mask and told his mate the robbery was a fake one, Takita just wanted to see how well the bank's security was. Nakaike may not have made a success of himself as far as his career went but was smart enough to know when he's being lied to, he knew Takita did plan on robbing the bank and if it wasn't for Nakaike would have gotten away with it. The next morning Takita met with Kumika and asked him for more time to get the blackmail money which was refused by the petty criminal. Kumika had the copies of the loans and Seals in a pair of envelopes, that morning he would mail them to the police and the bank's HQ. But a gust of wind swept the envelopes away, when Kumika tried grabbing them he slipped down the cliff overlooking Niigata Bay.
Takita could have saved Kumita but that would have meant the end of his career, when the blackmailer fell into the ocean his problems were solved.... or were they? Shortly after at the bank Takita told the staff about his 'robbery' and how it was just a test, luckily all believed him. However Nakaike met privately with Takita and dropped such a bombshell, all of Kumika's plans and evidence had been supplied by Nakaike who wanted to destroy his old friend! Nakaike knew about the illegal loans and for once wanted the upper hand, that day Nakaike quit his job at the bank and to Takita's shock was also on the train heading to Tokyo! Where Nakaike told his mate that for now on Takita would be supporting him but would that ever happen? The bottom screenshot is how the movie ended, a Niigata officer approached Takita on the train and said the pair needed to have a talk, with that that the movie came to its conclusion. What did the officer want to discuss, the illegal loans or the fake robbery or the death of Kumika, that we'll never know! Needed a mini extra paragraph to discuss all that took place, much more did than I could talk about and this was just a 65 minute movie! One that I really enjoyed and the four films I'm discussing for today are ones I'll be watching again, especially the last movie. Below are some screenshots of the action and that's followed by the movie's trailer.
The above are the four main characters, there weren't too many others besides them and though all the films for today were superb this may have been the best. Starting from the left is Yukiko Fuji, she was the mistress for the man just to her left and in real life was married to Jiro Tamiya who has his beady eyes on her! Yukiko's character name was Yoko, the man to her left is Eiji Funakoshi who played the role of Zaitsu and was a director of a huge railroad outfit. Next is Jiro Tamiya who had the lead role of Keiichi Kikyo in this film which was based in Okayama and that's in the SW region of Japan. Kikyo was a real estate agent and a very good one yet was duped badly in this film and it doesn't appear it's the first time it's happened to him. Last up on the right is Daisuke Kato who appeared in many Yasujiro Ozu films often playing such a likable man. He showed his range in this film as Kato played a ruthless conman named Yukichi Nakae and it didn't seem many came out on top when they went head to head versus Nakae. The first film for today was part of the 'Line' series of movies, this movie "Super Black Express" was part of an eleven film series with the word Black, I reviewed one earlier movie in the series called "Black Test Car" from 1962, this was the last of the black series and was released in 1964. "Black Test Car" is one of my top Japanese films of all time, also appearing in that were Tamiya and Funakoshi.
That saying If it sounds too good to be true it probably is describes what the lead star Keiichi Kikyo went through, this was another in the Noir genre where there really wasn't a winner at the end. Kikyo owned a small real estate office in Okayama near a train station, one day he was approached by the devious Yukichi Nakae from Tokyo and claimed he represented the Mitsuboshi Bank, the third largest in Japan. An automobile company wanted to buy a huge tract of land in Okayama that currently has many farms, could Kikyo be the middleman for Nakae and the bank? The auto company will be building a massive plant on that land with the American car company Ford, if Kikyo can get the farmers to sell he'll make a commission of 30 million yen! That part went smoothly, all of the farmers sold their land and each made a decent profit. But what a deception that was which Kikyo learned later after he lost 25 million yen in the stock market, see what greed does! That tract of land wasn't for an auto factory but for the Shinkansen Bullet Train company to build a new line through! So the land was worth over two billion yen and Nakae purchased it for 800 million, him and the railroad line made out like bandits. Of course Kikyo was furious but it was also a bit his fault for not doing his homework and being duped so easily by Nakae, Kikyo wanted fifty million more from the conman but that'll never happen!
Kikyo made like a detective and was able to find out so much about Shinkansen Bullet Train company and it's main director Zaitsu. He was married but was having an affair with his prior secretary Yuko, Nakae had bought her a private apartment so she could see Zaitsu in private. But he's grown a bit leery of Yoko and is trying to ease her away from the director, she was then approached by Kikyo and the pair worked on a plan to take down the ruthless Nakae. Which is much easier said than done and will wrap this up somewhat quick as not to reveal many more spoilers. Kikyo had set up two recording devices in Yoko's apartment, the one she'll have to vacate. Nakae did confess to the huge sham and said Yoko knew too much, soon after he found one device and then killed Yoko. Unknown to Nakae Kikyo had planted a second device and played it the next day for Nakae who knew he was trapped like a rat, he did battle it out with Kikyo but our semi-hero came out on top and the devilish Nakae was arrested. This is one of those movies where I'm glad a regular length review wasn't done for it would have taken two hours to write up as so much took place, not everything was important yet it all tied in with the story and this was the longest of the four movies at 93 minutes. The screenshots do help you follow the story a bit better and after them is a trailer for the movie.
Final movie for today and thanks for reading up until now, this is the first color film from Japan I've viewed in a while. A very popular actor in the 1950's/60's was Raizo Ichikawa yet I don't know him well and this may be the first film I've seen him in. At the age of 37 in 1969 Ichikawa died of cancer and at the time it was such a tragedy as he was so well loved in Japan. I will view a few more of his films and don't know why it took me so long to watch this one as I've had it for a while. There are three sequels to this film and I have one so will try to have that in the next post for this series. Raizo appears in the most screenshots below, the other man you see often is Mikio Narita and once again he's an actor I like quite a bit. He often played gangsters in movies but always came off as a honorable criminal who had some decency about him. Like Ichikawa he died at a somewhat early age which was 55 and that happened in 1990. Also dying early was Tamiya and Funakoshi in the above film, so many actresses live to be 80+ in age but way too many actors never hit the age of sixty. The female lead belonged to Yumiko Nogawa as Keiko and she'll be hitting the age of 82 this Summer, she's someone I've seen in other movies but don't know her so well. This movie was released on April 29, 1967 and is 81 minutes in length.... oooh, there's one other actor I forgot to mention. Who is Asao Koike and he's someone I've seen in quite a few movies and he often played a Yakuza member, he did in this film but was the main boss. Like the four men I mentioned Koike also died at an early age which was 54 back in 1985.
Almost forgot to mention the title which is "A Certain Killer". Ichikawa played the character of Shiozawa who was a hitman and as a front owned a small restaurant. Yumiko had the role of Keiko who somehow hooked up with Shiozawa early on, he couldn't get rid of her and resigned himself to the fact he was stuck with her! Narita played a Yakuza thug named Maeda who worked for the Kimura group which was led by of course Kimura(!) who was played by Koike, not a large role but an important one. Shiozawa is very esteemed hitman and is 35 in age, it doesn't appear the police know of him but the leaders of Yakuza groups do and his skills come at a high price which means Shiozawa doesn't have to work often. His style is such a methodical one plus Shiozawa plans everything out to the smallest detail, because of that he may never be caught or killed but it almost happened at the end. Shiozawa had been approached by Maeda on behalf of the Kimura group to kill a Yakuza leader named Owada as his clan had been easing into Kimura territory. Shiozawa turned down the high offer of 5 million yen and soon trying to recruit the hitman was the main Kimura leader. He claimed to Shiozawa his Yakuza gang was more 'refined' than other gangs and was turned off by how much drugs the Owada clan was peddling along with their prostitution. For twenty million yen Shiozawa took on the job, despite Owada being so well protected Shiozawa got his man! That's the 15th screenshot below, Shiozawa had inserted a long metal needle into the back of Owada's neck and he died instantly, Shiozawa had done something to Owada's mistress and his guards had rushed to her side which left him unprotected.
Last segment and Shiozawa is now 20 million yen richer, he went back to his restaurant and following him was still Keiko. Who always wanted to marry Shiozawa but it never happened, she hooked up with Maeda when her womanly needs weren't met! After that job Maeda left the Kimura clan and wanted to become Shiozawa's pupil, Maeda respected the killer to the Nth degree. Shiozawa vetoed that plan but Maeda came to him with another possible job which would be so lucrative. Now that Owada has been killed his clan has splintered and had no direction but are still dealing drugs, Maeda found out when the next shipment would happen. The drugs would be worth 200 million yen and no one would ever have to work again if the new team could pull off the theft, I was surprised Shiozawa said yes to the idea but he wanted to do all of the planning. Which frustrated Maeda and Keiko for the elite killer is so cautious but as they learned that's an asset. The drug theft didn't go smoothly but the trio did make off with the drugs which were in a suitcase and now they somehow need to sell off the drugs. Which none of the three had experience in, Shiozawa must have known it wouldn't be easy to sell the drugs but a possible 200 million yen must have convinced him!
Need one one paragraph and the small group never had a chance to sell the drugs. The Owada group hadn't planned on enacting revenge yet but Maeda's old Yakuza boss Kimura had his own plans for the drugs, his gang raided their their small hideout and chased the trio to a nearby cemetery. Almost forgot to add in that Maeda did have plans to take all of the drugs and run off with Keiko after slaying Shiozawa who had an inkling of the plan and thwarted it. That made Maeda respect the killer even more and now truly wanted to be Shiozawa's pupil more than ever! The Kimura group outnumbered the trio but Shiozawa and surprisingly Maeda were ace fighters, they took out the thugs and even murdered the boss Kimura. With that the three all went their separate ways and each left without any drugs, much of it had been destroyed during the melee but Shiozawa left his four canisters on a tomb and that's how the movie concluded. All four films for today are ones I recommend and I will be seeing at least one more of the sequels to this movie soon, also the third in the 'Black' series of eleven. Had a ton of screenshots for this post and they do help you follow the action better, after them is a trailer for the film which is quite good.
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