TOKYO JOE
US, 1949, 88 minutes, Black and white.
Humphrey Bogart, Alexander Knox, Florence Marley, Sessue Hayakawa.
Directed by Stuart Heisler.
Tokyo Joe is one of the four films made by Humphrey Bogart's own company in the late forties - Knock on any Door, In a Lonely Place, Sirocco. These were not outstanding Bogart films. He had achieved fame in the forties and was soon to win an Oscar for The African Queen. However, the film is a well paced and very competently made crime melodrama of the Hollywood forties. Director was Stuart Heisler, the maker of many romances, thrillers of the time.
Bogart has a typical hero-on-the-edge-of-the-law kind of character, the type of role he does so well. Alexander Knox
gives competent support as does Sessue Hayakawa. The film is interesting in its presentation of post-war Japan and can be seen as an attempt to smooth relationships with the United States and Japan in the difficult post-war period. The characters are very much stock, the situations contrived and expected. However. there is good Japanese atmosphere and a very competent handling of conventional material which makes the film in some ways vintage Bogart material.
1. An enjoyable Humphrey Bogart vehicle? His popularity, presence, the rugged American type that he represented? Popularity in his own time, later?
2. An example of Hollywood film-making of the forties? Technique and finesse, conventional plot material, characters and their expectations, melodramatic situations and style? Audience involvement, the type of finesse necessary for an ordinary and entertaining kind of crime melodrama?
3. Black and white photography, Japanese locations and Japanese atmosphere and flavour? The score and its tones of Japan? Editing, pace, suspense, sentiment?
4. Japan as a place and as an issue in the forties? The memories and evocation of pre-war Japan? Joe Barrett and his night club, Japanese partnership and the seeming lack of awareness of the political situation and the war? The cabaret flashback with the singing of 'These Foolish Things'? The impact of the war itself and patriotic statements about it? Trina and her internment, her broadcasting like Tokyo Rose? The occupation and the attitude of the Japanese, the defeat and humiliation, collaboration? The place of the Americans in Japan and reorganizing Japan? Hostilities and the continued atmosphere of hostility, recovery? The presence of the fascists? Communist plots? The bringing in of fascist leaders for rousing up rebellion? American red tape, military? Japanese pride and recovery?
5. The overview of Mount Fujiyama and the aerial views of Japan, the audience arriving with Joe? Joe and his presence there, pre-war, military career? Joe as a feted American, his coming to Japan to die? An anachronism, a ruin from the past? His attitude toward law and order and the experience of the war? Joe as the type representing America in the thirties, the gangster background? his being out of place in post-war Japan? The tough American, working outside the law, taking risks, an individual and rugged type of heroism, a failure in relationships and achieving permanency of love, needing to redeem himself? The qualities of a Humphrey Bogart character?
6. Humphrey Bogart's portrait of Joe, facing the initial red tape, being at home in the atmosphere of Japan, revisiting Tokyo Joe's, his attitude towards the Japanese gangsters, his friendship with his partner and the fighting humorously with him and sharing the laughter, the possibilities of making money and being a front for the criminal activity, his going into this with his eyes open, risks, blackmail, interviews with Landis? The re-discovery of Trina, facing the truth and being unwilling to forget the past? His regrets? The Japanese secret files and the possibility of blackmail? The confrontation with his daughter and its implications for him? Hostility towards Landis, using him for getting the permit for the airline? The complications of his character - as a tough businessman, as a human being with emotional ties?
7. How well did the film show the intricacy of motives? The fact that Joe had walked out on Trina, the post-war divorce, the possibility of blackmail, the confrontation of Landis, Landis's official world and Joe's peripheral world, the encounter with Anya, the presence at the party, his decisions about the flight, the truth, the military, saving Anya?
8. The character of Trina and her complexities? The theme of 'These Foolish Things' and its continued recurrence? her explanation of the war situation, Anya's growing up? Her explanation of everything to Landis? her love of Joe and her love of her husband? The party sequence and Joe's presence? her warning him? The ending and her saying that she still loved him? The bond between herself and her husband? Landis as the American Occupation type, his love and protection of his wife, his respect at the end for Joe?
9. The presentation of the flights, the risks, the personality of the Japanese businessman and his suave presence, gangster connections, his assistance? Joe's telling the truth about them? The smuggling? the effect on him, a premonition of what was to come, the fight and the rescue of Anya, the shooting of the gangster leader? The final fading from view of Trina and Joe's death?
10. The Generals and their plan, the confrontation of Joe, the support? The capture of the personnel being smuggled in, misleading the gangster and setting up the scene and the irony of his death? The siege, the capture?
11. The build-up to the final raid, the suicide of Joe's friend?
12. The popularity of the American crime melodrama, its attitudes towards right and wrong, human nature? Why so enjoyable?
