BLOOD ON THE SUN
US, 1945, 94 minutes, Black and white.
James Cagney, Sylvia Sidney, Wallace Ford, Rosemary de Camp, Robert Armstrong, John Emery, Leonard Strong, Frank Puglia.
Directed by Frank Lloyd.
Blood on the Sun was James Cagney's second independent vehicle (after Johnny Come Lately) following his years at Warner Brothers as musical comedy star, gangster and Oscar winner in Yankee Doodle Dandy. He teams with Sylvia Sidney in a hard hitting story about Japanese fascism in the '20s.
The film was released in 1945 and is evidently anti-Japanese propaganda. However, the tone is not so confrontative as with much more evidently propagandistic films. Though the material is dated, the film stands up better today than many other films of its time. Cagney is once again the tough newspaper hero confronting Japanese power and trying to expose fascist plots.
Sylvia Sidney has an interesting role as a possible Tokyo Rose type. There is a strong supporting cast, with character actors impersonating Japanese. Screenplay is by Lester Cole, later to be one of the Hollywood Ten, and direction is by veteran Frank Lloyd (Oscar winner for Cavalcade 1933). Not a remarkable film, but a competent Hollywood vehicle, topical for World War Two.
1. An interesting action story? Background of Japan in the '20s and relationships with America? In the light of World War Two experience and propaganda? Human interest? Newspaper film? Espionage?
2. Black and white photography, atmosphere of Japan in the '20s? Sets? Special effects? Musical score?
3. How well did the film rely on genre conventions: the newspaper man and his contacts in Korea, hard-headedness? Japanese fascism and the parallels with European fascism in the '20s? Espionage? Violence and murder? Justice and diplomacy?
4. How plausible was the plot and its relationship with the rise of Japanese fascist power in the '20s? American contacts, newspaper reporters in Japan, murder, Japanese power and secret plans, suicides? Japanese/American relations? The plausibility of the expose, the uncovering of the plot, the melodramatics of the human story?
5. James Cagney as Nick Condon: tough man, bluffing, publishing reports, his martial arts training, the death of his friends, the possibility of going back to America, the violence he suffered, investigations, contacts with Japanese police, military powers, political officials? The encounter with Iris and the ambiguity of his relationship with her, love, betrayal? The final confrontation and the shoot out in the streets? A Cagney image? Related to American heroism in the war?
6. The background of Americans in Japan: newspaper editors and their contacts with the politicians, censorship of the press, employment of reporters? The range of reporters and their being bought off, returning to America, murdered, the pro-Japanese reporter from China etc.?
7. The picture of the Japanese: the secrecy, power blueprints, political intrigue and contacts, strong men and violence, murders, orders for, ritual suicide etc.? The picture of the emerging Japanese, bid for power? The plausibility of the blueprint? The portrayal of the Japanese in the light of World War Two?
8. Iris and her being glimpsed in crisis situations, ambiguous presence, contacts with the Japanese, leading on Condon, allied with him, the uncertainty as to whose side she was on, her taking stances and helping?
9. The use of black and white photography for night and day, shadow effects, searching houses, police work, suicides, the dinginess of the newspaper offices, the showdown in the street?
10. The validity of the understanding of the Japanese at this time?
