Masters Famous and Obscure

The American Cinematheque’s “Outlaw Masters of Modern Japanese Filmmaking” continues Friday at Raleigh Studios with some of the finest films in the series, featuring the work of one of Japan’s most celebrated directors, Masahiro Shinoda--and one of its most unjustly neglected, Kenji Misumi.

Shinoda’s 1964 “Pale Flower” (Friday at 7:15 p.m.) is a fascinating film in its own right and not just as a portent of what was to come from Shinoda, who would go on to make a series of major films--most famously, the romantic period tragedy “Double Suicide.” An adaptation from a novel by popular writer Shintaro Ishihara, it is a doomed contemporary romance set against the shadowy Japanese underworld.

Released from prison after serving a three-year term for murder, the gangster Muraki (well played by the veteran Ryo Ikebe) calmly resumes the only life he knows. Muraki brings to mind Albert Camus’ “The Stranger,” a man who killed for no tangible purpose, a fatalist for whom life holds little meaning.

At a card game, however, he meets waif-like Saeko (Mariko Kaga), a young woman living only for kicks. Their attraction for each other is as instantaneous as it is mutually destructive. Their story unfolds within a conventional gangster plot that is hard to follow but serves only as a pretext for exploring this compulsive relationship anyway.

In fairness, you can understand why Shochiku Films, which was to have Shinoda under contract for many years, initially shelved the picture until its maker persuaded the studio to release it by promising to compensate the company for any losses incurred. (There weren’t any.) “Pale Flower” is downbeat and low-key, devoid of the action expected of gangster movies. Yet it is a compelling picture, a psychological drama rich in atmosphere that shouldn’t be missed by admirers of Shinoda’s work.

The highlight of this series is the discovery--or perhaps, rediscovery, for veteran aficionados--of Kenji Misumi, a master of the samurai movie whose work and career bring to mind that of Budd Boetticher in his highly acclaimed series of westerns starring Randolph Scott. There’s an unpretentious, unfussy quality to Misumi, yet he is capable of effortlessly expressive impact. There’s a sense he’s a remarkably intuitive storyteller with a camera.

In the ‘60s, when Los Angeles still boasted a number of Japanese-language theaters, the films in two phenomenally popular series were staple attractions. First was the Zatoichi series, starring Shintaro Katsu as a blind sword for hire, which began in 1962. Later on, Katsu launched his older brother, the late Tomasaburo Wakayama, in his own Lone Wolf and Child series, featuring another sword for hire, one who travels with his infant son in a baby cart (which conveniently conceals swords, knives, lances and even guns).

“The Life and Opinion of Masseur Ichi” (Friday at 9:30 p.m.) was not intended back in 1962 to launch a 26-film series but to simply be a program picture. What it is first of all is a superb samurai movie in which, in Misumi’s skilled hands, elements of the American western and classic tragedy meld in an imaginative way.

Zatoichi (Katsu), we learn, began as an itinerant masseur but developed his formidable swordsman’s skills to defend himself and to be treated with respect. He’s also a gambler who hangs out with gangsters. In his travels through the countryside, he drops in to visit the head of a gang who’s thrilled to see him because he could use him in an upcoming battle with another gang.

The twist here is that Zatoichi has already made the acquaintance of the swordsman (Shigeru Amachi) the rival gang has hired, and they have developed mutual respect for each other. (Amachi’s Hirate is a nobleman dying of TB and drowning the pain with sake; he inevitably brings to mind the gunfight at O.K. Corral’s Doc Holliday and John Wayne’s dying gunfighter in “The Shootist.”) Zatoichi is a man of much complexity and self-knowledge, and this film itself is reflective in regard to issues of honor and loyalty. Katsu’s Zatoichi is so commanding and involving a figure that it’s no wonder the role became in effect his career.

Misumi also directed the 1974 “Lightning Swords of Death” (Saturday at 9:30 p.m.), which is No. 3 in the Lone Wolf and Child series--and which unfortunately is available only in a dubbed-in-English print. However, it’s worth overlooking this hindrance.

This film is a great deal more violent than “Masseur Ichi,” but Misumi handles a brutal sexual assault on a pair of women and other scenes with the kind of non-exploitative dispatch that actually allows him to criticize the violence within the samurai code of honor. As in “Masseur Ichi” there is complexity: Ogami (Wakayama), the Lone Wolf, rescues a teenage virgin from a yakuza brothel only to be confronted with the fact that he’s the very man who destroyed the once-powerful father of the brothel’s hard-bitten madam.

While “Masseur Ichi” was shot in a splendid black-and-white, “Lightning Swords of Death” is in wide screen and color; both are stunningly visual, genuinely moving experiences, especially for fans of samurai movies.

Information: (213) 466-FILM.

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Hollywood did a sensational job of chasing the blues away during the Great Depression with one Terrific escapist entertainment after another, but few filmmakers addressed America’s long-lasting economic woes directly. Among those who did were William Wellman, with his terrific 1933 duo, “Heroes for Sale” and “Wild Boys of the Road.”

The following year, King Vidor mortgaged his house and took out loans to make “Our Daily Bread” when MGM refused to back him. Vidor was inspired by the “back-to-the-land” movement that promoted a self-sufficient tilling of the soil as a way of overcoming the ravages of unemployment.

Tom Keene and Karen Morley star as John and Mary Sims, an attractive, typical young city couple--reminiscent of a very similar couple in Vidor’s classic 1928 “The Crowd”--in increasingly desperate circumstances who take a chance on farming an abandoned property owned by Mary’s uncle but facing foreclosure. Enlisting the help of others in dire circumstances, they form a collective. (Interestingly, its members vote down both democratic and socialist forms of self-government, opting merely to designate John as the “big boss.”) When the first sprouts turn up, John remarks with awe, “It makes you feel safe, confident.” But major struggles lie ahead.

Didactic, burdened with some stretches of corny dialogue (by a just-starting-out Joseph Mankiewicz, no less), “Our Daily Bread” nonetheless transcends such drawbacks with an undiminished visual power and emotional impact. “Our Daily Bread” screens tonight at the New Beverly Cinema along with another acclaimed agrarian epic, Terence Malick’s “Days of Heaven” (1978).

Information: (213) 938-4038.