Facet Release of Ozu's tokyo no Onna

[Michael E Kerpan Jr]

I received a copy of the new Facets (presumably "home-made")release of 
Women of Tokyo (Tokyo no onna).  The overall condition of the underlying 
film seems pretty good -- except for a few places where highlights are 
very overexposed -- e.g. faces become white blurs. (I wonder if the 
oiginal could have been this way?) It has an "amazing" soundtrack 
composed of chunks of Franck, Schubert and Beethoven. (The film was 
supposed to have a recorded background -- and this sounded like it was 
taken off records - could it be "original"?).

The film itself shows definite traces of "expressionism" -- which is not 
something I've seen before in early Ozu. The story is pretty thin 
(college boy kills himself after learning that older sister is putting 
him through school by moonlighting as a cabaret hostess - and worse), 
but the movie seems nonetheless effective -- due to the acting of 
Yoshiko Okada and (the very young) Kinuyo Tanaka, together with Ozu's 
images themselves. The cub reporters who appear at the end inlude not 
only Chishu Ryu but also Daisuke Kato (or so it looked to me). It also 
has one of the more flabbergasting transitions I've ever seen. Yoshiko 
Okada is typing away furiously, and we begin to see what we think she is 
typing -- but it turns out to be a detailed cast list - actually the 
credits for the interpolated bit of "If I Had a MIllion".

This is not quite in the same league as I Was Born But or Tokyo Inn -- 
but anyone who is even a moderately fanatic Ozu devotee wil probably 
want to see it.

Michael Kerpan
Boston, MA