Early Film Question: Ozu's Father/Ex-Teacher-Figures in "Tokyo Chorus" (1931), and "There Was

[mccaskem at georgetown.edu]

In Ozu's "Tokyo Chorus" (1931), there is a teacher early in the film, Omura 
Sensei (Saito Tatsuo), who looks like a caricature of the father, former teacher 
Horikawa Shuhei (Ryu Chishu), in Ozu's "There Was A Father" (1941).

In "Tokyo Chorus," Omura Sensei starts out as a humorous figure. He gives up 
teaching in order to make a decent living running a small carry-out/dine-in 
restaurant, but keeps in touch with his students, and is ever more respected by 
them, as he faces his new life with dignity.

In "There Was A Father," Horikawa Sensei takes responsibility for the accidental 
death of a student on a school excursion, resigns, and becomes an office 
worker. But he keeps in touch with his student, and is ever more respected by 
them, as he faces his new life with dignity.

These figures very vaguely remind me of the ex-teacher turned writer in 
Kurosawa's "Maada-da-yo," but that film was based on the life of an actual 
person, Uchida Hyakken, I believe.

http://www.criterion.com/people/45001-uchida-hyakken

Are these Ozu ex-teachers just handy stereotypes of venerated ex-teachers that 
turn up in many Japanese films, or did Ozu have some special reason for these 
portrayals of father-figure ex-teachers? Did he use this kind of figure in other 
films of his?

Saito Tatsuo, by the way, also played the role of a teacher - serious, comic, or 
tragic - in a number of other films, including the roles of Prof. Katae in 
Shimizu's "Ornamental Hairpin" (1941), of Prof. Uchida in Ozu's "The Munekata 
Sisters" (1950), and of a wacky professor, in the largely and probably justly 
forgotten US Occupation film "Geisha Girl" (1952), by the Breakston & Stahl team   
(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162342/combined#comment).

 
Regards,

Michael McCaskey
Georgetown Univ.

PS 

George Breakston, the director, also directed a number of other bad productions

http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0106423/

but "Geisha Girl" seems to have been his only film set in Japan.

C. Ray Stahl, writer and co-director, wrote several other bad scripts, including 
"Oriental Evil" (1950), and produced the bad film "Tokyo File 212" (1951), both 
set in Japan.