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ellipsis7 wrote:Interesting to see the DVD transfers of LATE SPRING & EARLY SUMMER vs. the Criterions

The BFI will release many of Ozu's greatest works on DVD starting in 2010.

I Flunked, But...
I Flunked, But... contrasts graduates who can't find jobs with 'perennial student' types who have to resit their exams; Aoki plays the landlady's obnoxious son
Director Yasujiro Ozu
Cast Tatsuo Saito, Kaoru Futaba, Kinuyo Tanaka
Country Japan
Year 1930
Running time c65min

A Straightforward Boy
In A Straightforward Boy, a riff on an O Henry story, he's a kidnap victim who confounds his kidnapper.
Director Yasujiro Ozu
Country Japan
Year 1929
Running time c28min

The Lady and the Beard
This comedy of manners (with gags credited to Ozu under his pseudonym 'James Maki') centres on the aggressively conservative kendo student Okajima, who becomes employable only when he shaves off his luxuriant beard. On his way to a party to meet a friend's sister, Okajima rescues a young woman from a mugging at the hands of a woman delinquent; the plot explores his fraught relations with all three women.
Director Yasujiro Ozu
Cast Tokihiko Okada, Hiroko Kawasaki, Choko Iida
Country Japan
Year 1931
Running time c75min

The Munekata Sisters
Ozu's first film outside Shochiku is also his only attempt to adapt a popular serialised novel (by Jiro Osaragi), and the result is untypically prosaic. The storyline - two contrasted sisters, one with an alcoholic husband, are rivals for a potential lover - is perhaps too linear to allow Ozu the space for his usual play with patterning and film language. There's a great all-star cast, though.
Director Yasujiro Ozu
Cast Kinuyo Tanaka, Hideko Yakamine, Ken Uehara
Country Japan
Year 1950
Running time 112min

That Night's Wife
A desperate bank robber cornered in his apartment promises to surrender to the cops if his sick daughter makes it through the night.
Combining chamber thriller with family melodrama, this adaptation of a translated American story features a bank robber cornered in his apartment who promises to surrender to the cops if his sick daughter makes it through the night. The fine performances from the whole cast are sharpened by the confined setting, which also gives Ozu the leeway for daring experiments in continuity matching.
Director Yasujiro Ozu
Cast Tokihiko Okada, Emiko Yagumo, Togo Yamamoto
Country Japan
Year 1930
Running time c65min

Walk Cheerfully
A small-time gangster and his brother try to go straight for the love of a good woman.
Notable for being set in an unrealistically westernised world, Ozu's melodrama (originally developed by Hiroshi Shimizu) tells the story of a small-time gangster and his brother who try to go straight for the love of a good woman. Garnished with quotes from The Threepenny Opera and Sternberg's Underworld, it mixes gags, caricatures (Tatsuo Saito's effete gang-boss) and intense emotions.
Director Yasujiro Ozu
Cast Minoru Takada, Hiroko Kawasaki, Nobuko Matsuzono
Country Japan
Year 1930
Running time c96min

Where are Now the Dreams of Youth?
Ending a suite of student/salaryman comedies, this movie offers Ozu's last word on the tribulations of dating and making the awkward transition from college to the world of work. It was made as a quickie (some of the budget went to help pay for a more expensive film), but belies these origins by exploring moral and social complexities, garnished, of course, with great gags.
Director Yasujiro Ozu
Cast Ureo Egawa, Kinuyo Tanaka, Tatsuo Saito
Country Japan
Year 1932
Running time 85min

Woman of Tokyo
Ozu spoke of beginning to find his own style in Woman of Tokyo, and the film is rich in spatial ambiguities and unexpected continuity links. But the storyline (attributed to a non-existent German novel) is more like a Mizoguchi melodrama: a student kills himself when he discovers that his sister prostitutes herself to support him.
Director Yasujiro Ozu
Cast Yoshiko Okada, Ureo Egawa, Kinuyo Tanaka
Country Japan
Year 1933
Running time 47min

Kagamijishi
Ozu's only documentary Kagamijishi, made in part with sync-sound: a portrait of kabuki actor Onoye Kikugoro VI, who performs the titular lion dance.
Director Yasujiro Ozu
Country Japan
Year 1935
Running time 25min

HerrSchreck wrote:. . . a better look at all those speckles & scratches....