Categories
Feature Four Frames

Desire and Moral Boundaries: Keisuke Kinoshita’s Wedding Ring

In Keisuke Kinoshita’s Wedding Ring (Konyaku yubiwa, Japan, 1950), Noriko Kuki (Kinuyo Tanaka) finds herself on the threshold of adultery when she falls in love with the young medical intern Ema (Toshiro Mifune), who has been assigned to her husband Michio (Jukichi Uno), suffering from tuberculosis. The first encounter between Noriko and Ema takes place […]

Categories
Lost Classic Reviews

Lost Classic: The Comic (Carl Reiner, 1969)

Comedian and director Carl Reiner’s second directorial feature-length film, The Comic (1969), starred Dick Van Dyke as a fictitious silent film era comedian, Billy Bright. Bright, an over bearing, egocentric comic, never reached the level of fame he believed he should have, always falling victim to the behavior of others like his wife (and co-star) […]

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Feature Thousand Words

Thousand Words: An Inner Journey in a Wintry Landscape (Snow Trail, 1947)

In terms of film history, Snow Trail (Ginrei no hate) is worth looking at simply because it marks the screen debut of Toshirō Mifune. The unusual setting of this gangster film, directed by Senkichi Taniguchi and co-written by Akira Kurosawa, is another significant aspect. The hunt for the criminals takes place not in an urban […]