Only got time for a quick review unfortunately but given the talent on show this one didn't really click with me anyway so perhaps it doesn't matter too much.
The clash between generations and Japan's teething troubles during the massive post-war cultural changes particularly with regard to gender roles are obviously an incredibly fertile topic for Japanese directors. It's the main topic of most acclaimed non-samurai films of the period and probably the subtext of many of the samurai ones…
The mid-century wrestling world is both an unusual setting for Bugs and one that works really well managing to get more than a few good gags about the sport in even before Bugs appears.
I've no idea if the wrestling bad guy ever reappeared but he's a much better foil for Bugs than you might expect and this ends up as a superior outing
I guess I'm just going to watch this every few years for the rest of my life and keep finding different things to enjoy in it. This time it was finding Leiutenant Doyle more hilarious than usual and admiring everything Kelly brought to it.
Oh and the construction, the way the events in the other apartments are used to divert Stewart (and of course us) at key moments or to have him on the phone about lonelyhearts so he can talk straight to the police, a perfectly plotted movie.
But everything else was great too, is there a film Thelma Ritter doesn't elevate?
My opportunities for watching films are often quite limited, and often coincide with looking after my daughter and I have hundreds of films here to watch. So I tend to go for fairly short films and fit a few into my film watching days. Which means films like this, which I was always sure I would love, tend to sit unwatched for years at a time.
Which is a shame, as the long run time that makes me opt to…
