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| Festival Year |
Festival Section |
| 2005 |
MUSICAL EVENTS -- JAPAN DISCOVER THE RAILROAD DRAMA |
| Film Title |
TOKKYU SANBYAKU MAIRU |
| Alternative Title 1 |
[300 miglia in treno espresso] |
| Alternative Title 2 |
[Special Express: 300 Miles] |
| Alternative Title 3 |
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| Country |
Japan |
| Release Date |
1928 |
| Production Co. |
Nikkatsu |
| Director |
Genjiro Saegusa |
| Format |
|
Speed (fps) |
| 35mm |
|
18 |
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| Footage |
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Time |
| 2086 m. |
|
101' |
| Archive Source |
Monji Railroad Bureau |
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| Print Notes |
Didascalie in giapponese / Japanese intertitles. (Versione in inglese predisposta per la traduzione simultanea a cura di / English version prepared for the simultaneous translation by Kae Ishihara.) |
| Cast |
| : Koji Shima (Shigeru Mori), Hisako Takihara (Omiyo), Masatoshi Nakamura (Shoichi, il figlio del padrone di casa/landlord’s son), Minoru Mita (il direttore del circo/ringmaster), Ruiko Tsushima (sua moglie/ringmaster’s wife), Shiro Osaki (il padrone di casa/landlord), Toshiko Kusakawa (Yuriko), Takaichi Yamamoto (Ministro delle Ferrovie/Minister of Railroads) |
| |
| Other Credits |
| scen: Chizuo Kimura; didascalie/intertitles: Haruho Sakamoto; f./ph: Yasugo Kiga; luci/lighting: Kunimatsu Ueda; scg./des: Shuji Hirose |
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| Other Information |
Una produzione realizzata sotto gli auspici delle Ferrovie Giapponesi / Produced under the auspices of the Ministry of Railroads
Restaurato nel 2004 da / Restored in 2004 by Yoneo Ota, Professor of Visual Art, University of Visual Arts, Osaka.
Accompagnamento musicale di Günter A. Buchwald eseguito dalla Silent Movie Music Company. / Live musical accompaniment by the Silent Movie Music Company, score by Günter A. Buchwald. |
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| Program Notes |
Shigeru Mori, an ace locomotive driver, saves the passengers of an express train, averting a terrible accident by stopping an unmanned runaway train engine, and receives an award for his heroism and dedicated service. Among the passengers is Omiyo, an artiste with a wandering circus troupe. Their lives later intersect again one dark night when Shigeru saves her once more, this time preventing her from committing suicide. She stays at his home and they fall in love. The circus ringmaster, although married, is wildly jealous; he threatens Omiyo, and is determined to take her back to the circus. During Shigeru’s shift the ringmaster visits Omiyo and tries to force himself upon her. Shigeru, alerted by his landlord’s son Shoichi, sticks to his post driving the train, but has a strange vision, in which the express train bound for Tokyo is caught in a storm. Which it does in reality: the tracks are covered by a landslide. Shigeru hurries home, and finds the ringmaster stabbed by a knife… – GÜNTER A. BUCHWALD
Kaoru Murao, hired by the Ministry of Railroads, wrote of his experiences working on the film in Kinema Junpo (21.2.1929): “As a technical supervisor I had to manage some scenes where catastrophic accidents could have happened. Also, the landscape between Kyoto and Osaka as a film location is too flat. The impression of speed is lost somehow. We must respect the work of the film crew – they managed to show with a multitude of locomotives the powerful dynamics of the trains, and their movement and speed. Undoubtedly the director values the commercial success of that film.”
Director Genjiro Saegusa was a colleague Kenji Mizoguchi; they were both born in 1898. When Mizoguchi had to stop directing Akai yuhi ni terasarete (Red Sunset) in 1925 because of a love affair, Saegusa finished it. In the era of “tendency films” Mizoguchi stepped to the forefront, and Saegusa followed him.
As a result of the Kanto earthquake in 1923, the Nikkatsu film studio in Mukojima/Tokyo was closed, and the main staff made its way to Kyoto. Soon after Nikkatsu moved the studio to Uzumasa, which became its base for mass film production. In some ways this marked the first Golden Age of the Japanese film industry (1925-1935), with such directors as Mizoguchi, Tomu Uchida, Daisuke Ito, Mironu Murata, and Genjiro Saegusa. – YONEO OTA (Professor, University of Visual Arts, Osaka)
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