Geisha Girl

The plot to "Geisha Girl" seems much like one you'd see in an Abbott & Costello, Martin & Lewis or Three Stooges flick, though with the far less funny duo of handsome Steve Forrest and goofy Archer MacDonald. The pair are soldiers on leave from the Korean War and, like most soldiers on leave, head for R&R in occupied Japan. However, they don't want folks to know they are soldiers and decide to buy some civilian clothes. What they don't know is that some evil types have hidden some explosive pills in one of the jackets...and they spend much of the story trying to retrieve these explosive pills from the Americans.

So is this film any good? Well, it's not terrible! And, it gives you a nice look at post-war Japan. Overall, pleasant and undemanding...and a bit better than I expected.

By the way, if Archer MacDonald isn't familiar to you, it's because this striking looking actor committed suicide only two years after making this film. He was only 30 and supposedly was so despondent about his failed marriage that he took his life. Such a waste.

Steve Forrest and Archer MacDonald are being rotated out of Korea back to the States, with a stopover in Tokyo. Forrest tries to date up airline rep Martha Hyer, then he and MacDonald set out to see the sights. However, being privates, everything is off limits. So they find a black market store where they can buy civilian clothes.

This seemed a good set-up for a cultural clash comedy, and for a while it seemed that it would go that way, with a lot of location shooting in Tokyo, a kabuki show, some interesting night-club spots. Perhaps, I thought, they would run afoul of the authorities and spend time on the run, while Forrest courted Miss Hyer. But no. It seems that in the pocket of one of the set of clothes they bought was a bottle of explosive pills powerful enough to blow up an island. And the local police chief called in a stage magician with a super-evil eye to help track down the baddies trying to get their hands on the pills. So what could have been a decent, if standard comedy turned into a Bowery Boys movie.

Mind you, it was a lot better than the typical Bowery Boys fare. The gags are well executed, the performances are good, and Miss Hyer, who was married to the writer and co-director at the time, gives a snappy performance. It's watchable, even if the humor seems to border on the hysterical. However, it won't go on my list of movies that demand rewatching.

I don't think I've ever seen a movie quite like this. Apparently made in Japan during the occupation, it's a weird little mix of atom bomb paranoia and realistic portrayal of Japanese culture. They also throw in a hypnotist as if things weren't bizarre enough. I wouldn't call it a good film but it is a worthwhile experience from a historical perspective to glimpse a little bit of Japan shortly after the war.

This movie is not so much entertaining as it is mystifying. For whom was this film intended? How did it get made, and why?

The plot: Japanese gangster types (with suggestions that they are backed by communists) have developed little pills, each of which is more powerful than an atomic bomb. They intend to demonstrate the power of the pills, then hold the world for ransom. Enter two G.I.s on leave who bumble into the plot. Add a airline stewardess drafted to play spy (!), a geisha house, and a mesmerist, and you have what was intended to be a wacky comedy, but instead comes off rather like a propaganda film for cultural tolerance.

Large parts of the film are given over to sympathetic views of Japanese artistic traditions, with extensive stage performances. When the G.I.s make lascivious assumptions about the geishas, their host is careful to point out that Americans have the wrong idea about geishas, and explains their years of training to become perfect entertainers.

But in contrast other Japanese are portrayed as bumbling buffoons -- the gangsters are silly rather than threatening (played very large, even to the point of eyepatches), the cops are of the Keystone variety, and the mesmerist looks like the inspiration for Johnny Carson's "Great Karnak".

This film really feels like it was made with the army's blessing (uniformed soldiers appear as actors, with their army rank given in the credits) and was designed to be shown to the troops stationed overseas. On the one hand, the film preaches respect for Japanese culture and art. On the other hand, Japanese are shown as non-threatening and not to be taken seriously.

And parts of the film look like they were designed to be filmed in 3-D!

Truly, an odd little film. It gives a glimpse of early-50's occupied Japan (even to the point of a woman turning her face away from Americans she passes on the street) but the comedy relief is weak and overall the film makes one's thumb itch for the fast forward. I wouldn't go far out of my way to see it (nor did I -- just happened upon it and back it goes on the trade stack) but if you stumble across it you might give it a spin.

Geisha Girl has a little bit of everything. Archie (Archer MacDonald) and Rocky (Steve Forrest) are two G.I. privates leaving Korea for the US. They board a Northwest Airlines flight and meet pretty stewardess Peggy Burnes (Martha Hyer). Peggy is actually a US secret agent working with the Japanese police to find some exploding pills with the power of an atomic bomb. When they land for a stopover in Tokyo, Rocky and Archie go looking for fun in various black market establishments. At one, which is the hideout of the foreign spies, the MPs raid the place and one of the bad guys slips a bottle with the exploding pills into Archie's pocket. After that, it's a madcap race to see who get those pills. Everyone winds up at the head villain's house where much slapstick ensues. The viewer is treated to entertaining shows put on by Japanese dancers and geisha girls. Quite a bit of Japanese culture is shown during this movie. At one point, Peggy disguises herself as a geisha to get out of the house and down to the police station. Also, the Japanese police enlist the help of Zoro (not Zorro), a hypnotist who can mesmerize people simply by looking into their eyes. Zoro has seemingly great magical powers. It's mostly a comedy, but Geisha Girl has a little bit of everything in it. I rate it 7 stars because of the dance numbers and the realistic glimpse of Japanese culture the viewer gets.

Martha Hyer and. C. Ray Stahl were married during this period and Oriental Evil (1951) and Geisha Girl (952) were both made on location in Japan. In her autobiography, Martha says she and Ray lived in Japan for about a year filming these movies. She comments about how incredibly polite the Japanese people always were.

Geisha Girl is definitely worth a look for the entertaining dance numbers and realistic view of Japan.