Mieko Takamine is the newest teacher at a girl's school. The headmistress explains that they instruct these girls in how to be ladies, so lose the rube accent. Miss Takamine does, but it doesn't happen overnight. One schoolgirl in particular, Mitsuko Miura, plays cruel pranks. In doing so, she gradually alienates all the other girls, who have come to admire Miss Takamine.
Hiroshi Shimizu's movie shows his kindly concern with the young, a theme that would dominate his movies for the rest of his career. Other directors admired his ability to make movies easily; Mizoguchi said "Me and Ozu get movies made by hard work, but Shimizu is a genius." Perhaps so; perhaps just the sort of self-effacing politeness Japan esteemed.
I've seen enough of Shimizu's work to recognize some themes; there's the bus that gives Miss Miura a ride, that made me think of MR. THANK YOU. There's the instructors teaching by example, rather than words. Mostly, it's about the attitude: caring. It's not an outstanding movie, certainly not in Shimizu's corpus of almost 150 features, but it certainly held my attention for an hour and a half.
