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Takamine Hideko made this film while she was 13, towards the end of her days as a child star but well before her best work. In "Misemono okoku" Takamine and her family arrive to Tokyo from the countryside on a tourist bus. We see a bunch of sites, modern buildings and Japanese ones, while cozy American-styled music plays in the background. The family ends up in a fairground, where the wallet of the father gets stolen while he is about to buy a doll for the daughter. The rest of the film - which is a loose narrative to say the least - wonders around the fairground on a sunny day and shows us the multitude of things therein.

The film was directed by Matsui Minoru, who made a total of 18 films. I have seen none, so I am unable to make comparisons, but Matsui did begin his career as an assistant director for Shimizu and Naruse, both of whom have more ambition in their weaker entries than this film. "Misemono okoku" is harmless, there is nothing offensive about it, but it feels like we are killing time here. Anything can be thrown in to get the film to a full hour's duration: circus, kabuki plays, musical theatre, you name it. Besides Takamine, the film stars the popular chubby character actor Kishii Akira, with whom Takamine played siblings in the following year's "Niji tatsu oka", which was also not a masterpiece, but a much more interesting film to watch through.

Oh, where to begin with "Good Sam" (1948). It is widely agreed, that the film broke Leo McCarey's 10+ year streak of masterful films. McCarey, who directed and produced the film while also contributing to the story, would never truly recover from this blow, and his subsequent filmography includes three debated entries and one successful re-make of an old McCarey classic. "Good Sam" is therefore an easy film to glance over, as it returned its maker back amidst the mortals. It is also unlike most American comedies of the time, which may have been the reason why the same critics who loved "Make Way for Tomorrow" (1937) and "Going My Way" (1944) did not warm up to the way similar themes are tossed around in "Sam".

Gary Cooper plays Sam Clayton, a clean-cut, post-war family man loved by his community. Sam is the kindest man you could find, always willing to help anybody in distress as best he can. In another Cooper film, a character like this would be viewed as the ideal that we should all emulate, but McCarey is here to show the other side. Sam's constant helping of others grows to be a strain on his family, who are unable to lead a normal life because of it. He borrows people money while his own family lacks the money to buy a proper house for themselves. He is constantly finding new "characters" who benefit from his good nature, much to the suffering of Sam's wife Lu, played by Ann Sheridan.

I think "Good Sam" is a fantastic premise, as the central dilemma is something that all people will - and should! - sometimes have to consider. Helping others is important, it is a central aspect of what defines us as human. But empathy is only good when the behavior of others mirrors it, otherwise a good man can end up being used. I like the fact that the film does not play all its cards immediately, but gives us different view points. Considering that the film is trying both to be funny and to be moving and frustrating, it reached these goals with me. I laughed, I was moved, and I definitely was frustrated...

Where does it fall flat then? It is hard to pinpoint really. The film starts off very comedic. Ann Sheridan gives a wonderful performance as the housewife pushed to the edge, and Cooper's buffoonish behavior and general inability to read his lady is certainly a fitting catalyst for Sheridan's wrath. The characters are well-established as they both get laughs and serve as each other's straight men. But as the film went on, I started to feel that the comedic nature of the main dilemma does not fit to the everyday realism of the narrative. McCarey has taken delightfully comedic characters and inserted them to a very serious film. And it is the mismatch of it all that breaks the experience. There is both serious comedy and funny melodrama here, and someday someone will call this a forgotten masterpiece, but for me the whole is shaky even if the parts work.

There is also individual elements that clash, the worst of which being the inclusion of a suicide subplot that gets treated as if killing yourself is not a big deal in the slightest. The woman in question (Joan Lorring) attempts to kill herself because she fell in love with a treacherous married man, and the film lets Sheridan shame her, while simultaneously suggesting, that the cure for this woman is to find a nice, unmarried man and get married. How very psychological indeed. Lorring also gives the film's worst performance, as she is way too polished for a suicidal woman.

"Good Sam" also resembles better films, and feels therefore worse than it is. Billy Wilder's "The Apartment" (1960) is a more famous serious comedy about a guy who gets taken advantage of, also including a more believable suicide-attempt narrative, treated with respect to the sore subject matter. Yet the film that "Good Sam" will bring to mind for most is Capra's "It's a Wonderful Life" (1946), another tale about an every-man who is always helping others but can't catch a break for himself. McCarey's film also finds its protagonist in a bar, on Christmas. Compared to George Bailey, Sam Clayton looks very two dimensional.

Even with all the negative sides addressed, "Good Sam" is easily worth a watch. McCarey is one of the all time greats and lack of perfection is not a crime. His film carries serious merit and is very ambitious, and although I mentioned two similar films, it actually does stand out from a crowd with its style and subject.

"Ani imôto" (Older Brother, Younger Sister, 1936) is an adaptation of the story by Muro Saisei, that was later filmed by Naruse Mikio (1953) and Imai Tadashi (1976). Though the director of this first version, Kimura Sotoji, is by no means as famous a filmmaker as Naruse or even Imai, I would call this the definitive take. Kimura was not one of Japan's more prolific filmmakers, as he made a relatively modest 26 films between 1930 and 1962. 1930's was his busy decade, and this early sound film is a positive introduction to him. Kimura had previously worked as an assistant director for the famous proletariat-film "Nani ga kanojo o sô saseta ka" (What Made Her Do It?, 1930) and whereas "Ani imôto" is not as scandalous or as overtly dramatic, it does show some similarities and features cinematography heavily inspired or reminiscent of the Soviet films of the era.

I had previously seen the Naruse film and thought it was good, but not great. You could clearly see that Naruse was working with old material, as the characters felt thin for post-war individuals and the plotline felt more dramatic than it had any need to be. I prefer the Kimura version because it feels more fresh with its material. Another winning ingredient is that this is more of a class depiction, full of social realism about the conditions of Japan's poorest workers. It does still have the same story about the sister getting pregnant and the brother hating her for it, but it is mixed in with other elements which makes the film feel more fulfilling than the Naruse version, which is one third longer. I did not recognize much of the actors in the Kimura film, and possibly that is a win for Naruse, but all in all I was surprised about the quality of the 1936 film, considering that it is by such an unknown director.

So I would recommend this to fans of 1930's Japanese films and for people who want to see Soviet style depiction of workers. I think the way this film has been put together technically resonated with me more, than the narrative material it has going for it.