Review by barevfilm

"THE BAD SLEEP WELL", "(1960), original title Waui yatsu hodo yoku nemuru, is basically a study of corruption in big Business with intimations, particularly in the telephone conversation at the end, that orders come from higher up, shades of Watergate in 1960 Japan. Toshiro Mifune, trading samuai robes for a business suit, appears in a very uncharacteristic role, emphasizing once again what a really fine all-around actor he can be under the right direction. The usual Kurosawa repertory actors are there: Mori Masayuki, the gentlemanly samurai who was victimized by Mifune in Rashomon (1950), pays him back as Iwabuchi the super-evil company president who orders Mifune's erasure; Shimura Takashi (chieftain of the Seven Samurai) plays the vice-president in what is perhaps his only role as a 'warui yatsu' (bad guy), and many other familiar faces in unfamiliar roles. This film, one of the most contemporary in the Kurosawa repertoire, is rarely seen in this country, largely because American film distributors operate under the delusion that the only good films coming out of Japan are samurai sword sagas.