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![Wesleyan University Press
Middletown CT 06459
www.wesleyan.edu/wespress
2017 © Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski
All rights reserved
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Ryfle, Steve author. | Godziszewski, Ed author.
Title: Ishiro Honda : a life in film, from Godzilla to
Kurosawa / Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski ; with
Yuuko Honda-Yun ; foreword by Martin Scorsese.
Description: Middletown, Connecticut : Wesleyan
University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical
references and index. |
Identifiers: Lccn 2017007286 (print) | Lccn
2017024649 (ebook) | isBn 9780819577412 (ebook) |
isBn 9780819570871 (cloth : alk. paper)
Subjects: LcsH: Honda, Ishiro, 1911–1993. | Motion
picture producers and directors—Japan—
Biography.
Classification: Lcc Pn1998.3.H68 (ebook) |
Lcc Pn1998.3.H68 r94 2017 (print) |
ddc 791.4302/33092 [B]—dc23
Lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017007286
5 4 3 2 1
Jacket photo: Ishiro Honda. Coutesy of Honda Film, Inc.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-9-2048.jpg)
![xi
Introduction
[Japanese] critics have frequently dismissed
Honda as unworthy of serious consideration,
regarding him merely as the director of
entertainment films aimed at children. By
contrast, they have elevated Kurosawa to
the status of national treasure. As for the
men themselves, by all accounts Honda and
Kurosawa had nothing but respect for one
another’s work. Prospective studies of the
history of Japanese cinema should therefore
treat Honda’s direction of monster movies
and Kurosawa’s interpretation of prestigious
sources such as Shakespeare as equally
deserving of serious discussion.
— Inuhiko Yomota, film historian
In August 1951, as Japan’s film industry was
emerging from a crippling period of war,
labor unrest, and censorship by an occu-
pying foreign power, the press welcomed
the arrival of a promising new filmmaker
named Ishiro Honda. He was of average
height at about five-foot-six but appeared
taller to others, with an upright posture and
a serious, disciplined demeanor acquired
during nearly a decade of soldiering in
the second Sino-Japanese War. There was
something a bit formal about the way he
spoke, never using slang or the Japanese
equivalent of contractions—he wasn’t a
big talker for that matter, and was usually
immersed quietly in thought—yet he was
gentle and soft-spoken, warm and likeable.
A late bloomer, Honda was already age
forty; and if not for his long military service,
he likely would have become a director
much earlier. He had apprenticed at Toho
Studios under Kajiro Yamamoto, one of
Japan’s most commercially successful and
respected directors; and he hinted at, as an
uncredited Nagoya Times reporter put it,
the “passionate literary style” and “intense
perseverance” that characterized Yama-
moto’s two most famous protégés, Akira
Kurosawa and Senkichi Taniguchi, who
were also Honda’s closest friends.
“Although their personalities may be
similar, their work is fundamentally differ-
ent,” the reporter wrote. “Ishiro Honda [is]
a man who possesses something very soft
and sweet, yet . . . his voice is heavy and
serene, giving off a feeling of melancholy
that . . . does not necessarily suit his face.
The many years he lost out at war were
surely a factor. . . . The deep emotions must
be unshakeable.”
Honda’s inclinations, it was noted, were
more realistic than artistic. He didn’t share
the “Fauvism” of Kurosawa’s painterly](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-16-2048.jpg)
![i n t r o d u c t i o n
xii
compositions.1 He took a dim view of the
flashy, stylistic film technique that some of
his contemporaries, including Kurosawa
and famed director Sadao Yamanaka,
with whom Honda had also apprenticed,
borrowed from American and European
cinema of the 1920s and 1930s.
“I do not want to deceive by using
superficial flair,” Honda said. “Technique
is an oblique problem. The most important
thing is to [honestly] depict people.” A beat
later, he was more introspective: “This may
not really be about technique. Maybe it is
just my personality. Even if I try to depict
something real, will I succeed?”
The newspaper gave Honda’s debut
film, The Blue Pearl, an A rating, declaring
it “acutely magnificent.” And with a bit of
journalistic flourish, the paper contem-
plated the future of the fledgling director,
admiring his desire to “practice rather than
preach, [to] cultivate the fundamentals of
a writer’s spirit rather than being preoccu-
pied with technique, a fascination with the
straight line without any curves or bends.
. . . How will this shining beauty, like a
young bamboo, plant his roots and survive
in the film industry?”2
A tormented scientist chooses to die along-
side Godzilla at the bottom of Tokyo Bay,
thus ensuring a doomsday device is never
used for war. An astronaut and his crew
bravely sacrifice themselves in the hope of
saving Earth from a wayward star hurtling
toward it. Castaways on a mysterious,
fogged-in island are driven mad by greed,
jealousy, and hunger for a fungus that turns
them into grotesque, walking mushrooms.
A pair of tiny twin fairies, their island
despoiled by nuclear testing, sing a beau-
tiful requiem beckoning the god-monster
Mothra to save mankind. Invaders from
drought-ridden Planet X dispatch Godzilla,
Rodan, and three-headed King Ghidorah to
conquer Earth, but an alien woman follows
her heart and foils their plan. A lonely, bul-
lied schoolboy dreams of a friendship with
Godzilla’s son, who helps the child conquer
his fears.
The cinema of Ishiro Honda brings to
life a world of tragedy and fantasy. It is a
world besieged by giant monsters, yet one
in which those same monsters ultimately
become Earth’s guardians. A world in which
scientific advancement and space explo-
ration reveal infinite possibilities, even
while unleashing forces that threaten man-
kind’s very survival. A world defined by the
horrific reality of mass destruction visited
upon Japan in World War II, yet stirring the
imaginations of adults and children around
the world for generations.
Honda’s Godzilla first appeared more
than sixty years ago, setting Tokyo afire
in what is now well understood to be a
symbolic reenactment of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. It was a major hit, ranking eighth
at the Japanese box office in a year that
also produced such masterpieces as Seven
Samurai, Musashi Miyamoto, Sansho
the Bailiff, and Twenty-Four Eyes. It was
subsequently sold for distribution in the
United States, netting sizeable returns for
Toho Studios and especially for the Ameri-
can profiteers who gave it the exploitable
new title, Godzilla, King of the Monsters! If
the triumph of Akira Kurosawa’s Rasho-
mon—which took the grand prize at the
1951 Venice International Film Festival,
and subsequently received an honorary
Academy Award—had brought postwar
Japanese cinema to the West, then it was
Honda’s monster movie that introduced
Japanese popular culture worldwide.
Only fifteen years after Pearl Harbor,
Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (famously
reedited with new footage starring Ray-](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-17-2048.jpg)
![i n t r o d u c t i o n
xiv
their survey of Japanese science fiction,
Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams:
In the U.S., the Japanese monster film
became the archetype for cheap, cheesy
disaster movies because of . . . cultural
and technological interference patterns
. . . In many cases, the original films’ ana-
morphic widescreen photography, which
lent images greater scale and depth
when properly projected, was reduced
for American showings to a smaller
format; the original stereophonic sound-
tracks (among the most technically
innovative and musically interesting in
the medium at the time) were [replaced]
and rearranged; and additional scenes
with American actors, shot on different
screen ratios, were added . . . The
American versions inevitably stripped
out the stories’ popular mythological
resonances, their evocation of Japanese
theater, and the imaginary management
of postwar collective emotions.5
Such distractions and biases were evi-
dent in the writings of American reviewers.
Variety called Mothra, one of Honda’s
most entertaining genre films, “ludicrously
written, haphazardly executed”; of The
Mysterians, it wondered if “something was
lost in translation.” Japanese film critics,
meanwhile, tended to dismiss kaiju eiga
as juvenile gimmick films. The genre’s
domestic marginalization as an otaku (fan)
phenomenon was cemented in 1969 with
the World of SF Film Encyclopedia (Sekai SF
eiga taikan), a landmark volume covering
sci-fi films by Honda and his contempo-
raries. Though published by the respected
Kinema Junpo film journal, its author
was not a mainstream critic but “monster
professor” Shoji Otomo, editor of Shonen
Magazine, a weekly children’s publication.
Thus, Honda’s career is one of contradic-
tions. In Japan he was an A-level director,
but abroad he was known only as a maker
of B movies. Despite his large output and
the popularity, longevity, and influence of
his work (director Tim Burton once called
Honda’s genre pictures “the most beautiful
movies in the whole world”), there has been
relatively little study of it beyond Godzilla.
Honda never had a number-one hit, but
his films consistently performed well at the
Japanese box office and netted substantial
foreign revenue; yet even commercial suc-
cess did not lead him to make the projects
he was most passionate about.
Not unlike the English director James
Whale—who, despite making war dramas,
light comedies, adventures, mysteries,
and the musical Show Boat (1936), is most
widely remembered for directing Univer-
sal’s Frankenstein (1931), The Invisible Man
(1933), and Bride of Frankenstein (1935)—
Honda became known for one genre even
though his output included documentaries,
dramas, war films, comedies, melodramas,
and even a yakuza (gangster) actioner
and a sports biopic. Of Honda’s forty-six
features, nearly half had nothing to do with
sci-fi, and more than a few of these films
are excellent, though underappreciated.
The “shining beauty” who planted his roots
in the business in 1951 would prove a versa-
tile craftsman driven to, as he said, “depict
something real.”
Honda’s career began with four subdued
dramas about young people navigating
the changing postwar landscape, with
themes common to gendai-geki (modern
drama) films reflecting social friction in
contemporary Japan. After The Blue Pearl
came The Skin of the South (1952), The Man
Who Came to Port (1952), and the teen
melodrama Adolescence Part 2 (1953). Then
a pair of dramas about the human cost of
Japan’s wartime hubris, Eagle of the Pacific](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-19-2048.jpg)
![xv
I n t r o d u c t I o n
(1953) and Farewell Rabaul (1954), presaged
the cautionary tale Honda would tell next
in Godzilla (1954).
As Japan’s harsh economic conditions
slowly improved, Honda entered a second,
more optimistic period, and through the
early 1960s he would frequently incorporate
music and humor in both his monster and
mainstream films. Although the press had
initially raised lofty expectations, Honda
now became a member of Toho Studios’
stable of contracted program-picture
directors, craftsmen respected for their
commercial durability and their ability to
deliver films on time and on budget, while
largely toiling in the critical shadows of
the resurgent early masters (Yasujiro Ozu,
Mikio Naruse) and rising auteurs (Kuro-
sawa, Kon Ichikawa, Masaki Kobayashi,
among others). As such, Japan’s critics
essentially dismissed him; of his films,
only The Blue Pearl made Kinema Junpo’s
annual best-of list. It would be decades
before Godzilla would earn worldwide
critical acceptance as a significant entry in
Japan’s postwar cinema, and even longer
before several of Honda’s nongenre films
would begin to be reappraised.
Though he was instrumental in creating
iconic films known around the globe for
more than sixty years, Honda has been
overlooked as a director deserving scholarly
attention. That his talents and interests
went far beyond the narrow limits of the
monster-movie genre, and that he effec-
tively had two overlapping but very differ-
ent careers, one invisible outside Japan,
remains little known. And so his story has
not really been told, and his body of work
not fully considered. This book looks at
Honda’s life, reexamines his films, recog-
nizes his substantial achievements, and
casts light on his contributions to Japanese
and world cinema. Through a combination
of biography, analysis—including the first
study, in any language, of his entire filmog-
raphy—and industrial history, it not only
tells how Honda created a world of fearful
yet familiar monsters, but also recalls
the experiences and relationships that
informed his movies, including his long
years at war and the endless nightmares
that followed. And it explores a lasting
mystery of Honda’s legacy: why, for reasons
difficult to understand, he did not parlay
the broad popularity of his genre pictures
into the freedom to make the films he most
wanted to; and why, while close friends and
colleagues Akira Kurosawa and Eiji Tsubu-
raya used their own successes to gain inde-
pendence from the studio system, Honda
remained committed to it and accepted the
constraints placed on his work and career.
“I’ve always felt that films should have a
specific form,” Honda said. “Cinema should
be entertaining, and should give much
visual enjoyment to the public. Many things
can be expressed by literature or painting,
but cinema has a particular advantage in its
visual aspect. I try to express things in film
that other arts cannot approach. . . .
“My monster films have met with a great
commercial success in Japan and elsewhere
[but] that doesn’t mean I’m strictly limited
to this type of film. I think I make too many
monster films, but that’s because of the
direction of Toho.”6
In this excerpt from a 1968 interview,
Honda indicated his simple and unaffected
philosophy toward film, but also hinted
that his creativity was stifled by the studio’s
business strategy. Despite his statement to
the contrary, by this time Honda was exclu-
sively making monster movies, a source of
frustration largely responsible for his even-
tual departure from Toho. It was Honda’s
personality—a quiet and gentle spirit, a](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-20-2048.jpg)
![i n t r o d u c t i o n
xvi
self-effacing and selfless tendency to put
the needs of others before his own, a desire
to create harmony and avoid conflict, and
his strong sense of loyalty—that enabled
him to thrive under the Toho system,
within the parameters set by the company.
Honda’s reserved nature was a great asset,
the reason he was so beloved by colleagues,
but also a liability.
While Kurosawa reinterpreted Shake-
speare and Dostoevsky in a postwar Japa-
nese context, Honda was similarly inspired
by Merian C. Cooper’s King Kong (1933),
George Pal’s War of the Worlds (1953)—two
films he frequently cited as influences—and
the productions of Walt Disney to create his
world of tragedy and fantasy, resembling
the Hollywood prototypes but distinctly
Japanese in viewpoint. Honda considered
himself an entertainment filmmaker, and
he admired fellow travelers; in later years,
he would prefer the works of George Lucas
and Steven Spielberg to Stanley Kubrick’s
2001: A Space Odyssey. He was unabashedly
populist, putting the viewer’s experience
before his agenda behind the camera.
“No matter how artistic a film can be, if
no one can appreciate it, it is no good,” he
said late in life. “Maybe that was my weak
point, that I never thought that pursuing
my theme was absolute. That is the way I
live. I was never actually in the position
where I could say or push my idea on
everybody . . . like, ‘No matter who says
what, this is my movie.’ After all, I grew up
in the film studio system . . . I had to make
my movies in that system. That’s one reason
why I wasn’t completely strict about my
theme, but at least I tried to show what I
wanted to say, as best I could under the
circumstances.
“I have a really strong [connection] with
the audience. It’s not about treating the
audience just as my customer . . . I always
thought about how [I could make them]
feel what I was thinking about. I always
tried to be very honest with myself. I tried
to show my feelings directly and have the
audience feel my excitement. That’s how I
tried to make my films.”7
Honda’s loyalty showed in many aspects
of life. He remained loyal to his country
even when war pulled him away from
the job he loved, and even when he was
unfairly, unofficially punished for an act of
treason with which he had no involvement
and was forced to serve much longer than
usual. He was a reluctant soldier who
avoided fighting unless necessary, but he
carried out his duties, motivated to survive
the war and return to his family and his
work. He remained loyal to the studio even
when it nearly fell apart, while others were
revolting and defecting, and while younger
men were promoted before him. He
resolved to continue making feature films
even as colleagues joined the rise of tele-
vision. And he stayed with the studio even
after it pigeonholed him as a sci-fi man.
Still, he wasn’t the stereotypical Japanese
employee blindly serving his company.
Honda saw the director’s role as a collabo-
rative one, as a team leader rather than an
author. “There is a great deal of discussion
during the writing of the script,” he said.
“But once filming starts, the discussions
are ended. Once I became part of Toho,
I no longer had reason to complain [to] my
employer. One may have objections before
joining a company, but once you are inside,
you really cannot. That is my opinion. [But]
if I have the least objection to a script,
I certainly do not make the film.”8
With hindsight, Honda would express
misgivings about his place in the film
hierarchy. “The best way to make a film is
. . . how Chaplin did,” he said, after retiring.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-21-2048.jpg)
![xvii
I n t r o d u c t I o n
“You have your own money, you direct,
and act and cast it by yourself. That is a real
moviemaker. [People] like us, we get money
from the company and make whatever
film they want. Well, that is not quite a real
moviemaker.”9
For Honda’s generation, the studio was
the only path to directing. It wasn’t until
the late 1940s that Kurosawa and a handful
of directors would begin to challenge the
status quo and pave the way for indepen-
dent cinema to come later. And it’s not
difficult to understand Honda’s allegiance
to the system, for he entered Toho during
the 1930s, when by one measure, film
output, the Japanese movie business was
the biggest in the world, a position it would
regain during the 1950s and 1960s, coincid-
ing with the peak of Honda’s career. Japan’s
system was modeled after Hollywood, with
each studio cultivating its own contracted
stars, directors, and writers, and building
audience loyalty by focusing on key genres.
Just as Warner Bros. became famous for
gangster pictures, or mGm for musicals,
Toho became known for big war epics dur-
ing the 1930s and 1940s, and later it would
excel in white-collar comedies, lavish
musicals, film noir–type thrillers, women’s
dramas—and science fiction films, most
directed by Honda. Japan’s apprenticeship
program was, by some accounts, better
than Hollywood’s, with fledgling directors
being assigned a mentor, who taught them
the techniques of the craft and the politics
of the business. Each studio was a tight-knit
family of highly talented creative types.
Inuhiko Yomota, perhaps Japan’s most
highly respected film historian, believes
Honda was “regarded as an artisan film-
maker capable of making various types of
movies ranging from highbrow films to
‘teen pics’ within the restrictions of the
Japanese studio system.” Honda was among
those studio-based directors who did not
possess the truly individualistic style of
an auteur, yet succeeded because of their
ability to use genre conventions as guide-
lines to be embellished and blended, rather
than strict rules. To that end, Honda impro-
vised: Mothra is part fantasy, King Kong vs.
Godzilla incorporates salaryman comedy,
Atragon contrasts a lost-civilization fantasy
with Japan’s lost wartime empire, The
H-Man combines monsters with gangsters,
All Monsters Attack turns its genre inside
out, and so on. Often the theme was a
reflection of Honda himself. He would
describe making films as the culmination of
a lifelong process of observing and studying
the world around him. “Only if you have
your own [point-of-view] can you see things
when you direct or create something,” he
would say. “Seeing things through my own
eyes, making films, and living my life in my
own way . . . I try to gradually create the
new me. That is what it is all about.”10
Honda’s personality was evident in
his approach to filmmaking and in his
self-assessment. In a preface to a memoir
published posthumously, he wrote, “Ishiro
Honda, the individual, is nothing amusing
or interesting. He is really just an ordinary,
regular old person and a regular movie fan.”
In the same text, he said, “I am probably a
filmmaker who least looks like one.” And
still later, he described himself as “A weed
in the flower garden . . . Never the main
flower.” He preferred not to command the
spotlight, but to be noticed for his achieve-
ments. “People who come to see the main
flower will notice [me]. ‘Hmm, look at this
flower here.’”
In outlining his directing philosophy,
Honda emphasized collaboration and
cooperation. “The most hated word is
‘fight,’” he said. Dialogue and understand-](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-22-2048.jpg)
![i n t r o d u c t i o n
xviii
ing were keys to successful filmmaking:
“Talk to each other. That’s the way to get an
agreement.”
Like Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, and
John Ford, Honda had his de facto stock
company of performers, many of whom
called themselves the “Honda family.”
There were major Toho actors such as Ryo
Ikebe and Akira Takarada, and sirens such
as Kumi Mizuno, Mie Hama, and Akiko
Wakabayashi, plus a host of character
players. They became the faces of Honda’s
body of work, appearing in both genre and
nongenre films. Without exception, they
would describe Honda as quiet and even
tempered. He rarely coached actors directly
about their performance; his direction
consisted of subtle course correction rather
than instruction.
“Actors have many ‘drawers,’ with many
things inside, and he was good at pulling
open the exact drawer he needed each
time,” said Koji Kajita, Honda’s longtime
assistant director. “He always suggested
what to do, but he never demanded, so he
could pull the best out of each actor. I’m
sure the actors have no memories of being
yelled at or anything like that. That wasn’t
his way.
“The biggest thing for him was how to
maintain the concept that he had for the
script,” Kajita continued. “He had this
concept in his head, and when the filming
would start to stray from it, he didn’t yell.
Instead he very calmly spoke up. It was very
firm.
“He had his own style, this way of think-
ing . . . he never got mad, didn’t rush, but
he still expressed his thoughts and made it
clear when something was different from
what he wanted, and he corrected things
quietly. He persevered. That was his style.
I was with him for seventeen films, and I
never saw him get mad. His facial expres-
sion and manner was gentle and calm . . .
He was that kind of director . . . He made
each film as he wanted, like rolling the
actors around in the palm of his hand.”
“[Honda] never forced anything on
the actors,” said actor Hiroshi Koizumi.
“If there was something he didn’t like or
that needed to be changed, he had this
soft manner to let us know what he really
wanted. He didn’t like it when there was a
prearranged result . . . he always wanted to
discuss things and then decide how to do
something.”
To those who worked for him, he was
Honda-san—literally, Mr. Honda; to those
who knew him well, he was the more famil-
iar Ino-san (derived from inoshishi, the first
Kanji in his name), or Honda-kun. Whether
on the film set, out in public, or at home,
he treated everyone as equals, just as his
mentor Kajiro Yamamoto had taught him.
“Everything I do is based on humanism,
or love towards people,” Honda would say.
“My way of life is all about love towards
people. I look at others that way . . . what
is their idea of human love? When I make
films, it is the same thing . . .
“Making people obey me is not my idea
[of directing]. The entire staff understands
what we are doing, and they direct all
their energy and skill towards the screen.
The director should put all those people
together . . . that is how a good film [is
made]. I really believe that my Honda
group had lots of fun, always. When people
have fun, they enjoy their work. When they
enjoy their work . . . they try their best.
I think my workplace was always that way.
Maybe each person had personal likes and
dislikes each time, but once the camera
started rolling, everybody tried their best.
There may be some other directors who
have a really strong personality and show
that through their films . . . That’s why all](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-23-2048.jpg)
![xix
I n t r o d u c t I o n
movies come out differently . . . That’s the
process of creation.”11
Susan Sontag’s 1965 essay “The Imagination
of Disaster” brought science fiction cinema
to the intellectual fore, and was one of the
first American writings to critique Honda’s
body of work in a serious manner. Sontag
wrote, “Science fiction films are not about
science. They are about disaster, which is
one of the oldest subjects of art. In science
fiction films disaster is rarely viewed inten-
sively; it is always extensive. It is a matter
of quantity and ingenuity. If you will, it is a
question of scale. But the scale, particularly
in the widescreen color films (of which the
ones by the Japanese director Inoshiro [sic]
Honda and the American director George
Pal are technically the most convincing and
visually the most exciting), does raise the
matter to another level.”12
In surveying the genre, Sontag identified
recurring motifs, citing Rodan, The Mysteri-
ans and Battle in Outer Space as displays
of “the aesthetics of destruction, with the
peculiar beauties to be found in wreaking
havoc [that are] the core of a good science
fiction film.” Sontag also noted themes
that Honda’s work shares with American
genre films of the period: concern about
the ethical pursuit of science; radiation
casualties and mutations resulting from
nuclear testing; moral oversimplification;
a “U.N. fantasy” of united international
warfare, with science as “the great unifier”;
war imagery; and the depiction of mass
destruction from an external and imper-
sonal point of view, showing the audience
the thrilling awe of cities crumbling but not
the death and suffering that result.
Sontag failed, however, to detect the
culturally specific subtleties that separate
Japanese science fiction films, informed
by the atomic bombings, from American
ones, influenced by fears of nuclear war
with the Soviet Union. Perhaps the lone
Western scholar to define this difference
was Donald Richie, the distinguished histo-
rian of Japanese cinema, who saw Godzilla,
Rodan, et al., not simply as a Cold War–era
phenomenon but part of a unique film
cycle that expressed the prevailing national
attitude regarding the bomb in the 1950s: a
lamentation for the tragedy of Hiroshima,
an acceptance of its inevitability, and an
awareness that the sense of melancholy
would pass. Richie identified this feeling
as mono no aware (roughly translated as
“sympathetic sadness”).
Richie wrote, “This is the authentic
Japanese attitude toward death and disaster
. . . which the West has never understood.
The bomb, like the war, like death itself,
was something over which no one had any
control; something which could not be
helped; what we mean by an ‘act of God.’
The Japanese, in moments of stress if not
habitually, regard life as the period of
complete insecurity that it is; and the truth
of this observation is graphically illustrated
in a land yearly ravaged by typhoons, a
country where the very earth quakes daily.
The bomb, at first, was thought of as just
another catastrophe in a land already over-
whelmed with them.”13
Richie’s analogy helps explain why the
arrival of Godzilla, Honda’s monster mani-
festation of the bomb, resembles both a war
and one of Japan’s extreme weather events;
indeed, when it first comes ashore, God-
zilla is obscured by a fierce storm. No one
questions why the monster attacks Tokyo,
though it has no apparent purpose other
than destruction, nor why it returns again,
just as typhoons predictably hit Japan’s
capital every summer. It also explains why
people respond as they would to a natural
disaster. An electrical barrier is built around](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-24-2048.jpg)
![i n t r o d u c t i o n
xx
the city, like sandbags against a flood, and
citizens seek safety at high ground, as if
fleeing a tsunami. Similarly, Rodan creates
a metaphorical hurricane, and the Mysteri-
ans cause a giant forest fire and landslide.
Sometimes, like a sudden earthquake,
Honda’s monsters disrupt the humdrum
of everyday life: Godzilla’s footfalls come
while a family idly passes time in the living
room, a giant insect bursts into a home
and frightens a young mother, or a woman
taking a bath spies a giant robot outside the
window.
For Honda, the monsters’ suggestion of
natural disaster was also rooted in things he
witnessed on the battlefront. “During the
war, the Chinese people did not run away
when there was shooting between soldiers
near their fields,” Honda said. “To them,
we were just like a storm. They thought of
us as [like] a natural disaster, otherwise
they would not have continued living there
in such a dangerous place . . . For me, the
monsters were like that. Just [like] a natural
disaster.”14
“I am responsible for tying Honda to special
effects movies,” producer Tomoyuki Tanaka
once confessed. “If I hadn’t, he might
have become a director just like [Mikio]
Naruse.”15
Like the respected Naruse, and like all
fine directors, Honda made films chroni-
cling his time and place. Postwar Japan was
a crucible of social, political, and economic
change, as the veneer of Westernization
continued to obscure centuries-old culture.
Honda’s early work followed what scholar
Joan Mellen calls “the major theme in
Japanese films . . . the struggle between
one’s duty and the individual desire to be
independent and free of traditional values.”
His protagonists were young people, torn
between their parents’ ideals and their
own, and the conflict often centered on
an arranged but unwanted marriage.
During the second half of the 1950s, Honda
was groomed as a specialist in women’s
stories, and made a number of films about
independent-minded young women and
their changing roles at home and at work.
Honda’s handful of women’s films, like
Naruse’s, question Japan’s gender norms
and depict female passions and disappoint-
ments; but Honda’s world is a far more
hopeful place, his characters less tragic.
Honda had apprenticed with Naruse briefly
and admired Naruse’s “sturdy rhythm” and
talent for “[showing] people’s thinking in
very special, quiet times.” Honda didn’t
believe he was directly influenced by the
melodramatic Naruse style, but acknowl-
edged, “I had the same kind of things
in me.”16
Some of Honda’s recurring themes and
motifs were evident even before Godzilla.
For instance, The Skin of the South offers
images of a natural disaster and the
destruction of a town, and presents a
scientist as the trustworthy authority in
a crisis and a greedy villain exploiter of
indigenous people and the environment,
two frequent Honda archetypes. From The
Blue Pearl through Terror of Mechagodzilla,
his last feature, and many times in between,
Honda’s drama hinged on a character’s
sacrificial death, self-inflicted or otherwise,
to restore honor, save others from harm,
express deep love, or a combination
thereof. Japan’s beautiful and dangerous
seas and mountains served as visual and
thematic symbols of nature’s power from
the very beginning; a mountain boy him-
self, and an avid hiker, Honda would fre-
quently show a sort of reverence for Japan’s
majestic bluffs by having his characters
trekking uphill, a visual motif reappearing
in numerous films. And throughout his](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-25-2048.jpg)
![xxi
I n t r o d u c t I o n
filmography, Honda utilized regional
locations, culture, and minutiae to enhance
authenticity, from local pearl divers and
Shinto ceremony dancers in Godzilla to the
obon festival signs written in reverse script,
as per regional custom, in The Mysterians.
Honda’s preference for a trio of protago-
nists—sometimes a love triangle, often just
three friends—was also there from the first.
The uneasy postwar Japan-US alliance
underlies many of Honda’s science fiction
films, and while Godzilla and especially
Mothra might be interpreted as somewhat
anti-American, Honda was increasingly
optimistic about the relationship. In his
idealized world, America and the “new
Switzerland” of Japan are leaders of a
broad, United Nations–based coalition
reliant on science and technology to protect
mankind. Scientists are highly influential,
while politicians are ineffective or invisible.
The Japan Self-Defense Forces bravely
defend the homeland and employ glorified,
high-tech hardware; but military operations
often fail, and force alone rarely repels the
threat. Assistance comes from monsters,
a deus ex machina, or human ingenuity.
Honda was also frequently concerned with
the dehumanizing effects of technology,
greed, or totalitarianism.
Honda relied on his cinematographers
and art directors to create the look of his
films; thus the noirish style of Godzilla,
made with a crew borrowed from Mikio
Naruse, is completely unlike the larger-
than-life look of the sci-fi films shot in color
and scope just a few years later by Honda’s
longtime cameraman Hajime Koizumi. He
was less concerned with visual aesthetics
than with theme and entertainment.
Therefore, in analyzing Honda’s work,
the authors weight these and other story-
related criteria, such as tone, character-
ization, actors’ performances, editing
(under the Toho system, editors executed
cuts as instructed by the director), pacing,
structure, use of soundtrack music, and so
on, more heavily than technique or com-
position. The magnificent special effects of
Eiji Tsuburaya are discussed in this same
context; detailed information about Tsu-
buraya’s techniques is available from other
sources.17
Honda believed in simplicity of theme.
“Yama-san [Kajiro Yamamoto] always used
to say . . . the theme of a story must be
something that can be precisely described
in three clean sentences,” Honda said. “And
it must be a story that has a very clear state-
ment to make. [If] you must go on and on
explaining who goes where and does what
[it] will not be entertaining. This, for me, is a
golden rule.”
Research for this project was conducted
over a four-year period and included inter-
views conducted in Japan with Honda’s
family and colleagues; archival discovery of
documents, including Honda’s annotated
scripts and other papers, studio memoran-
dums, Japanese newspaper and magazine
clippings dating to the 1950s, and other
materials; consultation of numerous Japa-
nese- and English-language publications,
including scholarly and trade books on
film, history, and culture; consulting previ-
ously published and unpublished writings
by and interviews with Honda; locating and
viewing Honda’s filmography, including the
non–science fiction films, the great majority
of which are unavailable commercially; and
translation of large volumes of Japanese-
language materials into English for study.
Only the original, Japanese-language
editions of Honda’s films are studied here,
as they best represent the director’s intent
and achievement. As of this writing, all of
Honda’s science fiction films are commer-](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-26-2048.jpg)
![xxiii
I n t r o d u c t I o n
Honda rediscovering his love of filmmaking
while providing a bedrock of support for
“The Emperor,” his oldest and closest
friend.
It is a little-known fact that Kurosawa
once ranked Godzilla number thirty-four
on his list of one hundred favorite films,
higher than acclaimed works by Ozu,
Ford, Capra, Hawks, Fellini, Truffaut,
Bergman, Antonioni, and others. In doing
so, Kurosawa wrote: “Honda-san is really
an earnest, nice fellow. Imagine . . . what
you would do if a monster like Godzilla
emerged. Normally one would forget every-
thing, abandon his duty, and simply flee.
Wouldn’t you? But the [authorities] in this
movie properly and sincerely lead people
[to safety], don’t they? That is typical of
Honda-san. I love it. Well, he was my best
friend. As you know, I am a pretty obstinate
and demanding person. Thus, the fact that
I never had problems with him was due to
his [good-natured] personality.”20
Honda’s story is about a filmmaker
whose quietude harbored visions of war
and the wrath of Godzilla, whose achieve-
ments were largely unrecognized, and
whose thrilling world of monsters was both
his cross to bear and his enduring triumph.
“It is my regret that I couldn’t make a
film that I would consider [the greatest] of
my life,” Honda said. “Each time I did my
best, so for that I have no regret. But when
I see my films later, there is always a spot
where I feel like I should have done it this
way, or I should have stood up for myself
against the company. I do regret that.
“[However] it was definitely my pleasure
that I was able to make something that
people can remember . . . If I had not
made Godzilla or The Mysterians, even if I
would have received some kind of [critical]
prize, it wouldn’t be the same. There is
nothing like the happiness I get from those
things.”21
noteS on the text
For familiarity and ease of reading,
Japanese names are printed in the Western
manner, with the subject’s given name fol-
lowed by the surname, e.g., “Ishiro Honda”
rather than “Honda Ishiro.” Macrons (dia-
critical marks) are not utilized in the text.
Foreign films are referenced by their
official English-language title at the time
of this book’s publication. This may be
different from the title under which a film
was originally released in English-language
territories. For films with no official English
title, a translation of the Japanese title is
given.
For Ishiro Honda’s films, the original
Japanese-language titles and their trans-
lations, if different from the English titles,
are provided in the filmography following
the text. For other films, the English title
or translation is followed by the native-
language title in parentheses on first
reference in the text.
Japanese terms are presented in italics,
followed by their English meaning in
parentheses. Terms familiar to Western
readers, such as anime, kabuki, manga,
and samurai, are not italicized.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-28-2048.jpg)
![5
A B o y f r o m t h e m o u n t A i n s
never did. “None of us really wanted to take
after my father and be a monk,” he would
recall. “So we started learning about science
instead.” Hokan did not try to persuade the
boys to live monastic lives, instead urging
each one to follow his own path. Though
hardly well off, the Hondas made sure their
sons were educated. Even with the new
reforms, compulsory elementary school
was just six years; after that, children from
poorer backgrounds often worked to help
support their families while students of
higher economic or social status continued
to middle school (roughly equivalent to
present-day high school, spanning ages
thirteen to eighteen), and then finally to
high school, vocational school, college, or
military academy. The Hondas were able to
send their son Takamoto to medical school
and pay half his tuition; the boy worked to
pay the rest and became a military doctor
afterward.
Asahi was an agricultural village of about
thirty families, mostly rice farmers and
silk makers. The roads to the nearest town
were narrow and treacherous. There was no
library or bookstore, and newspapers were
rarely available. Takamoto, a product of
the new Meiji ideals, encouraged his little
brother to study and regularly sent him
books and magazines such as Japanese Boy,
Boys’ Club, Kids’ Science, and Science Visual
News. Thus, Honda developed a lifelong
love of reading and a curiosity about things
scientific, despite being all but cut off from
the quickly modernizing outside world.
Childhood was a time of simple
pleasures. With two middle-aged par-
ents—Honda’s mother gave birth to him
at forty-two—there was little supervision,
and Honda played from dawn until dusk.
When it was hot, he and his friends would
swim in the river or build a dam; when
snow fell, they went sledding. Sometimes
they played hide-and-seek in the temple,
ducking behind the mummy’s tomb.
There was folk music and dance at village
festivals throughout the year, and the
Honda brothers all performed with a local
youth troupe. Honda was not mischievous,
though he once hiked to his cousin’s house
across the mountain without telling his
parents. When he returned days later, his
mother was upset—not that he had gone
without permission, but that he wasn’t
dressed properly for the visit.
With his stable and happy home life,
Honda didn’t develop a strong competitive
streak. “I never thought that I had to beat
someone else, only that I had to do my
personal best,” he recalled. “I never gave
thought to being on top . . . if someone else
did better, I would still think and work at
my own pace. I was very stubborn in that
regard. [But] once I decided to do some-
thing, I just had to do it.”3](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-36-2048.jpg)
![7
T o k y o
(Later, in middle school, he would struggle
with chemistry, biology, algebra, and other
subjects involving equations, but he still
liked the scientific mindset.) Despite a
drastic change of scenery, many things in
his life—family, school, play—were basi-
cally the same.
Then he experienced something entirely
different. Before Tokyo, Honda had never
heard of eiga (movies), but one day at
school the students were assembled to
watch one. Though Honda would forget
the title, it was likely one of the Universal
Bluebird photoplays, a series of mostly
Westerns that were considered minor
pictures in the United States, but were
extremely popular in Japan from 1916 to
1919.2 Honda described the film this way:
“It was the story of a girl who was kid-
napped and raised by Indians. She grew up
and found out that she wasn’t one of them.
There was a dispute over her, who[m] she
should live with . . . she got on the back of
the horse and went off fighting . . . against
her real brother, something like that. I saw
it at the schoolgrounds. I still remember
that girl, she was a little on the chubby side,
not quite pretty, she had long dark hair, sort
of looked like an Indian, and there was a
situation where she was surprised by being
told that she was actually a white person,
not Indian . . . That was quite shocking, a
machine that projected something like that,
and people were moving around in there.
I was so interested, and I definitely wanted
to see more.”3
Tokyo offered a multitude of ideal diver-
sions for a “science boy,” such as air shows
and invention expos, which Honda would
sneak off to see all by himself, without his
parents’ permission. But more and more,
he was drawn to the movie houses. By
the third and fourth grade he was reading
newspaper critiques and asking friends
which movies were worth seeing, and
begging his big brothers to take him. “If you
had the money, you’d just go to the movie
theater and watch whatever,” he said. “It
was that kind of time.”
Two minutes before noon on Saturday,
September 1, 1923, a seismic fault six miles
beneath the sea floor off Tokyo unleashed a
magnitude 7.9 temblor, mercilessly shaking
the Kanto Plain. A forty-foot-high tsunami
came ashore and swept away thousands of
people, and fires engulfed the city’s wooden
structures for days. Nearly 140,000 of
Tokyo’s roughly 2.5 million residents were
killed and about half the city was destroyed
in the Great Kanto Earthquake, Japan’s
deadliest natural disaster. Fortunately, the
Hondas lived in the low-density western
suburbs, where many people survived by
escaping to nearby forests and farmland,
away from burning debris.
Tokyo’s rapid postearthquake
reconstruction created a cosmopolitan,
urban environment, where leisure activities
now included jazz clubs, modern theater,
and cinema. Film was by this time known
as daihachi geijutsu (the eighth art), and its
form and content had greatly evolved since
Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope had arrived
in Japan in 1896. The earliest Japanese
movies were essentially filmed stage plays
that borrowed the conventions of Noh,
kabuki, and Shinpa (a style of melodrama
popular in the late 1800s) and featured
stars of the theater. By the 1920s filmmakers
were embracing new narrative styles,
and their movies ranged from lowbrow
sword-fighting adventures to high-minded
studies of the human condition. The quake
had leveled all but one of Tokyo’s studios,
resulting in a shortage of domestic movies.](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-38-2048.jpg)
![d r e A m s A n d n i G H t m A r e s
10
college, after graduating from middle
school, Honda secretly applied to Nihon
University and was accepted. Despite the
broken promise, and even if Honda was
opting for a nontraditional career path in a
young, unstable industry, his family was not
upset.
“My father never told me [what to do
with my life]. My brother was much older,
and he told me to do whatever I wanted, but
he also said I must be responsible for what-
ever I chose. Back then, most people looked
down on [working in the movie business],
but my family was never like that.”9
“[So] I thought, OK, let me try studying
this thing called the cinema. That was when
I bet my life on this field,” Honda said.10 As
more and more new cinemas were built
and traditional theaters were converted
into movie houses, young Honda saw Tokyo
entering a cinematic boom. “I realized
there could be a pretty well paying future
for me in the business. It all came together:
I enjoyed telling stories and could find work
in an industry that was financially success-
ful and artistic to boot.”11](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-41-2048.jpg)
![11
3
Film School
Lessons
Honda entered Nihon University in 1931
with dreams of a career in the cinematic
arts, but he was confronted with some
rather unpleasant realities. If he was betting
his life on a movie career, the odds didn’t
look good.
“Nothing [at the school] was well
prepared,” he remembered. “It was all
brand new . . . The classes were not really
that good, and there was not enough
equipment. There was not even an actual
campus . . . they rented space in a nearby
school building and held classes there. A
lot of the professors were well-known, good
teachers, although they canceled classes all
the time.”1
The film department was a pilot program
and, as such, it was disorganized and
erratically run. The school’s administration
wasn’t fully convinced that film could be
taught at a university, thus there were no
studio facilities or practical training. Many
of the two hundred students in the inaugu-
ral class got frustrated and quit.
Still, when class was canceled, Honda
had time to visit local cinemas, many in
converted kabuki theaters and Buddhist
temples (and some still bearing signs of
earthquake damage), and there his educa-
tion continued. He took copious notes on
silents such as Edward Sloman’s adventure
The Foreign Legion (1928) and early talkies
such as René Clair’s classic romantic com-
edy Under the Roofs of Paris (Sous les toits
de Paris, 1930). He watched Josef von Stern-
berg’s Morocco (1930) more than ten times,
noting all its cuts and dialogue for further
study; the wartime romance between a
legionnaire (Gary Cooper) and a cabaret
girl (Marlene Dietrich) may have influenced
Honda’s Farewell Rabaul two decades later.
He was impressed by Lubitsch’s Broken
Lullaby (1932), admired Frank Capra, and](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-42-2048.jpg)
![19
F o r g i n g B o n d s
PcL in 1934 to direct the first of many films
starring Kenichi “Enoken” Enomoto, known
as Japan’s “king of comedy.” Yamamoto
was naturally curious and enjoyed genre
hopping; he made musicals, melodramas,
and later crime thrillers and salaryman
comedies. At the height of World War II he
would direct several big-budget, nationalist
war propaganda films that were highly
successful at the box office. His career
would last well into the 1960s.
Honda became one of Yama-san’s most
trusted disciples. From Yama-san, Honda
learned all aspects of the craft with an
emphasis on writing, as Yamamoto stressed
that directors must write screenplays. While
shooting, Yamamoto often scribbled in a
journal, a practice that Honda adopted.
Honda also learned from Yamamoto how
to treat his staff. Yama-san would throw
parties at his home for cast and crew as a
way of creating a family atmosphere; when
Honda became a director, he would do the
same for his charges. Yamamoto had a soft,
quiet demeanor and always treated his
protégés in equal terms. He called them by
name: It was always Honda-san or the more
familiar Honda-kun, never “hey you” or the
condescending language other directors
often used. He never sent them to buy
cigarettes or do menial errands. Years later,
Honda would show the same respect to his
own crew members.
“He didn’t want yes-men around him,”
Honda recalled. “We always went drinking
with him, though. But he was never an
autocrat . . . Since [Yamamoto] was so
knowledgeable, his stories were always
interesting. He was also frank on the set
and would ask me to write parts of the
script. And then he would use it.”1
Honda described Yamamoto as a con-
noisseur. “He was more like a free spirit.
He was not like us, he was not all about
movies. Movies were only a part of his life.
He liked other things too, such as music. So
I learned a lot of things from him.”2
Honda’s two-year absence had stalled
his career, while his peers advanced. His
first job upon returning to work was on
Yamamoto’s two-part drama A Husband’s
Chastity (Otto no teiso, 1937). Senkichi Tani-
guchi, Honda’s friend since the Friday Party
days, was now Yamamoto’s chief assistant
director (or first assistant director), while
Honda remained a second assistant direc-
tor. Still, Honda accepted his situation and
held no resentment toward the studio or his
rank-and-file cohorts.
Released in April 1937, A Husband’s
Chastity marked several milestones. It was
a big hit, the first PcL film to turn a profit.
It did so despite the refusal of Shochiku,
Nikkatsu, and other studios to exhibit
PcL movies in their theaters, a retaliation
against PcL’s practice of hiring away its
competitors’ actors and directors. For
Honda, the film had another significance:
it marked his meeting with an intensely
ambitious new recruit, a man who would
become his lifelong best friend.
The job of assistant director in the Japa-
nese studios was not unlike that in Holly-
wood: keeping the production schedule,
preparing call sheets, maintaining order on
the set, and so on. Unlike their American
counterparts, however, the Japanese were
viewed as directors-in-training. At the time
Honda joined PcL, trainees were hired
strictly through personal connections,
and so there were always too few assistant
directors on the lot. In 1936, PcL chose ten
prospective assistant directors from the
general public for the first time to help
bolster the ranks. All the new recruits had
degrees from top universities except for
one. Akira Kurosawa, at twenty-five, had](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-50-2048.jpg)
![d r e A m s A n d n i G H t m A r e s
20
just a junior-high-school education, but his
enthusiasm and knowledge of the visual
arts impressed the examiners.3
“[We] were placed in a sort of cadet sys-
tem, like at military schools,” remembered
Kurosawa. “We had to train in every area,
even film printing. We rotated through
a series of departments.”4 Only after
thorough schooling in camera operation,
editing, writing, costumes, props, sched-
uling, budgeting, and other areas could a
trainee ascend from the ranks of third and
second assistant to earn the coveted title of
first assistant director.
PcL’s assistant directors put in long, hard
days, worked well into the night, longed for
sleep, and put saliva into their weary eyes
to help them see clearly. Kurosawa quickly
noticed Honda’s energy and diligence; he
nicknamed his new friend “Honda mokume
no kami”—Honda, keeper of the grain.
“[Honda] was then second assistant
director, but when the set designers were
overwhelmed with work, he lent a hand.
He would always take care to paint fol-
lowing the grain of the wood on the false
pillars and wainscoting, and to put in a
grain texture where it was lacking . . . His
motive in drawing in the grain was to make
Yama-san’s work look just that much better.
Probably he felt that in order to continue
to merit Yama-san’s confidence, he had
to make this extra effort. The confidence
Yama-san had in us created this attitude.
And of course this attitude carried over into
our work.”5
Born on March 23, 1910, in Tokyo and
standing five foot eleven and a half, Kuro-
sawa was a year older and several inches
taller than Honda and seemed worldly
and larger than life. He was introduced to
the cinema by his father, “a strict man of
military background” who nevertheless
loved movies and believed they had edu-
cational value.6 Growing up, Kurosawa was
exposed to many different types of films,
from Japanese silents to the Zigomar crime
serials to Abel Gance’s The Wheel (La Roue,
1923). While Honda’s career was interrupted
repeatedly by the war, Kurosawa appren-
ticed under Yamamoto for five straight
years, becoming Yama-san’s “other self.”
Having just returned from China, Honda
had no place of his own. He moved in with
Kurosawa, who had a one-room apartment
on the second floor of PcL’s employee
dorm, Musashi-so, located near the studio
in the Seijo neighborhood of Tokyo’s Seta-
gaya Ward. They were opposites: Kurosawa
opinionated and driven, Honda quiet and
unassuming.
“Kuro-san was like a mentor-friend to
me,” said Honda. “Even though he was
the same age, I felt that way towards him
because of his great talent.” Kurosawa, a
gifted painter from a young age, introduced
Honda to the work of calligrapher and artist
Tessai Tomioka, an originator of the neotra-
ditional Nihonga style, and other painters
he was passionate about. The two friends
discussed art and film at great length. And
as years passed and Honda would go to and
from the battlefront, they discussed the war
and Japan’s escalating militarism.
“Honda and I agreed that it would be a
disaster if Japan won, if the incompetents
in the military stayed in power,” Kurosawa
recalled. “Honda said this too. What we’d
most hate was to see those military guys
have their own way if we won the war, and
drive the country into a deeper mess.”7
Thanks to his father’s respected name in
the military, Kurosawa was exempted from
duty. A draft official generously classified
him as physically unfit to serve.
On the PcL back lot they were known as
the Three Crows: Akira Kurosawa, Senkichi](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-51-2048.jpg)
![21
F o r g i n g B o n d s
Taniguchi, and Ishiro Honda, three up-and-
coming assistant directors who, as Kajiro
Yamamoto’s top protégés, commanded a
bit of respect. No one remembers how the
nickname came about, but they seemed
significantly taller than everyone else, a
trio of “very handsome fellows” who had
“a little different vibe,” as a friend remem-
bered. They seemed to be together con-
stantly, during the workday and after hours.
Theirs was a close-knit and sometimes
tumultuous camaraderie based on shared
interests and ambitions.
Each crow was a bird of a different
feather. Taniguchi was the youngest,
born February 12, 1912, in Tokyo. He wore
eyeglasses, was perpetually tan, and was
known for his ever-running mouth, sense
of humor, and sharp tongue. Yamamoto
encouraged his assistants to speak freely,
and Taniguchi didn’t hesitate. “Taniguchi
was merciless,” said Kurosawa. “One day he
said, ‘Yama-san, you’re a first-rate screen-
writer but a second-rate director.’ Yama-san
just laughed.”
Taniguchi served in the war, but his stint
was shorter than Honda’s and didn’t stall
his career. “[Honda] had really bad luck,”
Taniguchi said in 1999. “He was drafted
when he was young, and just at a time
when he could have learned so much about
making movies.”8
Kurosawa was the most volatile among
them, complex and opinionated and
uncompromising. When he first arrived at
PcL, Kurosawa had no place of his own so
he’d crashed on Taniguchi’s futon, but Tani-
guchi grew annoyed and kicked him out.
Honda was the quiet and contemplative
one, not nearly as aggressive. As Kurosawa
The three crows—Kurosawa, Honda, and Taniguchi—with mentor Kajiro Yamamoto, late 1930s.
Courtesy of Kurosawa Productions](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-52-2048.jpg)
![d r e A m s A n d n i G H t m A r e s
22
biographer Stuart Galbraith IV writes:
“They called one another by nicknames
after the Kanji characters in their family
names: ‘Kuro-chan’ (‘Blackie’), ‘Sen-chan’
(‘Dear Sen,’ ironic, given his temperament),
and ‘Ino-chan’ (‘Piggy’).”9
They drank, talked, and argued, and
in between films they would camp in the
mountains for several days. Honda, the
Yamagata boy and soldier, was an able
hiker, as was Taniguchi. Their trips invari-
ably began peacefully but ended with Kuro-
sawa and Taniguchi arguing incessantly,
with Honda playing peacemaker.
Each man took what he learned from
Yama-san and forged his own path. Kuro-
sawa became a relentless pursuer of per-
fection. Taniguchi would make a number
of notably ambitious early films, including
the first adaptation of Yukio Mishima’s The
Sound of the Waves (Shiosai, 1954)—a film
that created a sensation for hints of erotic
nudity10—then finished his career with
a series of mainstream programmers.
Honda most closely emulated his mentor’s
example by becoming a versatile maker of
successful program pictures and putting
his heart and soul into those that mattered
most to him. The friendships endured long
after their early struggles. While Honda
went to war, Kurosawa would help his wife
care for their children, and much later
Kurosawa would make Honda his most
trusted adviser. Taniguchi would be like
an uncle to Honda’s kids; and years later,
when Honda later bought a bigger house in
Okamoto, a neighborhood in the western
part of Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward, Taniguchi
and his third wife, actress Kaoru Yachigusa,
star of Honda’s The Human Vapor, liked it
so much they built a home nearby.
In the mid-1930s, with PcL struggling
financially, founder Yasuji Uemura had
sold a controlling interest in the studio to
Ichizo Kobayashi, a railroad executive, real
estate tycoon, and the entertainment mogul
behind the legendary Takarazuka Grand
Theater and its famous all-girl music and
dance revue. Kobayashi also owned a chain
of cinemas, and acquiring PcL was part of
his strategy to supply his movie houses with
product. Together with studio chief Iwao
Mori, Kobayashi also aimed to shake up
the business, building on PcL’s innovative
model to create Japan’s most modern film
company.
On August 27, 1937, Kobayashi merged
PcL with another small production outfit
to form Toho Motion Picture Distribution
Company, later the Toho Motion Picture
Company.11 According to film critic Jinshi
Fujii, “Toho’s entrance into the film busi-
ness caused the structural reorganization
of the Japanese film industry . . . [S]trict
budgetary control was put into practice, the
producer system was set up, and vertical
integration of production, distribution,
and exhibition was achieved . . . [T]he
Hollywood-style system was transplanted
to Japan almost completely.” Before long,
observers would note that Toho had also
“[overwhelmed] other companies in terms
of film technology . . . [it] imported new
filmmaking equipment from America four
or five years [earlier].”12
For Honda and Kurosawa, the excite-
ment of working at the upstart new studio
was tempered by long hours and a meager
salary of ¥28 per month.13 Assistant direc-
tors were paid less than office workers
because, with location pay and other
incentives, it was possible to earn much
more, though it rarely worked out that way.
Their social life revolved around drinking,
and if Yama-san wasn’t buying, they drank
on credit. Often there was no cash in their
pay envelopes, only receipts for vouchers](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-53-2048.jpg)
![23
F o r g i n g B o n d s
redeemed at the studio commissary and
ious collected by local bars and clothing
stores. On payday, they were already broke.
The dormitory where Honda roomed
with Kurosawa had a pool table, an organ,
and other diversions. When Honda, Kuro-
sawa, and their friends weren’t hitting the
bars, they would congregate there, often
in Kurosawa’s little room, drinking and
discussing art and cinema. This group
included Sojiro Motoki, a future producer
who would play an important part in the
careers of both Honda and Kurosawa,
and a pretty editor’s assistant named Kimi
Yamazaki.
Kimi was six years younger than Honda,
born January 6, 1917, in Mizukaido, Ibaraki
Prefecture, the youngest of eight children.
She was different from other women her
age; she could hold her own in serious film
discussions with the boys and hold her
liquor when the beer and sake were poured.
Kimi was self-confident and assertive, a
modern Japanese woman intent on being
more than an office lady or salesclerk, the
typical woman’s jobs then.
It was Morocco, the film that Honda
had spent so much time studying, that
compelled Kimi to join the industry. She
worked briefly for a small newsreel outfit,
then passed Toho’s entrance exam and
became assistant to Koichi Iwashita, one of
Japanese cinema’s most respected editors.
One day, Honda stopped by the editing
room to say hello, and Iwashita introduced
the young assistant director to his new
employee. Sparks didn’t fly right away,
though. “I still remember how he was wear-
ing this weird looking suit,” Kimi recalled.
“He was unfashionable, so unpolished, just
back from the war. Compared to guys like
Kuro-san then, he was hardly dashing.”
After she was promoted to the position
of “script girl,” Kimi worked late hours on
movie sets. Commuting from her parents’
home was impractical, so she moved
into the dorm and became Kurosawa
and Honda’s neighbor. The boys grew so
accustomed to her presence that if she
didn’t show up for their nightly klatch, one
of them would rap on her door. One night,
Kimi begged off with a severe headache,
and Honda went to fetch some medicine.
“This was the first time I thought, ‘Wow, he
is such a nice guy.’ But it wasn’t like I was
head over heels . . . As time passed, I got to
know everyone [in the dormitory]. . . . But
I think I was most attracted to his warmth,
his heart.”
Honda immersed himself in his job,
working on more than a dozen films
between 1937 and 1939 and slowly ascend-
ing the ladder. Though Yamamoto was his
primary teacher, he also apprenticed under
other prominent studio directors, studying
their work styles and habits. Honda was
an assistant director on Humanity and
Paper Balloons (Ninjo kami fusen, 1937), an
acclaimed early jidai-geki and the last film
by director Sadao Yamanaka, a fellow army
recruit who would die as a soldier in China
the following year. Honda also worked for
the jidai-geki specialist Eisuke Takizawa.
Sometimes, Honda would visit the set of
a Mikio Naruse production to observe the
celebrated director at work, which led
Naruse to tap Honda as third assistant on
two acclaimed early pictures, Avalanche
(Nadare, 1937) and Tsuruhachi and Tsuru-
jiro (Tsuruhachi Tsurujiro, 1938).
Summer 1937: Honda and Senkichi Tani-
guchi, having been there from the founding
days of PcL, were now the two longest
tenured assistant directors on the lot. Tani-
guchi had been Yamamoto’s chief assistant
for about a year, but he now was transferred
to a front office job, using his knowledge](https://image.slidesharecdn.com/3507991-250625020947-218bf7dd/75/Ishiro-Honda-A-Life-In-Film-From-Godzilla-To-Kurosawa-Steve-Ryfle-54-2048.jpg)
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Ishiro Honda A Life In Film From Godzilla To Kurosawa Steve Ryfle
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- 8. Ishiro Honda A Lifein fiLm, from GodziLLA to KurosAwA Steve Ryfle and ed GodziSzewSki With YuuKo HondA-Yun Foreword by mArtin scorsese wesLeYAn universitY Press Middletown, Connecticut
- 9. Wesleyan University Press MiddletownCT 06459 www.wesleyan.edu/wespress 2017 © Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski All rights reserved Manufactured in the United States of America Designed by Rich Hendel Typeset in Utopia, Klavika, and Industry types by Tseng Information Systems, Inc. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Ryfle, Steve author. | Godziszewski, Ed author. Title: Ishiro Honda : a life in film, from Godzilla to Kurosawa / Steve Ryfle and Ed Godziszewski ; with Yuuko Honda-Yun ; foreword by Martin Scorsese. Description: Middletown, Connecticut : Wesleyan University Press, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: Lccn 2017007286 (print) | Lccn 2017024649 (ebook) | isBn 9780819577412 (ebook) | isBn 9780819570871 (cloth : alk. paper) Subjects: LcsH: Honda, Ishiro, 1911–1993. | Motion picture producers and directors—Japan— Biography. Classification: Lcc Pn1998.3.H68 (ebook) | Lcc Pn1998.3.H68 r94 2017 (print) | ddc 791.4302/33092 [B]—dc23 Lc record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017007286 5 4 3 2 1 Jacket photo: Ishiro Honda. Coutesy of Honda Film, Inc.
- 10. Contents Foreword by MartinScorsese / vii Acknowledgments / ix Introduction / xi i. dReamS and niGhtmaReS: 1911–45 / 1 1. A Boy from the Mountains / 3 2. Tokyo / 6 3. Film School Lessons / 11 4. A Reluctant Soldier / 14 5. Forging Bonds / 18 6. War / 26 ii. awakeninGS: 1946–54 / 35 7. Starting Over / 37 8. Allegiances and Alliances / 43 9. The Documentaries / 46 Ise-shima (1949), Story of a Co-op (1950) 10. Sea, Land, and Sky / 52 The Blue Pearl (1951), The Skin of the South (1952), The Man Who Came to Port (1952), Adolescence Part 2 (1953), Eagle of the Pacific (1953), Farewell Rabaul (1954) iii. Science fiction: 1954–64 / 81 11. No Laughing Matter / 83 Godzilla (1954) 12. Obligations / 108 Love Makeup (1955), Mother and Son (1955), Half Human (1955) 13. Youth Movement / 119 Young Tree (1956), Night School (1956), People of Tokyo, Goodbye (1956), Rodan (1956)
- 11. 14. Lovers andAliens / 130 Good Luck to These Two (1957), A Teapicker’s Song of Goodbye (1957), A Rainbow Plays in My Heart (1957), A Farewell to the Woman I Called My Sister (1957), The Mysterians (1957) 15. Brides, Blobs, and a Bomb / 142 Song for a Bride (1958), The H-Man (1958), Varan the Unbelievable (1958) 16. Marriage, Money, and the Moon / 152 An Echo Calls You (1959), Inao, Story of an Iron Arm (1959), Seniors, Juniors, Co-workers (1959), Battle in Outer Space (1959) 17. Accidental Monsters / 164 The Human Vapor (1960), Mothra (1961), A Man in Red (1961) 18. Going Global / 182 Gorath (1962), King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) 19. Dangerous Waters / 196 Matango (1963), Atragon (1963) 20. Monsters and Gangsters / 206 Mothra vs. Godzilla (1964), Dogora (1964), Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster (1964) iv. Good-bye, Godzilla: 1965–75 / 219 21. East Meets West / 221 Frankenstein Conquers the World (1965), Invasion of Astro-Monster (1965), The War of the Gargantuas (1966), Come Marry Me (1966) 22. Monsters or Bust / 238 King Kong Escapes (1967), Destroy All Monsters (1968), Latitude Zero (1969), All Monsters Attack (1969), Space Amoeba (1970), Terror of Mechagodzilla (1975) v. at kuRoSawa’S Side: 1976–93 / 273 23. Rhapsody in Autumn / 275 Afterword by Ryuji Honda / 299 Ishiro Honda Filmography / 301 Notes / 305 Index / 317 Illustrations appear after page 118.
- 12. vii Foreword I had thehonor of working with Ishiro Honda when I appeared in Akira Kuro- sawa’s Dreams. It was extremely moving to me to see Honda, in his late seventies at the time and an internationally acknowledged and celebrated filmmaker, working as an assistant director to his old friend and acknowledged master, Akira Kurosawa. It taught me something about Japanese cul- ture, but it also gave me an enriched sense of Mr. Honda, as a wonderful human being and an extraordinary artist and craftsman. This carefully researched and detailed book gives us a full picture of the man and his life—his early love for cinema; the terrible trials he endured as a soldier, a pris- oner of war, and then as a veteran returning to a devastated world; his relationship with his wife, Kimi; his devotion to Kurosawa; his gradual rise within the studio system from assistant to director of documentaries to features; and his remarkable run of science fiction and monster films from the 1950s through the 1970s. Of course, that includes Gojira (known to American audiences as Godzilla) as well as Rodan, The Mysterians, The H-Man, and Mothra, pictures that haunted the imaginations of young moviegoers like myself and millions of others for years to come. —Martin Scorsese
- 14. ix Acknowledgments Steve Ryfle andEd Godziszewski wish to express their deep gratitude to the family of Ishiro Honda for helping to make this book possible. To Kimi Honda, for inviting us into her home and sharing many stories of her husband’s life and work; to Ryuji Honda, for entrusting us with his father’s story, for navigating many legal and logis- tical hurdles, and for facilitating research, interviews, and information gathering; to Yuuko Honda-Yun, our partner, who spent countless hours supporting this project by performing translation, conducting research, engaging in discussion, and providing an invaluable perspective, ideas, insights, and friendship. Special thanks to Shinsuke Nakajima, our research associate in Japan, whose contributions are immeasurable; to Kenji Sahara, who arranged interviews with his fellow actors; to Mariko Godziszewski for translating many Japanese texts; to Stuart Galbraith IV for assistance with research and critiquing the manuscript; to Mark Schilling for reading and critiquing the manuscript; and to Parker Smathers, Suzanna Tamminen, Marla Zubel, Peter Fong, Elizabeth Forsaith, and the staff of Wesleyan University Press. Two of Honda’s longtime assistant directors granted lengthy interviews and offered unique insights. The late Koji Kajita generously met with us numerous times and answered many follow-up questions. Seiji Tani was likewise extremely generous. The contributions of both men are greatly appreciated. Special thanks also go to Toho Co. Ltd., Kurosawa Production Co., and Honda Film Inc. for their cooperation and assistance. The authors also wish to thank many individuals and organizations that provided assistance and support:
- 15. • The interviewees,who also included (in alphabetical order) Yasuyuki Inoue, Shusuke Kaneko, Hiroshi Koizumi, Takashi Koizumi, Akira Kubo, Masahiko Kumada, Hisao Kurosawa, Linda Miller, Kumi Mizuno, Haruo Nakajima, Minoru Nakano, Teruyoshi Nakano, Yosuke Natsuki, Teruyo Nogami, Kenji Sahara, Yumi Shirakawa, Akira Takarada, Masaaki Tezuka, and Yoshio Tsuchiya. • For providing access to their interviews with Ishiro Honda, film director and producer Yoshimitsu Banno, journalist James Bailey, and writer David Milner. • The staffs of Margaret Herrick Library of the Academy of Motion Pictures, University of Southern California Cinematic Arts Library, University of Wyoming American Heritage Center, California State University Northridge Oviatt Library, Nihon University Department of Cinema, ucLA Film and Television Archive, Los Angeles Public Library, County of Los Angeles Public Library Asian Pacific Resource Center, Rialto Pictures, American Cinematheque, Japan National Film Classification and Rating Committee, Sikelia Productions, and Storm King Productions. • Friends, family, and colleagues, including Takako Honda, Naoto Kurose (Honda Film Inc.), Bruce Goldstein, Dennis Bartok, Michael Friend, Chris Desjardins, Jeffrey Mantor, David Shepard, Raymond Yun, Hinata Honda-Yun, Sergei Hasenecz, Norman England, Oki Miyano, Jenise Treuting, Gary Teetzel, Erik Homenick, Glenn Erickson, Richard Pusateri, Keith Aiken, Bob Johnson, Nicholas Driscoll, Stephen Bowie, Bill Shaffer, Stig Bjorkman, Edward Holland and Monster Attack Team, Akemi Tosto, Joal Ryan, and Stefano Kim Ryan-Ryfle.
- 16. xi Introduction [Japanese] critics havefrequently dismissed Honda as unworthy of serious consideration, regarding him merely as the director of entertainment films aimed at children. By contrast, they have elevated Kurosawa to the status of national treasure. As for the men themselves, by all accounts Honda and Kurosawa had nothing but respect for one another’s work. Prospective studies of the history of Japanese cinema should therefore treat Honda’s direction of monster movies and Kurosawa’s interpretation of prestigious sources such as Shakespeare as equally deserving of serious discussion. — Inuhiko Yomota, film historian In August 1951, as Japan’s film industry was emerging from a crippling period of war, labor unrest, and censorship by an occu- pying foreign power, the press welcomed the arrival of a promising new filmmaker named Ishiro Honda. He was of average height at about five-foot-six but appeared taller to others, with an upright posture and a serious, disciplined demeanor acquired during nearly a decade of soldiering in the second Sino-Japanese War. There was something a bit formal about the way he spoke, never using slang or the Japanese equivalent of contractions—he wasn’t a big talker for that matter, and was usually immersed quietly in thought—yet he was gentle and soft-spoken, warm and likeable. A late bloomer, Honda was already age forty; and if not for his long military service, he likely would have become a director much earlier. He had apprenticed at Toho Studios under Kajiro Yamamoto, one of Japan’s most commercially successful and respected directors; and he hinted at, as an uncredited Nagoya Times reporter put it, the “passionate literary style” and “intense perseverance” that characterized Yama- moto’s two most famous protégés, Akira Kurosawa and Senkichi Taniguchi, who were also Honda’s closest friends. “Although their personalities may be similar, their work is fundamentally differ- ent,” the reporter wrote. “Ishiro Honda [is] a man who possesses something very soft and sweet, yet . . . his voice is heavy and serene, giving off a feeling of melancholy that . . . does not necessarily suit his face. The many years he lost out at war were surely a factor. . . . The deep emotions must be unshakeable.” Honda’s inclinations, it was noted, were more realistic than artistic. He didn’t share the “Fauvism” of Kurosawa’s painterly
- 17. i n tr o d u c t i o n xii compositions.1 He took a dim view of the flashy, stylistic film technique that some of his contemporaries, including Kurosawa and famed director Sadao Yamanaka, with whom Honda had also apprenticed, borrowed from American and European cinema of the 1920s and 1930s. “I do not want to deceive by using superficial flair,” Honda said. “Technique is an oblique problem. The most important thing is to [honestly] depict people.” A beat later, he was more introspective: “This may not really be about technique. Maybe it is just my personality. Even if I try to depict something real, will I succeed?” The newspaper gave Honda’s debut film, The Blue Pearl, an A rating, declaring it “acutely magnificent.” And with a bit of journalistic flourish, the paper contem- plated the future of the fledgling director, admiring his desire to “practice rather than preach, [to] cultivate the fundamentals of a writer’s spirit rather than being preoccu- pied with technique, a fascination with the straight line without any curves or bends. . . . How will this shining beauty, like a young bamboo, plant his roots and survive in the film industry?”2 A tormented scientist chooses to die along- side Godzilla at the bottom of Tokyo Bay, thus ensuring a doomsday device is never used for war. An astronaut and his crew bravely sacrifice themselves in the hope of saving Earth from a wayward star hurtling toward it. Castaways on a mysterious, fogged-in island are driven mad by greed, jealousy, and hunger for a fungus that turns them into grotesque, walking mushrooms. A pair of tiny twin fairies, their island despoiled by nuclear testing, sing a beau- tiful requiem beckoning the god-monster Mothra to save mankind. Invaders from drought-ridden Planet X dispatch Godzilla, Rodan, and three-headed King Ghidorah to conquer Earth, but an alien woman follows her heart and foils their plan. A lonely, bul- lied schoolboy dreams of a friendship with Godzilla’s son, who helps the child conquer his fears. The cinema of Ishiro Honda brings to life a world of tragedy and fantasy. It is a world besieged by giant monsters, yet one in which those same monsters ultimately become Earth’s guardians. A world in which scientific advancement and space explo- ration reveal infinite possibilities, even while unleashing forces that threaten man- kind’s very survival. A world defined by the horrific reality of mass destruction visited upon Japan in World War II, yet stirring the imaginations of adults and children around the world for generations. Honda’s Godzilla first appeared more than sixty years ago, setting Tokyo afire in what is now well understood to be a symbolic reenactment of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It was a major hit, ranking eighth at the Japanese box office in a year that also produced such masterpieces as Seven Samurai, Musashi Miyamoto, Sansho the Bailiff, and Twenty-Four Eyes. It was subsequently sold for distribution in the United States, netting sizeable returns for Toho Studios and especially for the Ameri- can profiteers who gave it the exploitable new title, Godzilla, King of the Monsters! If the triumph of Akira Kurosawa’s Rasho- mon—which took the grand prize at the 1951 Venice International Film Festival, and subsequently received an honorary Academy Award—had brought postwar Japanese cinema to the West, then it was Honda’s monster movie that introduced Japanese popular culture worldwide. Only fifteen years after Pearl Harbor, Godzilla, King of the Monsters! (famously reedited with new footage starring Ray-
- 18. xiii I n tr o d u c t I o n mond Burr, yet featuring a predominantly Japanese cast) surmounted cultural barriers and planted the seed of a global franchise. It was the forerunner of a westward Japanese migration that would eventually include everything from anime and manga to Transformers, Power Rangers, Tama- gotchi, and Pokémon. Godzilla became the first postwar foreign film, albeit in an altered form, to be widely released to mainstream commercial cinemas across the United States. In 2009 Huffington Post’s Jason Notte declared it “the most important foreign film in American history,” noting that it had “offered many Americans their first look at a culture other than their own.”3 An invasion of Japanese monsters and aliens followed in Godzilla’s footsteps. With Rodan, The Mysterians, Mothra, Ghidorah the Three-Headed Monster, and many others, Honda and special-effects artist Eiji Tsuburaya created the kaiju eiga (lit- erally, “monster movie”), a science fiction subgenre that was uniquely Japanese yet universally appealing. Honda’s movies were more widely distributed internationally than those of any other Japanese director prior to the animator Hayao Miyazaki. During the 1950s and 1960s, the golden age of foreign cinema, films by Kurosawa, Mizoguchi, and other acclaimed masters were limited to American art house cinemas and college campuses, while Honda’s were emblazoned across marquees in big cities and small towns—from Texas drive-ins to California movie palaces to suburban Boston neigh- borhood theaters—and were also released widely in Europe, Latin America, Asia, and other territories. Eventually these films reached their largest overseas audience through a medium they weren’t intended for: the small screen. Roughly from the 1960s through the 1980s, Godzilla and company were mainstays in television syndication, appearing regularly on stations across North America. Since then, they have found new generations of viewers via home video, streaming media, and revival screenings. Today, the kaiju eiga has gone global. It continues to be revived periodically in Japan, while Hollywood, via Guillermo del Toro’s Pacific Rim (2013) and two big-budget Godzilla remakes (1998 and 2014), has fully co-opted it. Honda’s remarkable achievement went entirely unnoticed in the early years, because of several factors. First, there was a critical bias against science fiction films; in the 1950s, even exemplary genre pictures such as Howard Hawks’s The Thing (1951), Don Siegel’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), and Fred M. Wilcox’s Forbidden Planet (1956) “were taken to be lightweight mass entertainment, and even in retrospect they have rarely been credited with any substantial degree of aesthetic or intellec- tual achievement,” observes film historian Carl Freedman.4 Critics tended to focus on technical merits, or lack thereof, rather than artistic value or content. Stereotypes about Japan and its then-prevalent reputation for exporting cheap products were another obstacle, compounded by US distributors’ tendency to radically alter Honda’s films by dubbing them into English (often laughably), reediting them (sometimes very poorly), or giving them ridiculous new titles such as Attack of the Mushroom People. This process could marginalize Honda’s authorship, or render it invisible: he sometimes shared a director’s credit with the Americans who had chopped up his movies, and overseas theatrical posters often excluded his name entirely. As Christopher Bolton, Istvan Csicsery- Ronay Jr., and Takayuki Tatsumi note in
- 19. i n tr o d u c t i o n xiv their survey of Japanese science fiction, Robot Ghosts and Wired Dreams: In the U.S., the Japanese monster film became the archetype for cheap, cheesy disaster movies because of . . . cultural and technological interference patterns . . . In many cases, the original films’ ana- morphic widescreen photography, which lent images greater scale and depth when properly projected, was reduced for American showings to a smaller format; the original stereophonic sound- tracks (among the most technically innovative and musically interesting in the medium at the time) were [replaced] and rearranged; and additional scenes with American actors, shot on different screen ratios, were added . . . The American versions inevitably stripped out the stories’ popular mythological resonances, their evocation of Japanese theater, and the imaginary management of postwar collective emotions.5 Such distractions and biases were evi- dent in the writings of American reviewers. Variety called Mothra, one of Honda’s most entertaining genre films, “ludicrously written, haphazardly executed”; of The Mysterians, it wondered if “something was lost in translation.” Japanese film critics, meanwhile, tended to dismiss kaiju eiga as juvenile gimmick films. The genre’s domestic marginalization as an otaku (fan) phenomenon was cemented in 1969 with the World of SF Film Encyclopedia (Sekai SF eiga taikan), a landmark volume covering sci-fi films by Honda and his contempo- raries. Though published by the respected Kinema Junpo film journal, its author was not a mainstream critic but “monster professor” Shoji Otomo, editor of Shonen Magazine, a weekly children’s publication. Thus, Honda’s career is one of contradic- tions. In Japan he was an A-level director, but abroad he was known only as a maker of B movies. Despite his large output and the popularity, longevity, and influence of his work (director Tim Burton once called Honda’s genre pictures “the most beautiful movies in the whole world”), there has been relatively little study of it beyond Godzilla. Honda never had a number-one hit, but his films consistently performed well at the Japanese box office and netted substantial foreign revenue; yet even commercial suc- cess did not lead him to make the projects he was most passionate about. Not unlike the English director James Whale—who, despite making war dramas, light comedies, adventures, mysteries, and the musical Show Boat (1936), is most widely remembered for directing Univer- sal’s Frankenstein (1931), The Invisible Man (1933), and Bride of Frankenstein (1935)— Honda became known for one genre even though his output included documentaries, dramas, war films, comedies, melodramas, and even a yakuza (gangster) actioner and a sports biopic. Of Honda’s forty-six features, nearly half had nothing to do with sci-fi, and more than a few of these films are excellent, though underappreciated. The “shining beauty” who planted his roots in the business in 1951 would prove a versa- tile craftsman driven to, as he said, “depict something real.” Honda’s career began with four subdued dramas about young people navigating the changing postwar landscape, with themes common to gendai-geki (modern drama) films reflecting social friction in contemporary Japan. After The Blue Pearl came The Skin of the South (1952), The Man Who Came to Port (1952), and the teen melodrama Adolescence Part 2 (1953). Then a pair of dramas about the human cost of Japan’s wartime hubris, Eagle of the Pacific
- 20. xv I n tr o d u c t I o n (1953) and Farewell Rabaul (1954), presaged the cautionary tale Honda would tell next in Godzilla (1954). As Japan’s harsh economic conditions slowly improved, Honda entered a second, more optimistic period, and through the early 1960s he would frequently incorporate music and humor in both his monster and mainstream films. Although the press had initially raised lofty expectations, Honda now became a member of Toho Studios’ stable of contracted program-picture directors, craftsmen respected for their commercial durability and their ability to deliver films on time and on budget, while largely toiling in the critical shadows of the resurgent early masters (Yasujiro Ozu, Mikio Naruse) and rising auteurs (Kuro- sawa, Kon Ichikawa, Masaki Kobayashi, among others). As such, Japan’s critics essentially dismissed him; of his films, only The Blue Pearl made Kinema Junpo’s annual best-of list. It would be decades before Godzilla would earn worldwide critical acceptance as a significant entry in Japan’s postwar cinema, and even longer before several of Honda’s nongenre films would begin to be reappraised. Though he was instrumental in creating iconic films known around the globe for more than sixty years, Honda has been overlooked as a director deserving scholarly attention. That his talents and interests went far beyond the narrow limits of the monster-movie genre, and that he effec- tively had two overlapping but very differ- ent careers, one invisible outside Japan, remains little known. And so his story has not really been told, and his body of work not fully considered. This book looks at Honda’s life, reexamines his films, recog- nizes his substantial achievements, and casts light on his contributions to Japanese and world cinema. Through a combination of biography, analysis—including the first study, in any language, of his entire filmog- raphy—and industrial history, it not only tells how Honda created a world of fearful yet familiar monsters, but also recalls the experiences and relationships that informed his movies, including his long years at war and the endless nightmares that followed. And it explores a lasting mystery of Honda’s legacy: why, for reasons difficult to understand, he did not parlay the broad popularity of his genre pictures into the freedom to make the films he most wanted to; and why, while close friends and colleagues Akira Kurosawa and Eiji Tsubu- raya used their own successes to gain inde- pendence from the studio system, Honda remained committed to it and accepted the constraints placed on his work and career. “I’ve always felt that films should have a specific form,” Honda said. “Cinema should be entertaining, and should give much visual enjoyment to the public. Many things can be expressed by literature or painting, but cinema has a particular advantage in its visual aspect. I try to express things in film that other arts cannot approach. . . . “My monster films have met with a great commercial success in Japan and elsewhere [but] that doesn’t mean I’m strictly limited to this type of film. I think I make too many monster films, but that’s because of the direction of Toho.”6 In this excerpt from a 1968 interview, Honda indicated his simple and unaffected philosophy toward film, but also hinted that his creativity was stifled by the studio’s business strategy. Despite his statement to the contrary, by this time Honda was exclu- sively making monster movies, a source of frustration largely responsible for his even- tual departure from Toho. It was Honda’s personality—a quiet and gentle spirit, a
- 21. i n tr o d u c t i o n xvi self-effacing and selfless tendency to put the needs of others before his own, a desire to create harmony and avoid conflict, and his strong sense of loyalty—that enabled him to thrive under the Toho system, within the parameters set by the company. Honda’s reserved nature was a great asset, the reason he was so beloved by colleagues, but also a liability. While Kurosawa reinterpreted Shake- speare and Dostoevsky in a postwar Japa- nese context, Honda was similarly inspired by Merian C. Cooper’s King Kong (1933), George Pal’s War of the Worlds (1953)—two films he frequently cited as influences—and the productions of Walt Disney to create his world of tragedy and fantasy, resembling the Hollywood prototypes but distinctly Japanese in viewpoint. Honda considered himself an entertainment filmmaker, and he admired fellow travelers; in later years, he would prefer the works of George Lucas and Steven Spielberg to Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. He was unabashedly populist, putting the viewer’s experience before his agenda behind the camera. “No matter how artistic a film can be, if no one can appreciate it, it is no good,” he said late in life. “Maybe that was my weak point, that I never thought that pursuing my theme was absolute. That is the way I live. I was never actually in the position where I could say or push my idea on everybody . . . like, ‘No matter who says what, this is my movie.’ After all, I grew up in the film studio system . . . I had to make my movies in that system. That’s one reason why I wasn’t completely strict about my theme, but at least I tried to show what I wanted to say, as best I could under the circumstances. “I have a really strong [connection] with the audience. It’s not about treating the audience just as my customer . . . I always thought about how [I could make them] feel what I was thinking about. I always tried to be very honest with myself. I tried to show my feelings directly and have the audience feel my excitement. That’s how I tried to make my films.”7 Honda’s loyalty showed in many aspects of life. He remained loyal to his country even when war pulled him away from the job he loved, and even when he was unfairly, unofficially punished for an act of treason with which he had no involvement and was forced to serve much longer than usual. He was a reluctant soldier who avoided fighting unless necessary, but he carried out his duties, motivated to survive the war and return to his family and his work. He remained loyal to the studio even when it nearly fell apart, while others were revolting and defecting, and while younger men were promoted before him. He resolved to continue making feature films even as colleagues joined the rise of tele- vision. And he stayed with the studio even after it pigeonholed him as a sci-fi man. Still, he wasn’t the stereotypical Japanese employee blindly serving his company. Honda saw the director’s role as a collabo- rative one, as a team leader rather than an author. “There is a great deal of discussion during the writing of the script,” he said. “But once filming starts, the discussions are ended. Once I became part of Toho, I no longer had reason to complain [to] my employer. One may have objections before joining a company, but once you are inside, you really cannot. That is my opinion. [But] if I have the least objection to a script, I certainly do not make the film.”8 With hindsight, Honda would express misgivings about his place in the film hierarchy. “The best way to make a film is . . . how Chaplin did,” he said, after retiring.
- 22. xvii I n tr o d u c t I o n “You have your own money, you direct, and act and cast it by yourself. That is a real moviemaker. [People] like us, we get money from the company and make whatever film they want. Well, that is not quite a real moviemaker.”9 For Honda’s generation, the studio was the only path to directing. It wasn’t until the late 1940s that Kurosawa and a handful of directors would begin to challenge the status quo and pave the way for indepen- dent cinema to come later. And it’s not difficult to understand Honda’s allegiance to the system, for he entered Toho during the 1930s, when by one measure, film output, the Japanese movie business was the biggest in the world, a position it would regain during the 1950s and 1960s, coincid- ing with the peak of Honda’s career. Japan’s system was modeled after Hollywood, with each studio cultivating its own contracted stars, directors, and writers, and building audience loyalty by focusing on key genres. Just as Warner Bros. became famous for gangster pictures, or mGm for musicals, Toho became known for big war epics dur- ing the 1930s and 1940s, and later it would excel in white-collar comedies, lavish musicals, film noir–type thrillers, women’s dramas—and science fiction films, most directed by Honda. Japan’s apprenticeship program was, by some accounts, better than Hollywood’s, with fledgling directors being assigned a mentor, who taught them the techniques of the craft and the politics of the business. Each studio was a tight-knit family of highly talented creative types. Inuhiko Yomota, perhaps Japan’s most highly respected film historian, believes Honda was “regarded as an artisan film- maker capable of making various types of movies ranging from highbrow films to ‘teen pics’ within the restrictions of the Japanese studio system.” Honda was among those studio-based directors who did not possess the truly individualistic style of an auteur, yet succeeded because of their ability to use genre conventions as guide- lines to be embellished and blended, rather than strict rules. To that end, Honda impro- vised: Mothra is part fantasy, King Kong vs. Godzilla incorporates salaryman comedy, Atragon contrasts a lost-civilization fantasy with Japan’s lost wartime empire, The H-Man combines monsters with gangsters, All Monsters Attack turns its genre inside out, and so on. Often the theme was a reflection of Honda himself. He would describe making films as the culmination of a lifelong process of observing and studying the world around him. “Only if you have your own [point-of-view] can you see things when you direct or create something,” he would say. “Seeing things through my own eyes, making films, and living my life in my own way . . . I try to gradually create the new me. That is what it is all about.”10 Honda’s personality was evident in his approach to filmmaking and in his self-assessment. In a preface to a memoir published posthumously, he wrote, “Ishiro Honda, the individual, is nothing amusing or interesting. He is really just an ordinary, regular old person and a regular movie fan.” In the same text, he said, “I am probably a filmmaker who least looks like one.” And still later, he described himself as “A weed in the flower garden . . . Never the main flower.” He preferred not to command the spotlight, but to be noticed for his achieve- ments. “People who come to see the main flower will notice [me]. ‘Hmm, look at this flower here.’” In outlining his directing philosophy, Honda emphasized collaboration and cooperation. “The most hated word is ‘fight,’” he said. Dialogue and understand-
- 23. i n tr o d u c t i o n xviii ing were keys to successful filmmaking: “Talk to each other. That’s the way to get an agreement.” Like Kurosawa, Ingmar Bergman, and John Ford, Honda had his de facto stock company of performers, many of whom called themselves the “Honda family.” There were major Toho actors such as Ryo Ikebe and Akira Takarada, and sirens such as Kumi Mizuno, Mie Hama, and Akiko Wakabayashi, plus a host of character players. They became the faces of Honda’s body of work, appearing in both genre and nongenre films. Without exception, they would describe Honda as quiet and even tempered. He rarely coached actors directly about their performance; his direction consisted of subtle course correction rather than instruction. “Actors have many ‘drawers,’ with many things inside, and he was good at pulling open the exact drawer he needed each time,” said Koji Kajita, Honda’s longtime assistant director. “He always suggested what to do, but he never demanded, so he could pull the best out of each actor. I’m sure the actors have no memories of being yelled at or anything like that. That wasn’t his way. “The biggest thing for him was how to maintain the concept that he had for the script,” Kajita continued. “He had this concept in his head, and when the filming would start to stray from it, he didn’t yell. Instead he very calmly spoke up. It was very firm. “He had his own style, this way of think- ing . . . he never got mad, didn’t rush, but he still expressed his thoughts and made it clear when something was different from what he wanted, and he corrected things quietly. He persevered. That was his style. I was with him for seventeen films, and I never saw him get mad. His facial expres- sion and manner was gentle and calm . . . He was that kind of director . . . He made each film as he wanted, like rolling the actors around in the palm of his hand.” “[Honda] never forced anything on the actors,” said actor Hiroshi Koizumi. “If there was something he didn’t like or that needed to be changed, he had this soft manner to let us know what he really wanted. He didn’t like it when there was a prearranged result . . . he always wanted to discuss things and then decide how to do something.” To those who worked for him, he was Honda-san—literally, Mr. Honda; to those who knew him well, he was the more famil- iar Ino-san (derived from inoshishi, the first Kanji in his name), or Honda-kun. Whether on the film set, out in public, or at home, he treated everyone as equals, just as his mentor Kajiro Yamamoto had taught him. “Everything I do is based on humanism, or love towards people,” Honda would say. “My way of life is all about love towards people. I look at others that way . . . what is their idea of human love? When I make films, it is the same thing . . . “Making people obey me is not my idea [of directing]. The entire staff understands what we are doing, and they direct all their energy and skill towards the screen. The director should put all those people together . . . that is how a good film [is made]. I really believe that my Honda group had lots of fun, always. When people have fun, they enjoy their work. When they enjoy their work . . . they try their best. I think my workplace was always that way. Maybe each person had personal likes and dislikes each time, but once the camera started rolling, everybody tried their best. There may be some other directors who have a really strong personality and show that through their films . . . That’s why all
- 24. xix I n tr o d u c t I o n movies come out differently . . . That’s the process of creation.”11 Susan Sontag’s 1965 essay “The Imagination of Disaster” brought science fiction cinema to the intellectual fore, and was one of the first American writings to critique Honda’s body of work in a serious manner. Sontag wrote, “Science fiction films are not about science. They are about disaster, which is one of the oldest subjects of art. In science fiction films disaster is rarely viewed inten- sively; it is always extensive. It is a matter of quantity and ingenuity. If you will, it is a question of scale. But the scale, particularly in the widescreen color films (of which the ones by the Japanese director Inoshiro [sic] Honda and the American director George Pal are technically the most convincing and visually the most exciting), does raise the matter to another level.”12 In surveying the genre, Sontag identified recurring motifs, citing Rodan, The Mysteri- ans and Battle in Outer Space as displays of “the aesthetics of destruction, with the peculiar beauties to be found in wreaking havoc [that are] the core of a good science fiction film.” Sontag also noted themes that Honda’s work shares with American genre films of the period: concern about the ethical pursuit of science; radiation casualties and mutations resulting from nuclear testing; moral oversimplification; a “U.N. fantasy” of united international warfare, with science as “the great unifier”; war imagery; and the depiction of mass destruction from an external and imper- sonal point of view, showing the audience the thrilling awe of cities crumbling but not the death and suffering that result. Sontag failed, however, to detect the culturally specific subtleties that separate Japanese science fiction films, informed by the atomic bombings, from American ones, influenced by fears of nuclear war with the Soviet Union. Perhaps the lone Western scholar to define this difference was Donald Richie, the distinguished histo- rian of Japanese cinema, who saw Godzilla, Rodan, et al., not simply as a Cold War–era phenomenon but part of a unique film cycle that expressed the prevailing national attitude regarding the bomb in the 1950s: a lamentation for the tragedy of Hiroshima, an acceptance of its inevitability, and an awareness that the sense of melancholy would pass. Richie identified this feeling as mono no aware (roughly translated as “sympathetic sadness”). Richie wrote, “This is the authentic Japanese attitude toward death and disaster . . . which the West has never understood. The bomb, like the war, like death itself, was something over which no one had any control; something which could not be helped; what we mean by an ‘act of God.’ The Japanese, in moments of stress if not habitually, regard life as the period of complete insecurity that it is; and the truth of this observation is graphically illustrated in a land yearly ravaged by typhoons, a country where the very earth quakes daily. The bomb, at first, was thought of as just another catastrophe in a land already over- whelmed with them.”13 Richie’s analogy helps explain why the arrival of Godzilla, Honda’s monster mani- festation of the bomb, resembles both a war and one of Japan’s extreme weather events; indeed, when it first comes ashore, God- zilla is obscured by a fierce storm. No one questions why the monster attacks Tokyo, though it has no apparent purpose other than destruction, nor why it returns again, just as typhoons predictably hit Japan’s capital every summer. It also explains why people respond as they would to a natural disaster. An electrical barrier is built around
- 25. i n tr o d u c t i o n xx the city, like sandbags against a flood, and citizens seek safety at high ground, as if fleeing a tsunami. Similarly, Rodan creates a metaphorical hurricane, and the Mysteri- ans cause a giant forest fire and landslide. Sometimes, like a sudden earthquake, Honda’s monsters disrupt the humdrum of everyday life: Godzilla’s footfalls come while a family idly passes time in the living room, a giant insect bursts into a home and frightens a young mother, or a woman taking a bath spies a giant robot outside the window. For Honda, the monsters’ suggestion of natural disaster was also rooted in things he witnessed on the battlefront. “During the war, the Chinese people did not run away when there was shooting between soldiers near their fields,” Honda said. “To them, we were just like a storm. They thought of us as [like] a natural disaster, otherwise they would not have continued living there in such a dangerous place . . . For me, the monsters were like that. Just [like] a natural disaster.”14 “I am responsible for tying Honda to special effects movies,” producer Tomoyuki Tanaka once confessed. “If I hadn’t, he might have become a director just like [Mikio] Naruse.”15 Like the respected Naruse, and like all fine directors, Honda made films chroni- cling his time and place. Postwar Japan was a crucible of social, political, and economic change, as the veneer of Westernization continued to obscure centuries-old culture. Honda’s early work followed what scholar Joan Mellen calls “the major theme in Japanese films . . . the struggle between one’s duty and the individual desire to be independent and free of traditional values.” His protagonists were young people, torn between their parents’ ideals and their own, and the conflict often centered on an arranged but unwanted marriage. During the second half of the 1950s, Honda was groomed as a specialist in women’s stories, and made a number of films about independent-minded young women and their changing roles at home and at work. Honda’s handful of women’s films, like Naruse’s, question Japan’s gender norms and depict female passions and disappoint- ments; but Honda’s world is a far more hopeful place, his characters less tragic. Honda had apprenticed with Naruse briefly and admired Naruse’s “sturdy rhythm” and talent for “[showing] people’s thinking in very special, quiet times.” Honda didn’t believe he was directly influenced by the melodramatic Naruse style, but acknowl- edged, “I had the same kind of things in me.”16 Some of Honda’s recurring themes and motifs were evident even before Godzilla. For instance, The Skin of the South offers images of a natural disaster and the destruction of a town, and presents a scientist as the trustworthy authority in a crisis and a greedy villain exploiter of indigenous people and the environment, two frequent Honda archetypes. From The Blue Pearl through Terror of Mechagodzilla, his last feature, and many times in between, Honda’s drama hinged on a character’s sacrificial death, self-inflicted or otherwise, to restore honor, save others from harm, express deep love, or a combination thereof. Japan’s beautiful and dangerous seas and mountains served as visual and thematic symbols of nature’s power from the very beginning; a mountain boy him- self, and an avid hiker, Honda would fre- quently show a sort of reverence for Japan’s majestic bluffs by having his characters trekking uphill, a visual motif reappearing in numerous films. And throughout his
- 26. xxi I n tr o d u c t I o n filmography, Honda utilized regional locations, culture, and minutiae to enhance authenticity, from local pearl divers and Shinto ceremony dancers in Godzilla to the obon festival signs written in reverse script, as per regional custom, in The Mysterians. Honda’s preference for a trio of protago- nists—sometimes a love triangle, often just three friends—was also there from the first. The uneasy postwar Japan-US alliance underlies many of Honda’s science fiction films, and while Godzilla and especially Mothra might be interpreted as somewhat anti-American, Honda was increasingly optimistic about the relationship. In his idealized world, America and the “new Switzerland” of Japan are leaders of a broad, United Nations–based coalition reliant on science and technology to protect mankind. Scientists are highly influential, while politicians are ineffective or invisible. The Japan Self-Defense Forces bravely defend the homeland and employ glorified, high-tech hardware; but military operations often fail, and force alone rarely repels the threat. Assistance comes from monsters, a deus ex machina, or human ingenuity. Honda was also frequently concerned with the dehumanizing effects of technology, greed, or totalitarianism. Honda relied on his cinematographers and art directors to create the look of his films; thus the noirish style of Godzilla, made with a crew borrowed from Mikio Naruse, is completely unlike the larger- than-life look of the sci-fi films shot in color and scope just a few years later by Honda’s longtime cameraman Hajime Koizumi. He was less concerned with visual aesthetics than with theme and entertainment. Therefore, in analyzing Honda’s work, the authors weight these and other story- related criteria, such as tone, character- ization, actors’ performances, editing (under the Toho system, editors executed cuts as instructed by the director), pacing, structure, use of soundtrack music, and so on, more heavily than technique or com- position. The magnificent special effects of Eiji Tsuburaya are discussed in this same context; detailed information about Tsu- buraya’s techniques is available from other sources.17 Honda believed in simplicity of theme. “Yama-san [Kajiro Yamamoto] always used to say . . . the theme of a story must be something that can be precisely described in three clean sentences,” Honda said. “And it must be a story that has a very clear state- ment to make. [If] you must go on and on explaining who goes where and does what [it] will not be entertaining. This, for me, is a golden rule.” Research for this project was conducted over a four-year period and included inter- views conducted in Japan with Honda’s family and colleagues; archival discovery of documents, including Honda’s annotated scripts and other papers, studio memoran- dums, Japanese newspaper and magazine clippings dating to the 1950s, and other materials; consultation of numerous Japa- nese- and English-language publications, including scholarly and trade books on film, history, and culture; consulting previ- ously published and unpublished writings by and interviews with Honda; locating and viewing Honda’s filmography, including the non–science fiction films, the great majority of which are unavailable commercially; and translation of large volumes of Japanese- language materials into English for study. Only the original, Japanese-language editions of Honda’s films are studied here, as they best represent the director’s intent and achievement. As of this writing, all of Honda’s science fiction films are commer-
- 27. i n tr o d u c t i o n xxii cially available in the United States via one or more home video platforms, in Japanese with English-language subtitles, except for Half Human, The Human Vapor, Gorath, King Kong vs. Godzilla, and King Kong Escapes. For these films, the authors viewed official Japanese video releases when pos- sible, and the dialogue was translated for research purposes.18 Honda’s dramatic and documentary films were another matter. To date, only three, Eagle of the Pacific, Farewell Rabaul, and Come Marry Me, have been released on home video in Japan, and no subtitled editions are available. Many others, however, have been broadcast on Japanese cable television over the past decade-plus; and with the assistance of Honda’s family and research associate Shinsuke Nakajima, the authors obtained and viewed Honda’s entire filmography except for two films, the documentary Story of a Co-op, of which there are no known extant elements, and the independent feature Night School; in writing about these two films the authors referred to archival materials and published and unpublished synopses. Yuuko Honda-Yun performed the massive undertaking of translating film dialogue for study. (As this book went to press, it was announced that the rarely seen Night School would be issued on DVD in Japan in 2017.) Though none of Honda’s non-sci-fi films are currently available in the West, they are analyzed in this volume—admittedly, to an unusual and perhaps unprecedented extent—because they reveal an invaluable and previously impossible picture of the filmmaker and the scope of his abilities and interests, exploring themes and ideas that his genre films often only hint at. And with the advent of streaming media and new channels for distributing foreign films, it seems not unlikely that some of these rare Honda pictures will appear in the West before long. One pivotal part of Honda’s life that remains mysterious is his period of military service. Honda rarely spoke openly about his experiences, but it is clear that multiple tours of duty and captivity as a Pow left psychological scars and informed the antiwar stance of Godzilla and other films. “Without that war experience, I don’t think I would be who I am,” Honda once said. “I would have been so much different had I not experienced it.”19 Honda had collected his war mementos, such as correspondence, diaries, docu- ments, and artifacts, in a trunk that was locked away for the rest of his life. It was his intention to return to this trunk and assemble the material in a memoir, a task never completed. Sources for the account of Honda’s military service in this book were limited to Honda’s writings, interviews with family members, and other secondary materials. The Honda family has decided that the contents of the trunk should remain private. A small number of the trunk’s materials were shown in a 2013 nHK television documentary and subsequently put on limited public display in a museum exhibit. However, the contents have not been archived and made available for research; thus, it is unknown what further details may eventually come to light about Honda’s lost years at war. The book concludes with the first detailed chronicle of Honda’s third career phase, in which he reunited and collaborated with Akira Kurosawa. Beginning with the production of Kagemusha (1980) through Kurosawa’s last film, Madadayo (1993), this period was a rejuvenating denouement for both men, a return to the free spirit of their early days as idealistic Toho upstarts, with
- 28. xxiii I n tr o d u c t I o n Honda rediscovering his love of filmmaking while providing a bedrock of support for “The Emperor,” his oldest and closest friend. It is a little-known fact that Kurosawa once ranked Godzilla number thirty-four on his list of one hundred favorite films, higher than acclaimed works by Ozu, Ford, Capra, Hawks, Fellini, Truffaut, Bergman, Antonioni, and others. In doing so, Kurosawa wrote: “Honda-san is really an earnest, nice fellow. Imagine . . . what you would do if a monster like Godzilla emerged. Normally one would forget every- thing, abandon his duty, and simply flee. Wouldn’t you? But the [authorities] in this movie properly and sincerely lead people [to safety], don’t they? That is typical of Honda-san. I love it. Well, he was my best friend. As you know, I am a pretty obstinate and demanding person. Thus, the fact that I never had problems with him was due to his [good-natured] personality.”20 Honda’s story is about a filmmaker whose quietude harbored visions of war and the wrath of Godzilla, whose achieve- ments were largely unrecognized, and whose thrilling world of monsters was both his cross to bear and his enduring triumph. “It is my regret that I couldn’t make a film that I would consider [the greatest] of my life,” Honda said. “Each time I did my best, so for that I have no regret. But when I see my films later, there is always a spot where I feel like I should have done it this way, or I should have stood up for myself against the company. I do regret that. “[However] it was definitely my pleasure that I was able to make something that people can remember . . . If I had not made Godzilla or The Mysterians, even if I would have received some kind of [critical] prize, it wouldn’t be the same. There is nothing like the happiness I get from those things.”21 noteS on the text For familiarity and ease of reading, Japanese names are printed in the Western manner, with the subject’s given name fol- lowed by the surname, e.g., “Ishiro Honda” rather than “Honda Ishiro.” Macrons (dia- critical marks) are not utilized in the text. Foreign films are referenced by their official English-language title at the time of this book’s publication. This may be different from the title under which a film was originally released in English-language territories. For films with no official English title, a translation of the Japanese title is given. For Ishiro Honda’s films, the original Japanese-language titles and their trans- lations, if different from the English titles, are provided in the filmography following the text. For other films, the English title or translation is followed by the native- language title in parentheses on first reference in the text. Japanese terms are presented in italics, followed by their English meaning in parentheses. Terms familiar to Western readers, such as anime, kabuki, manga, and samurai, are not italicized.
- 30.
- 32. I Dreams and Nightmares 1911–45 Only thedead have seen the end of war. — George Santayana
- 33. Ishiro Honda isrunning. Chinese resistance fighters are approaching fast. An ambush. His ears fill with the cacophony of gunfire and the screams of flying bombs. All around him, fellow Japanese soldiers dive for cover. He is no longer a young man, but his body remains fit from years of marching, walking, hiking, climbing over the hills and through the valleys of China’s interior. And he is not ready to die. He has endured too much, made too many sacrifices not to return home. So he runs. Then it happens. Right in front of him a mortar hits the earth, scattering soil. And in that instant, he knows: within milliseconds, thousands of iron fragments will tear him to shreds. Time freezes. An eternity. Then, as if a miracle, no explosion comes. Cheating death, he runs on.
- 34. 3 1 A Boy fromthe Mountains Ishiro Honda’s birthplace no longer appears on the map. It was a tiny rural mountain village called Asahi, the meaning of which, “morning sun,” attests to the vivid natural beauty that appeared with each new day. Asahi was located within the Higashitagawa District of Yamagata Prefecture, a densely forested province of rolling mountains and deep valleys on Japan’s main island of Honshu. Spanning 9,300 square kilometers and situated about 375 kilometers north of Tokyo, Yamagata is a world apart, a place of thousand-year-old cedars, ageless shrines, and rich agricultural land. Its abundant, unspoiled wonders have inspired poets, novelists, and artists: the fragrant rainbows of spring foliage; the serenade of cicadas and frogs cascading over rice fields during humid summers; the autumns that turn the mountains into a kaleidoscope of yellows, reds, and oranges; and the snow sparkling under winter moonlight. Located one hundred kilometers northwest of Yamagata City, the provincial capital, Asahi village was home to just a few hundred residents in the early twentieth century, when Honda spent his formative years there; it has since been annexed into Tsuruoka, a modern town of more than one hundred thousand. Indeed, signs of progress are evident throughout the entire region, which today is accessible by car, plane, or bullet train. And yet, it is not so completely different now than it was back then, when people lived off the land, were in harmony with their natural surroundings, and had little contact with the outside world. In this idyl- lic, remote setting, Ishiro Honda was born on May 7, 1911. Honda was the fifth and youngest child of Hokan and Miho Honda. He was close to his brothers, Takamoto, Ryokichi, and Ryuzo, and he also had a sister, Tomi, who
- 35. d r eA m s A n d n i G H t m A r e s 4 passed away in childhood. As was tradition, the kanji characters of Honda’s given name, Ishiro, indicated his place in the family order. As Honda explained: “‘I’ stands for inoshishi, the boar, the astrological symbol of my birth year. ‘Shi’ stands for the number four, the fourth son.1 And ‘ro’ indicates a boy’s name. Literally, it means the fourth son, born in the year of the boar.”2 Honda’s father, like his father before him, was a Buddhist monk at Churen-ji, a temple located on Mount Yudono, the holiest of the three sacred mountains that lord over central Yamagata. This majestic trio, which also includes Mount Gassan and Mount Haguro, is the epicenter of Shu- gendo, a feudal-era folk religion of moun- tain worship and extreme ascetic rites. In centuries past, Shugendo’s most dedicated practitioners would mummify themselves, a ritual involving a long, slow demise. Today, Churen-ji temple still houses the mummy of Tetsumonkai Shonin, a revered monk who underwent this process in the early 1800s. Hokan, however, had no such aspira- tions. He studied more traditional Buddhist teachings and was content with the simple life of a monk. The Hondas lived in a dwelling on temple property with a chest- nut grove, rice field, and gardens on the grounds. They grew rice, potatoes, daikon radishes, and carrots, and made and sold miso (fermented soybean seasoning) and soy sauce; they also received income from a silk moth farm run by one of Honda’s brothers. Hokan earned money during the summers, taking long trips north to Iwate, Akita, and Hokkaido prefectures to sell devotions and visit temples. He would return home before the beginning of win- ter, when the village might be snowed in. Honda would liken his father to Koya Hijiri, lower-caste monks from Mount Koya south of Osaka, traveling peddlers who preached Buddhism across Japan. Honda remembered his father as “a living Buddha,” a gentle soul with a long, white beard and an ever-cheerful dispo- sition. Hokan led by quiet example, rarely lecturing his children and never raising a hand to discipline them, and the boy was strongly influenced by the man’s patient, peaceful ways. Later, as a film director, Honda would be described by colleagues as patient almost to a fault, and his hushed assurance was a product of Hokan’s serenity and the Japanese cultural qualities of muga (selflessness) and kokoro (mind and heart). When asked, however, Honda would say he believed his own personality was closer to that of his mother, whom he also remembered as “a very patient person, never scary, and always nice.” Honda was born one year before the death of Emperor Meiji, who reigned from 1868 to 1912 and oversaw Japan’s transformation from a feudal society under the Shogunate into a modern, highly centralized, Western- style state. During the Meiji era, most every aspect of the nation was reformed: govern- ment, politics, military, economy, industry, transportation, agriculture, and education. The formerly isolated Japan embraced ideas from Europe and the United States and became the dominant economic and military power in Asia, victorious in wars against China (1894–95) and Russia (1904–5) and taking Taiwan and Korea as colonies in the process. Many feudal ways were abolished, and a new, Prussian-style education system encouraged the study of science and technology. Sons followed in their fathers’ footsteps, but such customs began fading in the new era. Honda’s three brothers received religious tutoring at age sixteen, but Honda
- 36. 5 A B oy f r o m t h e m o u n t A i n s never did. “None of us really wanted to take after my father and be a monk,” he would recall. “So we started learning about science instead.” Hokan did not try to persuade the boys to live monastic lives, instead urging each one to follow his own path. Though hardly well off, the Hondas made sure their sons were educated. Even with the new reforms, compulsory elementary school was just six years; after that, children from poorer backgrounds often worked to help support their families while students of higher economic or social status continued to middle school (roughly equivalent to present-day high school, spanning ages thirteen to eighteen), and then finally to high school, vocational school, college, or military academy. The Hondas were able to send their son Takamoto to medical school and pay half his tuition; the boy worked to pay the rest and became a military doctor afterward. Asahi was an agricultural village of about thirty families, mostly rice farmers and silk makers. The roads to the nearest town were narrow and treacherous. There was no library or bookstore, and newspapers were rarely available. Takamoto, a product of the new Meiji ideals, encouraged his little brother to study and regularly sent him books and magazines such as Japanese Boy, Boys’ Club, Kids’ Science, and Science Visual News. Thus, Honda developed a lifelong love of reading and a curiosity about things scientific, despite being all but cut off from the quickly modernizing outside world. Childhood was a time of simple pleasures. With two middle-aged par- ents—Honda’s mother gave birth to him at forty-two—there was little supervision, and Honda played from dawn until dusk. When it was hot, he and his friends would swim in the river or build a dam; when snow fell, they went sledding. Sometimes they played hide-and-seek in the temple, ducking behind the mummy’s tomb. There was folk music and dance at village festivals throughout the year, and the Honda brothers all performed with a local youth troupe. Honda was not mischievous, though he once hiked to his cousin’s house across the mountain without telling his parents. When he returned days later, his mother was upset—not that he had gone without permission, but that he wasn’t dressed properly for the visit. With his stable and happy home life, Honda didn’t develop a strong competitive streak. “I never thought that I had to beat someone else, only that I had to do my personal best,” he recalled. “I never gave thought to being on top . . . if someone else did better, I would still think and work at my own pace. I was very stubborn in that regard. [But] once I decided to do some- thing, I just had to do it.”3
- 37. 6 2 Tokyo The city ofEdo was already one of the largest in the world when, in 1868, Emperor Meiji took power and the capital’s name was officially changed to Tokyo. Its mod- ernization continued as Western influence increased; and by the early 1900s, the rapid expansion of railroads to the plains beyond the city center gave rise to suburbs, with residential neighborhoods “scattered in the fields and wooded hills around long- established farming villages,” according to historian Jordan Sand. These developments became home to people from central Tokyo and, in large numbers, from other parts of Japan. In 1921 the Hondas uprooted from their tiny village and transplanted themselves to this burgeoning metropolis. Hokan was appointed chief priest at a Buddhist temple in Tokyo, and the family settled in the Takaido neighborhood of the city’s Sugi- nami Ward, a fast-growing suburb on the western side. In 1919 Suginami’s population was roughly 17,000; by 1926 it would soar to 143,000 as families of modest means moved into newly built homes, displacing the area’s rural peasant population.1 Honda was in third grade when his life abruptly shifted from the bucolic moun- tains to the bustling city; he’d never even seen a train before boarding one for Tokyo. Still, he adapted quickly to his new sur- roundings. When his classmates at Takaido Elementary teased him about his mountain dialect, he took it in stride and learned to speak like a Tokyoite. He’d been an honors student back home; but the city schools were more difficult, and he faltered briefly before his grades rebounded. His favorite subjects were Japanese, history, and geography; and he continued to cultivate a love of the natural sciences, saving his allowance to buy more science magazines.
- 38. 7 T o ky o (Later, in middle school, he would struggle with chemistry, biology, algebra, and other subjects involving equations, but he still liked the scientific mindset.) Despite a drastic change of scenery, many things in his life—family, school, play—were basi- cally the same. Then he experienced something entirely different. Before Tokyo, Honda had never heard of eiga (movies), but one day at school the students were assembled to watch one. Though Honda would forget the title, it was likely one of the Universal Bluebird photoplays, a series of mostly Westerns that were considered minor pictures in the United States, but were extremely popular in Japan from 1916 to 1919.2 Honda described the film this way: “It was the story of a girl who was kid- napped and raised by Indians. She grew up and found out that she wasn’t one of them. There was a dispute over her, who[m] she should live with . . . she got on the back of the horse and went off fighting . . . against her real brother, something like that. I saw it at the schoolgrounds. I still remember that girl, she was a little on the chubby side, not quite pretty, she had long dark hair, sort of looked like an Indian, and there was a situation where she was surprised by being told that she was actually a white person, not Indian . . . That was quite shocking, a machine that projected something like that, and people were moving around in there. I was so interested, and I definitely wanted to see more.”3 Tokyo offered a multitude of ideal diver- sions for a “science boy,” such as air shows and invention expos, which Honda would sneak off to see all by himself, without his parents’ permission. But more and more, he was drawn to the movie houses. By the third and fourth grade he was reading newspaper critiques and asking friends which movies were worth seeing, and begging his big brothers to take him. “If you had the money, you’d just go to the movie theater and watch whatever,” he said. “It was that kind of time.” Two minutes before noon on Saturday, September 1, 1923, a seismic fault six miles beneath the sea floor off Tokyo unleashed a magnitude 7.9 temblor, mercilessly shaking the Kanto Plain. A forty-foot-high tsunami came ashore and swept away thousands of people, and fires engulfed the city’s wooden structures for days. Nearly 140,000 of Tokyo’s roughly 2.5 million residents were killed and about half the city was destroyed in the Great Kanto Earthquake, Japan’s deadliest natural disaster. Fortunately, the Hondas lived in the low-density western suburbs, where many people survived by escaping to nearby forests and farmland, away from burning debris. Tokyo’s rapid postearthquake reconstruction created a cosmopolitan, urban environment, where leisure activities now included jazz clubs, modern theater, and cinema. Film was by this time known as daihachi geijutsu (the eighth art), and its form and content had greatly evolved since Thomas Edison’s kinetoscope had arrived in Japan in 1896. The earliest Japanese movies were essentially filmed stage plays that borrowed the conventions of Noh, kabuki, and Shinpa (a style of melodrama popular in the late 1800s) and featured stars of the theater. By the 1920s filmmakers were embracing new narrative styles, and their movies ranged from lowbrow sword-fighting adventures to high-minded studies of the human condition. The quake had leveled all but one of Tokyo’s studios, resulting in a shortage of domestic movies.
- 39. d r eA m s A n d n i G H t m A r e s 8 Films were imported from abroad to fill the void, and Japanese audiences and filmmakers were influenced by Western methods, techniques, and stories. Thus, the first films Honda saw ranged from ninja shorts starring Japan’s first movie star, Matsunosuke Onoe (nicknamed “Eyeballs Matsu” for his big, demonstrative eyes) to the German expressionist horror masterpiece The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (Das cabinet des Dr. Caligari, 1920). Honda’s parents forbade him from going to cinemas alone, but he often did anyway, usually sneaking away to the nearby Nikkatsu theater in the Sangenjaya neighborhood of Setagaya Ward. Japan’s silent-movie cinemas, unlike those in the West, did not employ screen titles; instead there were benshi, narrators who stood beside the movie screen and provided live running commentary. Some benshi were such great orators that they were considered artists, as popular as movie stars. “I was more inter- ested in them than what was happening on screen,” Honda later recalled.4 After spend- ing an afternoon at the cinema, he would often visit the nearby home of a young male cousin, who was blind. Honda recounted each movie for the boy, acting out the story and describing the actors, the action scenes, even the backgrounds and sets; it was his first real experience as a storyteller. Sometimes he’d perform this routine for his father. One of the benshi whom Honda admired was Musei Tokugawa, among the most famous in Tokyo, known for his erudite delivery and for working in finer movie houses where foreign films played. It was at the high-class Musashinokan cinema in Shinjuku, during a showing of F. W. Murnau’s The Last Laugh (Der letzte mann, 1924) narrated by Tokugawa, that young Honda experienced a small epiphany that helped him begin to understand how films were created. The Last Laugh follows an old doorman at a fancy hotel, who is demoted to washroom attendant. Ashamed, the man hides his plight from family and friends, but soon everyone finds out and he is ridiculed. In the surprise happy ending, the doorman inherits a fortune from a hotel patron. Explaining this turn of events to the audience, the benshi Tokugawa said the filmmaker, Murnau, had taken pity on the protagonist. At that, Honda’s brother Ryuzo, sit- ting next to him, remarked, “Wow, I’m really impressed by this director.” That word—director, kantoku—immediately grabbed Honda’s attention. He knew directors were important because their names were prominent in the credits; he enjoyed the comedies of director Yutaka Abe or the action films of directors Yoshiro Tsuji and Minoru Murata, but he didn’t know what these people did. He’d always thought movies were made by the actors, but now he began to understand there was someone else offscreen.5 (The benshi Musei Tokugawa would go on to become one of Japan’s most famous actors of the 1930s; Honda, perhaps recalling this pivotal child- hood moment, years later would choose Tokugawa to narrate his documentary film Ise-Shima.) After his father transferred to another temple, Honda enrolled in Tachibana Ele- mentary School in Kawasaki, just southwest of Tokyo, and then Kogyokusha Junior High School, later a prestigious prep school for the Imperial Japanese Naval Academy. Athletically inclined, he studied kendo and archery and became an accomplished swimmer, but quit the swim team after tearing his Achilles tendon. Around this time, his brother Takamoto completed his service as a military physician and settled
- 40. 9 T o ky o in Tokyo with plans to open a clinic, hoping Honda would become a dentist and join him there. Honda half-heartedly promised to attend dental college, but soon witnessed something that changed his mind. One day Honda was walking down a neighborhood street frequently used by filmmakers for location shooting when he saw a crew from Shochiku Kinema Kamata, predecessor of the modern Sho- chiku Studios. Tadamoto Okubo, mentor of Yasujiro Ozu, was directing action star Goro Morino in a jidai-geki (period drama) film.6 Honda would always remember the scene: Morino stood atop a cliff, threw a rope, and captured the bad guy. Okubo, the man barking out orders, was addressed by a familiar word: kantoku. Little by little, Honda’s understanding of the filmmaking process was growing. “That was a big deal for me, to see a location shoot,” he recalled. “I realized that the true author of the movie is the director. Watching this . . . really made me want to enter the world of cinema.”7 “The most attractive part of movies was that they engaged entire audiences,” Honda later said. “It was not just one-to-one, artist to viewer, like ordinary art before it. For example, you could show paintings in an exhibition, but the experience is personal, one-to-one. Stage plays and concerts play to an audience, but even then, the audience is limited to the venue. Movies play on a much bigger scale . . . and this was when they began to appear before many people.”8 There was no clear path to a career in film. Formal education in the field was nonexistent. Then, just before graduating high school, Honda learned that the art department of Nihon University (Nihon Daigaku, often abbreviated as “Nichidai”) had recently established a film major pro- gram. It needed warm bodies; there were no entrance requirements. Instead of dental High school portrait, c. 1927. Courtesy of Honda Film Inc. Kendo training, late 1920s. Courtesy of Honda Film Inc.
- 41. d r eA m s A n d n i G H t m A r e s 10 college, after graduating from middle school, Honda secretly applied to Nihon University and was accepted. Despite the broken promise, and even if Honda was opting for a nontraditional career path in a young, unstable industry, his family was not upset. “My father never told me [what to do with my life]. My brother was much older, and he told me to do whatever I wanted, but he also said I must be responsible for what- ever I chose. Back then, most people looked down on [working in the movie business], but my family was never like that.”9 “[So] I thought, OK, let me try studying this thing called the cinema. That was when I bet my life on this field,” Honda said.10 As more and more new cinemas were built and traditional theaters were converted into movie houses, young Honda saw Tokyo entering a cinematic boom. “I realized there could be a pretty well paying future for me in the business. It all came together: I enjoyed telling stories and could find work in an industry that was financially success- ful and artistic to boot.”11
- 42. 11 3 Film School Lessons Honda enteredNihon University in 1931 with dreams of a career in the cinematic arts, but he was confronted with some rather unpleasant realities. If he was betting his life on a movie career, the odds didn’t look good. “Nothing [at the school] was well prepared,” he remembered. “It was all brand new . . . The classes were not really that good, and there was not enough equipment. There was not even an actual campus . . . they rented space in a nearby school building and held classes there. A lot of the professors were well-known, good teachers, although they canceled classes all the time.”1 The film department was a pilot program and, as such, it was disorganized and erratically run. The school’s administration wasn’t fully convinced that film could be taught at a university, thus there were no studio facilities or practical training. Many of the two hundred students in the inaugu- ral class got frustrated and quit. Still, when class was canceled, Honda had time to visit local cinemas, many in converted kabuki theaters and Buddhist temples (and some still bearing signs of earthquake damage), and there his educa- tion continued. He took copious notes on silents such as Edward Sloman’s adventure The Foreign Legion (1928) and early talkies such as René Clair’s classic romantic com- edy Under the Roofs of Paris (Sous les toits de Paris, 1930). He watched Josef von Stern- berg’s Morocco (1930) more than ten times, noting all its cuts and dialogue for further study; the wartime romance between a legionnaire (Gary Cooper) and a cabaret girl (Marlene Dietrich) may have influenced Honda’s Farewell Rabaul two decades later. He was impressed by Lubitsch’s Broken Lullaby (1932), admired Frank Capra, and
- 43. d r eA m s A n d n i G H t m A r e s 12 watched as many Charles Chaplin, Harold Lloyd, and Buster Keaton films as he could. Early on, Honda and four classmates rented a room in Shinbashi, a neighbor- hood south of Ginza and a few kilometers from the university. It was a place to hang out after school, talk movies, and discuss the latest issue of Kinema Junpo, Japan’s first journal of film criticism, founded in 1919. Honda hoped the group might col- laborate on a screenplay, but mostly they socialized and drank. He also attended an occasional salon of film critics and students, though he rarely participated. “I couldn’t pound others with my opinion, so I just quietly listened . . . I was the type of student who didn’t stand out at all,” he later recalled.2 Still, even if school was not all he’d hoped, it introduced Honda to Iwao Mori, an executive in charge of production for an upstart studio called Photographic Chemical Laboratories, or PcL. Mori would become an influential figure in Honda’s life. Born in 1899, Mori was a film critic and screenwriter who emerged in the 1920s as a leading advocate for the improvement of Japanese films, which he considered far behind those produced in the West. Mori had entered the movie business in 1926 at Nikkatsu Studios, where he formed the Nikkatsu Kinyokai (Friday Party), a think tank of executives, producers, writers, directors, advertising staff, theater opera- tors, and so on. Young and hungry, they discussed how to make better films and run a better operation, and were credited with helping reestablish Nikkatsu’s Tokyo studio after the earthquake had crippled it. Mori would become known as an innovator, collecting ideas from his travels to Holly- wood and Europe. Mori taught a class at Nihon University called “Creating Movies,” but he was too busy to show up often. His main interest lay in recruiting young talent for PcL; so in September 1932 he created a new Friday Party with about ten promising students from various colleges, and paid them a small stipend as an incentive to attend. Honda was one of just two Nihon University students accepted. The group also included Senkichi Taniguchi, an ambitious young man who’d just quit Waseda University to join the film industry and who would become Honda’s close friend. The group’s discussions might focus on critiquing a particular film or on the montage theory of Russian directors Sergei Eisenstein and Vsevolod Pudovkin. Not one to stand out from the crowd, Honda wondered why Mori had included him in the group. Honda later learned that he was recommended by Hiroshi Nakane, a Russian music scholar who had befriended him; Nakane was impressed by Honda’s curiosity about clas- sical music and his interest in how music might enhance motion pictures in the coming age of sound film. PcL was founded in 1929 as a film laboratory, but with the arrival of talkies it began providing state-of-the-art recording services to the big studios. Soon it moved into film production, starting with musical advertising shorts for beer, candy, and record companies. PcL made just two films in 1933, then quickly expanded production and released fifty-one features from 1934 to 1936.3 In August 1933, Mori offered entry-level jobs at PcL to a select few members of the Friday Party, including Honda and Tani- guchi. It was a tremendous opportunity; industry jobs, even bottom-rung positions, were highly coveted, and it was nigh impossible to get hired without an inside connection. For roughly a year, Honda simultaneously completed his college studies while working at the studio.
- 44. 13 F i lm S c h o o l l e S S o n S PcL’s innovative business model, largely Mori’s creation, introduced a Hollywood-style, producer-centered system. It was markedly different from other studios, where production was a big bureaucracy run by an executive and built on the star power of famous directors and actors. Instead, PcL emphasized quality filmmaking and the latest technological advances. It abolished the feudal system of lifetime contracts and hired filmmakers, actors, and other personnel on short-term deals that could be renewed or canceled as warranted. Mori put producers in charge of individual projects, leaving directors free to concentrate on the work. “PcL was just a dream place for young people who were aiming for the movie world,” Honda recalled.4 After some basic training, the young recruits were put on dif- ferent tracks—management, screenwriter, cameraman, sound, and other business and technical areas. Honda became a jokantoku (assistant director) trainee, and his first jobs involved working as a scripter in the editing department, which required logging and memorizing every cut, arduous tasks for an absolute beginner. Finally, Honda made his debut on a film set, working at the bottom rung as a third assistant director— or kachinko (clapperboard), as they were nicknamed—on director Sotoji Kimura’s The Elderly Commoner’s Life Study (Tadano bonji jinsei benkyo, 1934). Then, suddenly, good fortune ran out. Immediately after the film was completed, Honda received a red postcard calling on him to serve his country and his emperor. A draft notice.
- 45. 14 4 A Reluctant Soldier From the1890s to the 1920s, Japan was gov- erned under a hybrid system of democracy and imperialism. The British-style constitu- tional monarchy and the newly established parliamentary system fostered an era of social and economic plurality, which flourished during the reign of Emperor Taisho (1912–26). Simultaneously, a fast- burgeoning military was expanding Japan’s reach across Asia, pursuing international influence and economic gains. In 1895, the armed forces counted seventy thousand men; a decade later, in the Russo-Japanese War, it had surpassed one million. Victory over Russia created a foothold in Manchuria, rich in natural resources such as iron, coking coal, soybeans, salt, and developable land, which was in short supply within the Japanese empire. Fac- tories were opened, and people migrated in search of prosperous new beginnings. In 1906 Japan began work on the massive South Manchuria Railroad, which forged the route for Japanese colonization across the province and fomented the Chinese nationalist resistance to it. The reign of Emperor Hirohito, known as the Showa period (1926–89) or the “period of enlightened peace,” began rather ironically with domestic and international upheavals threatening Japan’s delicate bal- ance of liberal democracy and rising mili- tary power. The 1929 US stock market crash and ensuing global depression pinched international trade and highlighted Japan’s lack of territory and resources compared to the Western powers. The pretext for a full- blown invasion of China was fabricated on September 18, 1931, when Japanese soldiers bombed a railroad they were purportedly guarding, and blamed Chinese national- ists. This staged provocation enabled the Japanese army to invade the northeast provinces of China and Inner Mongolia,
- 46. 15 A R el u c t A n t S o l d i e R establishing the puppet state of Manchukuo in February 1932, which became the Empire of Manchukuo (Manshu Teikoku) from 1934 to 1945. Japan’s civilian government couldn’t stop the generals for fear of a coup d’etat, and Hirohito proved unable to restrain the armed forces. Public euphoria over annexing Manchuria further cemented the military’s political power, and con- demnation from the West only fed rising nationalism. Thus began the period known as the Fifteen Years’ War, encompassing the Manchurian Incident (1931–32), the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937–45), and the Pacific War against the Anglo-American powers (1941–45). Japan’s Kwantung Army in Manchukuo needed able-bodied young men, and so Honda was drafted in the fall of 1934. He was twenty-three years old. “It was only a year after I had entered PcL, and it was the saddest thing for me. I heard some people drank a whole bottle of soy sauce to raise their blood pressure in order to avoid serving, but I gave up on that.”1 Honda received an “A” grade on his physical examination, but was not required to report for duty immediately. Several months passed while he waited for his call-up, during which he continued working at PcL. His ascension through the assistant director ranks began, and he had been promoted to second assistant director by the time he worked on Three Sisters with Maiden Hearts (1935), a technically sophis- ticated early talkie from Mikio Naruse, who was emerging as a major talent. Duty called in January 1935. Honda was enlisted in the Dai-ichi rentai (First Division, First Infantry Regiment), which was garrisoned in Tokyo and was one of the oldest divisions of the Imperial Japanese Army. He began his military training at the entry-level rank of ippeisotsu, the rough Honda (right) with a fellow army recruit, mid-1930s. Courtesy of Honda Film Inc.
- 47. d r eA m s A n d n i G H t m A r e s 16 equivalent of petty officer first class. As weeks passed, he endured by focusing on his eventual return to the studio. Tensions were rising in China, but there was no indi- cation yet of massive troop deployments. Honda believed he would complete his service without being sent overseas. The opposite would prove true. Events far beyond his control would doom him to a long military career. Snow blanketed Tokyo on the morning of February 26, 1936. Just before 5:00 a.m., Lt. Yasuhide Kurihara of the First Division overpowered the sleeping policemen guarding the prime minister’s residence. Once inside, Kurihara opened fire—a signal to his comrades outside, who stormed in, guns blazing. A coup was under way, engineered by a rebel faction of young, right-wing army zealots determined to rub out government leaders whose support for the military they considered lacking. Honda, stationed just a short distance away, was awakened by the shots. Con- fused, he wondered if the conflict with China had made its way there. Soon the gravity of the situation was apparent: The rebels occupied a square mile of central Tokyo, including the Diet Building. Dubbed the Restoration Army, they railed against the civilian government and invoked Emperor Hirohito to expand Japan’s imperial conquest all the way to Russia. Hirohito, in a rare display of authority, instead denounced them. Soon the 2/26 Incident, as it became known, fizzled; its leaders were soon court-martialed. The rebels had killed a handful on their hit list, but they missed the prime minister and other targets. Honda had no knowledge of the plot, but he could easily have been swept up in it. Kurihara, one of the primary instigators, was Honda’s former commanding officer. Sometime before the event, Honda had overheard Kurihara talking to sympathizers about “revolution,” though Honda had no idea what it meant. The night before the coup, Kurihara visited Honda’s barracks, looking for a machine gun. Honda later recalled that Kurihara had hesitated there—perhaps considering whether to recruit these young soldiers for his nefari- ous mission—before moving on. Only a small faction within the First Division had participated, but everyone associated with Kurihara was tainted. Their unit was now considered dangerous; the brass wanted them gone. And so in May 1936 Honda and his regiment were sent to Manchukuo under questionable pretenses, on a mission to track down the leader of a Chinese resistance group who, as it turned out, wasn’t in the area. If not for the 2/26 Incident, Honda would likely have completed his com- pulsory military service within eighteen months, as was customary. But by the time he came home in March 1937, he had spent In China, late 1930s. Courtesy of Honda Film Inc.
- 48. 17 A R el u c t A n t S o l d i e R two years in the military; and as the war in China escalated, he would be recalled again and again in an apparent series of tacit reprisals against those connected, even tangentially, to the coup. And yet, even though the revolt had failed and its leaders were duly punished, the violence instilled the fear of further assassinations and terrorist plots. The Diet subsequently increased military spending. The march toward totalitarianism was on.
- 49. 18 5 Forging Bonds With itsprogressive acumen, PcL attracted filmmakers more concerned with their craft than with becoming studio power bro- kers. From 1934 to 1935, several big-name directors left larger, established studios for the young company. Two of these men became dominant figures on the PcL lot: Mikio Naruse, who defected from Shochiku, would develop into one of Japan’s most celebrated directors, a master of sophisti- cated shomin-geki (working-class drama) films focusing on the plight of women; and Kajiro Yamamoto, from Nikkatsu, was a skilled technician, whose work would achieve tremendous commercial success. Naruse and his staff were considered the artistic group, while Yamamoto’s team was a versatile bunch who developed the type of program pictures that would come to define the studio’s brand. Yamamoto had a paternal attitude toward his devoted corps of assistants, a commitment to pass on the craft to the next generation. Bespectacled, handsome, and perpetually well dressed, Yama-san, as he was fondly called, became Honda’s greatest teacher. Born in Tokyo in 1902, Yamamoto was unimpressed with early, theater-influenced Japanese cinema, but he was inspired by pioneering director Norimasa Kaeriyama’s work, including The Glow of Life (Sei no kagayaki, 1919), considered revolutionary for its lack of stage conventions and its use of actresses over female impersonators. In 1920 Yamamoto dropped his economics studies at Keio University and joined Nikkatsu’s Kyoto studios. For the next few years he wrote screenplays, worked as an assistant director, and acted under the pseudonym Ensuke Hirato. He began directing films in 1924. Yamamoto had caught Iwao Mori’s attention as a member of the old Nikkatsu Friday Party, and Mori lured him over to
- 50. 19 F o rg i n g B o n d s PcL in 1934 to direct the first of many films starring Kenichi “Enoken” Enomoto, known as Japan’s “king of comedy.” Yamamoto was naturally curious and enjoyed genre hopping; he made musicals, melodramas, and later crime thrillers and salaryman comedies. At the height of World War II he would direct several big-budget, nationalist war propaganda films that were highly successful at the box office. His career would last well into the 1960s. Honda became one of Yama-san’s most trusted disciples. From Yama-san, Honda learned all aspects of the craft with an emphasis on writing, as Yamamoto stressed that directors must write screenplays. While shooting, Yamamoto often scribbled in a journal, a practice that Honda adopted. Honda also learned from Yamamoto how to treat his staff. Yama-san would throw parties at his home for cast and crew as a way of creating a family atmosphere; when Honda became a director, he would do the same for his charges. Yamamoto had a soft, quiet demeanor and always treated his protégés in equal terms. He called them by name: It was always Honda-san or the more familiar Honda-kun, never “hey you” or the condescending language other directors often used. He never sent them to buy cigarettes or do menial errands. Years later, Honda would show the same respect to his own crew members. “He didn’t want yes-men around him,” Honda recalled. “We always went drinking with him, though. But he was never an autocrat . . . Since [Yamamoto] was so knowledgeable, his stories were always interesting. He was also frank on the set and would ask me to write parts of the script. And then he would use it.”1 Honda described Yamamoto as a con- noisseur. “He was more like a free spirit. He was not like us, he was not all about movies. Movies were only a part of his life. He liked other things too, such as music. So I learned a lot of things from him.”2 Honda’s two-year absence had stalled his career, while his peers advanced. His first job upon returning to work was on Yamamoto’s two-part drama A Husband’s Chastity (Otto no teiso, 1937). Senkichi Tani- guchi, Honda’s friend since the Friday Party days, was now Yamamoto’s chief assistant director (or first assistant director), while Honda remained a second assistant direc- tor. Still, Honda accepted his situation and held no resentment toward the studio or his rank-and-file cohorts. Released in April 1937, A Husband’s Chastity marked several milestones. It was a big hit, the first PcL film to turn a profit. It did so despite the refusal of Shochiku, Nikkatsu, and other studios to exhibit PcL movies in their theaters, a retaliation against PcL’s practice of hiring away its competitors’ actors and directors. For Honda, the film had another significance: it marked his meeting with an intensely ambitious new recruit, a man who would become his lifelong best friend. The job of assistant director in the Japa- nese studios was not unlike that in Holly- wood: keeping the production schedule, preparing call sheets, maintaining order on the set, and so on. Unlike their American counterparts, however, the Japanese were viewed as directors-in-training. At the time Honda joined PcL, trainees were hired strictly through personal connections, and so there were always too few assistant directors on the lot. In 1936, PcL chose ten prospective assistant directors from the general public for the first time to help bolster the ranks. All the new recruits had degrees from top universities except for one. Akira Kurosawa, at twenty-five, had
- 51. d r eA m s A n d n i G H t m A r e s 20 just a junior-high-school education, but his enthusiasm and knowledge of the visual arts impressed the examiners.3 “[We] were placed in a sort of cadet sys- tem, like at military schools,” remembered Kurosawa. “We had to train in every area, even film printing. We rotated through a series of departments.”4 Only after thorough schooling in camera operation, editing, writing, costumes, props, sched- uling, budgeting, and other areas could a trainee ascend from the ranks of third and second assistant to earn the coveted title of first assistant director. PcL’s assistant directors put in long, hard days, worked well into the night, longed for sleep, and put saliva into their weary eyes to help them see clearly. Kurosawa quickly noticed Honda’s energy and diligence; he nicknamed his new friend “Honda mokume no kami”—Honda, keeper of the grain. “[Honda] was then second assistant director, but when the set designers were overwhelmed with work, he lent a hand. He would always take care to paint fol- lowing the grain of the wood on the false pillars and wainscoting, and to put in a grain texture where it was lacking . . . His motive in drawing in the grain was to make Yama-san’s work look just that much better. Probably he felt that in order to continue to merit Yama-san’s confidence, he had to make this extra effort. The confidence Yama-san had in us created this attitude. And of course this attitude carried over into our work.”5 Born on March 23, 1910, in Tokyo and standing five foot eleven and a half, Kuro- sawa was a year older and several inches taller than Honda and seemed worldly and larger than life. He was introduced to the cinema by his father, “a strict man of military background” who nevertheless loved movies and believed they had edu- cational value.6 Growing up, Kurosawa was exposed to many different types of films, from Japanese silents to the Zigomar crime serials to Abel Gance’s The Wheel (La Roue, 1923). While Honda’s career was interrupted repeatedly by the war, Kurosawa appren- ticed under Yamamoto for five straight years, becoming Yama-san’s “other self.” Having just returned from China, Honda had no place of his own. He moved in with Kurosawa, who had a one-room apartment on the second floor of PcL’s employee dorm, Musashi-so, located near the studio in the Seijo neighborhood of Tokyo’s Seta- gaya Ward. They were opposites: Kurosawa opinionated and driven, Honda quiet and unassuming. “Kuro-san was like a mentor-friend to me,” said Honda. “Even though he was the same age, I felt that way towards him because of his great talent.” Kurosawa, a gifted painter from a young age, introduced Honda to the work of calligrapher and artist Tessai Tomioka, an originator of the neotra- ditional Nihonga style, and other painters he was passionate about. The two friends discussed art and film at great length. And as years passed and Honda would go to and from the battlefront, they discussed the war and Japan’s escalating militarism. “Honda and I agreed that it would be a disaster if Japan won, if the incompetents in the military stayed in power,” Kurosawa recalled. “Honda said this too. What we’d most hate was to see those military guys have their own way if we won the war, and drive the country into a deeper mess.”7 Thanks to his father’s respected name in the military, Kurosawa was exempted from duty. A draft official generously classified him as physically unfit to serve. On the PcL back lot they were known as the Three Crows: Akira Kurosawa, Senkichi
- 52. 21 F o rg i n g B o n d s Taniguchi, and Ishiro Honda, three up-and- coming assistant directors who, as Kajiro Yamamoto’s top protégés, commanded a bit of respect. No one remembers how the nickname came about, but they seemed significantly taller than everyone else, a trio of “very handsome fellows” who had “a little different vibe,” as a friend remem- bered. They seemed to be together con- stantly, during the workday and after hours. Theirs was a close-knit and sometimes tumultuous camaraderie based on shared interests and ambitions. Each crow was a bird of a different feather. Taniguchi was the youngest, born February 12, 1912, in Tokyo. He wore eyeglasses, was perpetually tan, and was known for his ever-running mouth, sense of humor, and sharp tongue. Yamamoto encouraged his assistants to speak freely, and Taniguchi didn’t hesitate. “Taniguchi was merciless,” said Kurosawa. “One day he said, ‘Yama-san, you’re a first-rate screen- writer but a second-rate director.’ Yama-san just laughed.” Taniguchi served in the war, but his stint was shorter than Honda’s and didn’t stall his career. “[Honda] had really bad luck,” Taniguchi said in 1999. “He was drafted when he was young, and just at a time when he could have learned so much about making movies.”8 Kurosawa was the most volatile among them, complex and opinionated and uncompromising. When he first arrived at PcL, Kurosawa had no place of his own so he’d crashed on Taniguchi’s futon, but Tani- guchi grew annoyed and kicked him out. Honda was the quiet and contemplative one, not nearly as aggressive. As Kurosawa The three crows—Kurosawa, Honda, and Taniguchi—with mentor Kajiro Yamamoto, late 1930s. Courtesy of Kurosawa Productions
- 53. d r eA m s A n d n i G H t m A r e s 22 biographer Stuart Galbraith IV writes: “They called one another by nicknames after the Kanji characters in their family names: ‘Kuro-chan’ (‘Blackie’), ‘Sen-chan’ (‘Dear Sen,’ ironic, given his temperament), and ‘Ino-chan’ (‘Piggy’).”9 They drank, talked, and argued, and in between films they would camp in the mountains for several days. Honda, the Yamagata boy and soldier, was an able hiker, as was Taniguchi. Their trips invari- ably began peacefully but ended with Kuro- sawa and Taniguchi arguing incessantly, with Honda playing peacemaker. Each man took what he learned from Yama-san and forged his own path. Kuro- sawa became a relentless pursuer of per- fection. Taniguchi would make a number of notably ambitious early films, including the first adaptation of Yukio Mishima’s The Sound of the Waves (Shiosai, 1954)—a film that created a sensation for hints of erotic nudity10—then finished his career with a series of mainstream programmers. Honda most closely emulated his mentor’s example by becoming a versatile maker of successful program pictures and putting his heart and soul into those that mattered most to him. The friendships endured long after their early struggles. While Honda went to war, Kurosawa would help his wife care for their children, and much later Kurosawa would make Honda his most trusted adviser. Taniguchi would be like an uncle to Honda’s kids; and years later, when Honda later bought a bigger house in Okamoto, a neighborhood in the western part of Tokyo’s Setagaya Ward, Taniguchi and his third wife, actress Kaoru Yachigusa, star of Honda’s The Human Vapor, liked it so much they built a home nearby. In the mid-1930s, with PcL struggling financially, founder Yasuji Uemura had sold a controlling interest in the studio to Ichizo Kobayashi, a railroad executive, real estate tycoon, and the entertainment mogul behind the legendary Takarazuka Grand Theater and its famous all-girl music and dance revue. Kobayashi also owned a chain of cinemas, and acquiring PcL was part of his strategy to supply his movie houses with product. Together with studio chief Iwao Mori, Kobayashi also aimed to shake up the business, building on PcL’s innovative model to create Japan’s most modern film company. On August 27, 1937, Kobayashi merged PcL with another small production outfit to form Toho Motion Picture Distribution Company, later the Toho Motion Picture Company.11 According to film critic Jinshi Fujii, “Toho’s entrance into the film busi- ness caused the structural reorganization of the Japanese film industry . . . [S]trict budgetary control was put into practice, the producer system was set up, and vertical integration of production, distribution, and exhibition was achieved . . . [T]he Hollywood-style system was transplanted to Japan almost completely.” Before long, observers would note that Toho had also “[overwhelmed] other companies in terms of film technology . . . [it] imported new filmmaking equipment from America four or five years [earlier].”12 For Honda and Kurosawa, the excite- ment of working at the upstart new studio was tempered by long hours and a meager salary of ¥28 per month.13 Assistant direc- tors were paid less than office workers because, with location pay and other incentives, it was possible to earn much more, though it rarely worked out that way. Their social life revolved around drinking, and if Yama-san wasn’t buying, they drank on credit. Often there was no cash in their pay envelopes, only receipts for vouchers
- 54. 23 F o rg i n g B o n d s redeemed at the studio commissary and ious collected by local bars and clothing stores. On payday, they were already broke. The dormitory where Honda roomed with Kurosawa had a pool table, an organ, and other diversions. When Honda, Kuro- sawa, and their friends weren’t hitting the bars, they would congregate there, often in Kurosawa’s little room, drinking and discussing art and cinema. This group included Sojiro Motoki, a future producer who would play an important part in the careers of both Honda and Kurosawa, and a pretty editor’s assistant named Kimi Yamazaki. Kimi was six years younger than Honda, born January 6, 1917, in Mizukaido, Ibaraki Prefecture, the youngest of eight children. She was different from other women her age; she could hold her own in serious film discussions with the boys and hold her liquor when the beer and sake were poured. Kimi was self-confident and assertive, a modern Japanese woman intent on being more than an office lady or salesclerk, the typical woman’s jobs then. It was Morocco, the film that Honda had spent so much time studying, that compelled Kimi to join the industry. She worked briefly for a small newsreel outfit, then passed Toho’s entrance exam and became assistant to Koichi Iwashita, one of Japanese cinema’s most respected editors. One day, Honda stopped by the editing room to say hello, and Iwashita introduced the young assistant director to his new employee. Sparks didn’t fly right away, though. “I still remember how he was wear- ing this weird looking suit,” Kimi recalled. “He was unfashionable, so unpolished, just back from the war. Compared to guys like Kuro-san then, he was hardly dashing.” After she was promoted to the position of “script girl,” Kimi worked late hours on movie sets. Commuting from her parents’ home was impractical, so she moved into the dorm and became Kurosawa and Honda’s neighbor. The boys grew so accustomed to her presence that if she didn’t show up for their nightly klatch, one of them would rap on her door. One night, Kimi begged off with a severe headache, and Honda went to fetch some medicine. “This was the first time I thought, ‘Wow, he is such a nice guy.’ But it wasn’t like I was head over heels . . . As time passed, I got to know everyone [in the dormitory]. . . . But I think I was most attracted to his warmth, his heart.” Honda immersed himself in his job, working on more than a dozen films between 1937 and 1939 and slowly ascend- ing the ladder. Though Yamamoto was his primary teacher, he also apprenticed under other prominent studio directors, studying their work styles and habits. Honda was an assistant director on Humanity and Paper Balloons (Ninjo kami fusen, 1937), an acclaimed early jidai-geki and the last film by director Sadao Yamanaka, a fellow army recruit who would die as a soldier in China the following year. Honda also worked for the jidai-geki specialist Eisuke Takizawa. Sometimes, Honda would visit the set of a Mikio Naruse production to observe the celebrated director at work, which led Naruse to tap Honda as third assistant on two acclaimed early pictures, Avalanche (Nadare, 1937) and Tsuruhachi and Tsuru- jiro (Tsuruhachi Tsurujiro, 1938). Summer 1937: Honda and Senkichi Tani- guchi, having been there from the founding days of PcL, were now the two longest tenured assistant directors on the lot. Tani- guchi had been Yamamoto’s chief assistant for about a year, but he now was transferred to a front office job, using his knowledge
- 55. Exploring the Varietyof Random Documents with Different Content
- 59. The Project GutenbergeBook of The Deacon: An Original Comedy Drama in Five Acts
- 60. This ebook isfor the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this ebook or online at www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before using this eBook. Title: The Deacon: An Original Comedy Drama in Five Acts Author: Horace C. Dale Release date: April 22, 2013 [eBook #42581] Most recently updated: October 23, 2024 Language: English Credits: Produced by Dianna Adair, Paul Clark and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive) *** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE DEACON: AN ORIGINAL COMEDY DRAMA IN FIVE ACTS ***
- 61. Transcriber's Note: Every efforthas been made to replicate this text as faithfully as possible. Some changes have been made. They are listed at the end of the text. THE DEACON AN ORIGINAL COMEDY DRAMA IN FIVE ACTS BY HORACE C. DALE Author's Edition, With the Cast of the Characters, Synopsis of Incidents, Time of Representation, Description of the Costumes, Scene and Property Plots, Sides of Entrance and Exit, Relative Positions of the Performers, Explanation of the Stage Directions, and all of the Stage Business. Copyright, 1892, by Horace C. Dale. All rights reserved. NEW YORK HAROLD ROORBACH PUBLISHER
- 62. Note.—The acting rightsof this play are expressly reserved by the author. Theatrical Managers wishing to produce it should apply to the author in care of the publisher. Amateur representation may be made without such application and without charge.
- 63.
- 64. CAST OF CHARACTERS. GrandOpera House, Reading, Pa., Dec. 16th and 17th, 1886. Deacon Thornton, Mrs. Thornton's brother-in-law, with a passion for lemonade with a stick in it, William Ward. George Graef, Mrs. Thornton's nephew, Geo. W. Endy. George Darrah, alias Matt Wheeler, Jas. I. Foos. James Read, a friend of Darrah's, H. C. Lewis. Pedro, an organ grinder, Sam'l Bechtel. Parson Brownlow, W. H. Wilson. Pete, Mrs. Thornton's servant, H. W. Button. Billy, the Deacon's boy, Sam'l Wolfskell. Mrs. Thornton, Agnes Jameson. Helen, her daughter, Claribel Lewis. Miss Amelia Fawcett, Mrs. Thornton's maiden sister, Minnie Riffert. Mrs. Darrah, George Darrah's wife, Ida Radcliffe.
- 65. Nellie, her child,Lizzie Rivers. Daisy, Mrs. Thornton's servant, Annie C. Fisher. Violinist, Policeman, Villagers, etc., by the Company. Time of Representation.—Two Hours and a Half. Time, the present. Locality, Eastville, Va. Note.—Officer, in Act I, Pedro and Parson Brownlow can be doubled and played by Read. Officer in Act IV, by Violinist. SYNOPSIS OF INCIDENTS. Act I. Scene, Eastville Hotel garden. The Robbery.—Pete delivers an invitation.—"By golly, he's mad already."—Meeting of Graef and Wheeler.—"I'm no coward; I'll either live down the stigma attached to it, or die in the attempt."—A promised reward.—The Deacon's arrival.—"I'm a gentleman, sir."—"Be sure to put a little stick in it."— The Deacon gets hilarious.—Pete imposes upon Billy.—The Deacon is sick.—"Oh, my head, my head!"—Triumph No. 1.—Curtain. Act II. Scene, Mrs. Thornton's sitting-room. Pete promotes himself. —"I spruced up to do de honors ob de 'casion."—Miss Amelia is anxious about her dear little pet.—"Ze dog or ze money."—"Horrid men, but dear doggy woggy."—The Deacon's reception.—The Deacon makes a mistake.—"Everything lovely admires me."—"Were you and Bill married by candle light?"—"Deacon, you are drunk!"— Miss Amelia prescribes for the Deacon.—Triumph No. 2.—Curtain. Act III. Scene 1. A street. Mother and child.—"Mamma, will we never reach papa's house?"—The meeting of husband and wife.—"What, you here!"—Accused of many bitter things.—Left in the streets.
- 66. Scene 2. GeorgeGraef's lodgings. Graef meditates.—The finding of the diamonds.—Meeting of Graef and Mrs. Darrah.—"Minnie, is this you?"—"Welcome little coz."—The photo.—"Yes, alas, too well!" Scene 3. A street. Pete has a dream and persuades Billy to accompany him on an expedition. Scene 4. A wood. The treasure hunters.—"Oh, Lor', I'm dead!"—"Let's go home and get the mules."—The treasure is found. —Caught by the spirits.—Tableau. Curtain. Act IV.—Scene, Mrs. Thornton's sitting-room. Daisy shows Pete what she would do.—Miss Amelia's heart is in a flutter.—"I know I'll refuse him."—Pete at his old tricks.—"Then kiss me."—Consternation. — Pete continues his tricks.—"'Tis he, by Jerusalem!"—The Deacon taken by surprise.—More consternation.—"I was insulted by a colored woman."—Billy creates some excitement.—"Thank heaven, at last I enfold thee!" Curtain. Act V. Scene, Mrs. Thornton's sitting-room. The Deacon in clover. An interruption.—"Hang the Parson!"—The interrupted marriage ceremony.—"That man has a wife living."—"'Tis false!"—An attack.— Pete to the rescue.—"No, it is a forgery."—The villain foiled.—Arrest of George Darrah.—Reinstatement of Graef.—Refusal of a hand.— The Deacon is obstinate.—"I can't help it, Minnie, I mean it."—Mrs. Darrah and Nellie forgiven.—"Oh, Deacon, don't be so silly."—The Deacon made happy. Curtain. COSTUMES. Mrs. Thornton.—Act II. Light tasteful morning dress, with head dress. Act IV. House dress with apron. Act V. Elegant silk dress. Slightly gray-mixed wig. Helen.—Act II. Street dress, with hat, gloves, etc. Act IV. House dress and apron. Act V. Bridal dress with train, orange blossoms, veil, gloves, etc.
- 67. Miss Amelia.—Act II.Either a very plain or very flashy dress; eyeglasses dangling from cord; regulation spinster curls, gray. Act IV. Dress to suit taste. Act V. Elaborate get-up for the occasion. Mrs. Darrah.—Acts III and V. Dark dress, bonnet, gloves, etc. Nellie.—Acts III and V. Dark dress to suit taste, hat, etc. Daisy.—Act I. Tasteful maid's dress and hat. Act II. Same, minus hat. Act IV, 1st entrance, same with dusting cap. 2nd, 3rd and 4th entrances, same, with apron, minus cap. Deacon.—Acts I, II and IV. Old-fashioned-cut pantaloons, dotted vest, old-fashioned easy fitting coat; ditto shirt collar; broad brimmed, light felt hat; square watch fob dangling from watch pocket; square glass spectacles; white bald wig and white throat whiskers. Act V. Old-fashioned dark cloth suit; rose on lapel of coat. George Graef.—Acts I and III. Dark cutaway suit. Straw hat. Act V. Prince Albert dress coat; light trousers. Dark dress wig and moustache. Geo. Darrah.—Acts I and III. Dark cutaway suit. Silk hat. Acts II and V. Prince Albert dress coat and pants. Black dress wig and moustache throughout. Billy.—Acts I, II and III. Long white stockings; light broad plaid pants, cut short below the knees; pleated shirt waist; loose fitting linen jacket; low-crowned, narrow-brimmed light hat. Act IV. Same with night gown thrown over. Act V. Same, minus coat. Light flaxen fright wig. Pete.—Act I. Linen suit, straw hat. Act II. Black pants, white vest, smoking jacket, low-cut patent leather shoes, white shirt, standing collar, white tie and cuffs. Act III. Same as Act I, minus hat. Act IV, 1st entrance, same. 2nd entrance, see description; ditto, 3rd entrance; 4th entrance, same as 1st entrance. Curly negro wig throughout.
- 68. Parson Brownlow.—Ministerial suit,coat buttoned up to chin, long black curly wig, black side whiskers and moustache. Pedro.—Make-up to represent organ-grinder. Villagers.—Modern costumes, straw hats. Fido.—Red flannel jacket, small straw hat with ribbon streamers. Collar with light chain attached. PROPERTY PLOT. Act I. Newspaper. Note for Pete. Green umbrella and pocket-book containing check for Deacon. White powder for Wheeler. Pitcher of lemonade, salver, 1 empty glass and one filled with soda water. Carpet bag. Placard with "Pinch me" on it for Billy. Police star. Violin. Act II. Books and flowers. Cigar for Pete. Dog dressed to represent monkey. Small hand organ for Pedro. Pin for Pete. Purse and money for Mrs. Thornton. Act III. Bank-note and pocket-book for Wheeler. Books and papers. Candle lighted. Pitcher of water and glasses. Small pasteboard box for Pete. Photo for Mrs. Darrah. Lighted lantern, spade and flask for Pete and Billy. Leaves. Small wooden box containing iron pot, covered with tan bark to represent mound. Iron chains. Gun loaded. Bass drum for thunder. "Flash box" for lightning. 3 sheets for "spooks." Red fire. Act IV.
- 69. Dust pan andbrush, broom and bits of paper. Linen suit, spectacles, wig and whiskers, similar to Deacon's, for Pete. Dress and wig, similar to Amelia's, for Pete. Flour and dough for Daisy. Bandages for Billy. Act V. Large butcher knife for Pete. Prayer-book for Parson. Small pasteboard box. Charm and note for Graef. Handcuffs for Officer. Large piece of molasses cake for Billy. SCENE PLOT. Act I. Scene.—Landscape in 4 G. Wicket fence crossing from R. 3 E. to L. 3 E. with practicable gate C. Set house R. 2 E. with practicable door and steps. Table and two chairs down L. C. Rustic settee up L. Green baize. Lights up. Time, morning. Act II. Scene.—Fancy chamber boxed in 3 G., backed with Landscape in 4 G. Double door C. in flat, open and hung with curtains. Door L. 2 E. Tables down R. and L. C. Sofa up L. Large rocking chair R. near 2 E. Chairs around sides. Medallion carpet. Lights up. Time, morning. Act III. Scene 1.—Street in 1 G. Practicable door R. C. in flat. Scene 2.—Cottage interior in 3 G. Table R. C., with chair. Chairs around sides. Door L. 2 E. Scene 3.—Street in 1 G.
- 70. Scene 4.—Woods in4 G. Mound L. 3 E. Green baize down throughout Act. Lights low. Time, night. Acts IV and V. Scene.—Same as Act II. STAGE DIRECTIONS. The player is supposed to face the audience. R., means right; L., left; C., centre; R. C., right of centre; L. C., left of centre; D. R. C. in F., door right of centre in flat or back scene; D. C., door centre; 1 E., first entrance; 2 E., second entrance; R. U. E., right upper entrance; L. U. E., left upper entrance; 1, 2, 3, or 4 G., first, second, third or fourth grooves; UP, toward the back of the stage; DOWN, toward the audience. R. R.C. C. L.C. L.
- 71.
- 72. ACT I. Scene:—Garden. EastvilleHotel. Set house R. 2 E., with practicable door and steps. Wicket fence from R. 4 E. to L. 4 E., with practicable gate C. Rustic table and two chairs down L. C. Rustic settees up R. C. and L. C. As curtain rises Matt Wheeler is discovered seated at table L., with newspaper in hand, reading. Wheeler. (reading) Last evening a bold and daring robbery was committed at the residence of Mrs. Thornton. While she was serving her guests with refreshments, some one entered her dressing-room and removed from her jewel-case diamonds valued at a fabulous price, leaving in exchange perfect specimens of worthless glass imitations. Suspicion points strongly to George Graef, her nephew, as the guilty party. He was seen to enter Davis's pawn shop late last night, after the guests had left his aunt's residence, and pawn something. One of the diamonds was recovered this morning from Davis's store, but he professed ignorance as to the name of the man who left it. Young Graef, though he strongly denies committing the theft, was compelled to leave his aunt's residence this morning. He has been very dissipated of late, drinking and gambling to excess, and it is thought that financial embarrassment tempted him to commit the crime. (lays paper on table) Poor fellow! What an inglorious ending for what might have been a brilliant career. Gilded youth, like the rest of common humanity, when it enters the arena against the sparkling cup, witty companions and fascinating games of chance, must finally succumb. Enter Pete, L. U. E.; passes through gate.
- 73. Pete. (bowing) MassaWheeler, missus sends her best 'spects, an' quests de delight ob yo'r pleasure to dinner, sah. Wheeler. Requests the pleasure of my company, I suppose you mean. Pete. Yes, sah, I 'spects dat's what she meant. (aside) One nebber knows what dese wimmin folks mean by what dey says, no-how. Wheeler. At what time do you dine? Pete. (looking at Wheeler a moment) Sah? Wheeler. At what time do you eat dinner? Pete. When de rest git froo. Wheeler. What time do the rest usually "get through?" Pete. I dunno. (laughs) Guess when dey gits tired ob eatin'. Wheeler. You impertinent black rascal! What do you mean by answering me in that manner? Pete. (aside) By golly, he's mad already! (aloud) Massa Wheeler, yo' knows jest as well as I do dat I was not sassin' yo'. Yo' axes me at what time I eats, an' I tole yo'. Yo' don't s'pose I eats wid de quality folks, does yo'? Wheeler. I'd not be the least bit surprised if they were to allow you. You have never been taught your true position, nor how to address a gentleman. Pete. I 'spects I knows how to 'dress dem when I meets 'em. Wheeler. (angrily) What's that? Pete. Massa Wheeler, it 'pears mighty queer dat yo' an' I can't talk sociably for five minnits widout quarrelin'. I'se agwine to tell missus dat de next time she wants a note sent to you, dat she will hab to seek some oder 'vayance, for I won't take it, suah.
- 74. Wheeler. So Mrs.Thornton sent me a note, did she? Pete. Ob course she did. Wheeler. Where is it? Pete. In my pocket. Wheeler. Why did you not give it to me then, instead of attempting to deliver her message verbally? Pete. Kase yo' nebber axed me for it. Wheeler. Give it to me this instant, you black imp. (Pete gives note; Wheeler hastily reads it) Pete. (aside) It's mighty plain what kind ob company he 'sociates wid. 'Pears to me he's nebber learned how to 'dress gen'men, eider. (points to self) Wheeler. (folding note) Give my compliments to Mrs. Thornton and tell her I shall be pleased to accept her kind invitation. Pete. (going) Yes, sah. An' I'll gib her a message or two dat yo' didn't send her. Wheeler. (angrily) What's that? Off with you! I shall inform Mrs. Thornton of your insolence as soon as I see her. Pete. Don't worry yo'self. I'll see her 'fore yo' will. (laughs and exit, gate C. Goes L.) Wheeler. (angrily) Confound that piece of ebony! He's enough to irritate a saint. He's been petted by the whole household until he has become worse than a spoiled child. Just wait—(Pete re-appears softly at gate C., and listens) until Helen and I are married, and I'm his master. I'll teach that grinning jackanapes his true position. (Pete shakes his fist at Wheeler, and runs off L., smiling) Why doesn't Daisy come? I must regain possession of that charm and note, otherwise I
- 75. may have troublein accounting for their presence wherever they may be. Hang my carelessness! Enter Graef, R. U. E.; passes through gate and goes down C. Wheeler. (advances and playfully slaps Graef on left shoulder) Graef, old boy, how are you? I was just thinking about you, and regretting that you had got yourself into trouble. Graef. To what do you refer? Wheeler. (lightly) To that little affair at your aunt's house last night. Graef. Then you have heard about it? Wheeler. Why, of course. Graef. From whom? Wheeler. I saw a little account of it in this morning's issue (pointing to paper on table) of the Sun. Graef. (surprised) What! Has it already appeared in print? (picks up paper and reads to himself while Wheeler is talking) Wheeler. Yes, but you need not mind that. All you have to do is to leave town for a few years. Go to some place where you are unknown, carve out a name and fortune for yourself, return here wealthy, and this trivial offence of yours will be condoned, at least, if you are not made a hero of. Graef. (excitedly, pointing to passage in article) That's not true. I was not "compelled to leave my aunt's residence." I left of my own free will. I could not remain there after I knew she thought I had committed the deed. Wheeler. (soothingly) Of course not; never mind that article, it's not of much importance. No one believes sensational newspaper
- 76. reports, anyhow. Graef. Butthat does me a gross injustice. Wheeler. Oh, pshaw, that's nothing. Let it go, and forget all about it. What do you intend doing with yourself now? Graef. I intend to remain here, turn over a new leaf, make a man of myself, and live down this disgrace. Wheeler. (coolly) Better not. Graef. Why? Wheeler. Because you will not find it a comfortable existence. Persons who know you well, like myself, would pay no attention to the charge preferred against you, but—— Graef. Well? Wheeler. There are plenty of others who would, and your daily life would be beset by the harassing knowledge of being surrounded by those who doubted your honesty. Graef. Let them doubt me if they will. The peace and tranquility that innocence imparts to me will more than over-balance that. Wheeler. Have it as you will. But if you were to follow the advice of a friend, you would do as I suggested, leave this town and that instantly. Graef. (suspiciously) You appear anxious to have me go. Wheeler. Oh, no; not anxious in the sense you mean. I only wish to save you and your friends unnecessary pain. If you are short of funds, say so and I will advance you any reasonable sum you may require. Graef. (coldly) Thank you. I did not come here to beg assistance. I merely stopped to tell you that under existing circumstances you will
- 77. Exit gate C.,and goes off R. have to select some other groomsman; I cannot officiate. Wheeler. I'm sorry, but as to selecting another, that's out of the question. It's too late. If you remain in town I presume you will be present at our marriage. Graef. No, that's impossible! (going) Wheeler. It's too bad, old boy; but keep up your spirits. You had better think over my suggestion. Graef. (at gate) Once for all, Wheeler, I tell you, I'll never do it. I'm no coward. Here in this town I was born and raised, and here I'll remain and redeem my character. I'll either live down the stigma attached to it, or die in the attempt. Wheeler. (with power) Curse it! Foiled again! But go he must, or I'll ruin him body and soul. I know his weaknesses, and I'll play upon them until he accomplishes my purpose. (bitterly) Oh, to get even with her father and relations has been my prayer for years. (goes to table L., and sits; picks up paper and pretends to read, but lays it aside as soon as Daisy comes forward) Enter Daisy L. U. E.; opens gate C. and comes down. Wheeler. Ah, Daisy, is that you? Daisy. Yes, sir. Wheeler. I thought you had forgotten the message I sent you. Daisy. No, sir, but I could not come any earlier, and I can only stay a moment now. We are very busy at home preparing for the Deacon's arrival. You know Mrs. Thornton expects him to-day. Wheeler. Yes, I was aware of it. How does Mrs. Thornton stand her loss?
- 78. Daisy. Oh, shefeels terribly about it, sir. She has forbidden Miss Helen, Pete and all of us ever to mention the subject to her. Just to think that Mr. George should be guilty of such a thing! But then I don't believe he did do it! Wheeler. (affecting surprise) Don't you? Well, I wish I could think so, too. You know he has been very wild of late. Daisy. I know he has; but Mr. George would never do a mean thing like that. Wheeler. (doubtingly) I don't know. Daisy. (warmly) Well, I do. But I must be going. What did you wish to see me about, sir? Wheeler. Did you find a watch charm or note anywhere in your house this morning? Daisy. No, sir. Wheeler. I lost them somewhere last night, and I'm pretty sure it was in your house. They are of no use to anybody but me. I prize the charm solely because it was a present from my mother, and the note accompanied it. Now if you find them and return them to me as soon as you possibly can, I'll make you a present of a ten-dollar bill. Daisy. Oh, thank you, sir. I'll try my best to find them. Is that all? I must hurry back home again. Wheeler. Yes, I believe so. Daisy. Be careful when you see Mrs. Thornton and don't say anything to her about her loss or Mr. George. Good morning, sir. Wheeler. All right, I won't. Good morning. (Exit Daisy, gate C.; goes L. Wheeler walks to door steps R. 2 E.; stops and faces audience) If her search proves successful, that will be the easiest ten dollars she ever earned. But suppose it proves fruitless! What then? I should be placed in a very unpleasant position. (thinks) Ah, well, it's time to
- 79. worry when troubleovertakes one. I've often been more sorely pressed than I shall be by this little affair, and come out all right; and I guess I can do it again if the emergency arises. (turns quickly and starts to enter house). Enter Read, R. U. E. Read. (at gate outside) Hist, Matt, are you alone? Wheeler. Yes. Read. Then get ready, for the Deacon is coming. Wheeler. (off steps, near gate) Where is he? Read. Coming up the street, (pointing R.) about a square off. We missed the early stage, so there was no one to meet him. I directed him here for information as to Mrs. Thornton's residence. Wheeler. Did you ride over with him in the stage? Read. Yes, there was no one in the stage with us except the Deacon's boy, Billy. Wheeler. (disappointed) Has he a boy with him? That's bad. Read. Yes, a dull, ignorant, country lout. But he'll not interfere with your plans, for I sent him around the square, and some of the boys will be sure to detain him and have some fun with him. Wheeler. Did you have any trouble in getting the Deacon to try your lemonade? Read. (laughing) Not a particle. He complained about the heat and the jostling of the stage making him feel sick and giddy; so I pulled out my flask, told him I was subject to just such attacks while travelling, and that I always went prepared for such emergencies, etc. After I assured him that the flask contained nothing but weak
- 80. lemonade and aharmless ingredient to give it its peculiar color, he nearly emptied it for me. Wheeler. Did you mix your lemonade according to my directions? Read. Yes, and if he is not jolly blind drunk inside of a half hour, then I don't know my man. His tongue was beginning to wag when I left him. But I must be off, for the Deacon is nearly here. (starts to go, but stops near L. U. E. as Wheeler speaks) Wheeler. Read, stop a moment. Try and find Walters, and send him here inside of an hour, will you? Read. You forget that Walters has not returned from—— Wheeler. Hush! Confound it, that's true. It takes him an eternity to do the simplest thing. Never mind, I'll attend to it myself. Get off with you now, quick. (Exit Read, L. U. E. Wheeler goes down C.) I'll let the precious booty remain in its hiding place until I start on my wedding tour, then I'll take it along with me. It's safe where it is. (crosses to chair L. of table) First I must make the Deacon gloriously drunk. Then ascertain if it be true that he intends to give Helen a wedding present of a check for ten thousand dollars; and, finally, send him to his sister-in-law's in a drunken condition. That will be triumph No. 1. (sits in chair) Enter the Deacon R. U. E., with large umbrella hoisted, fanning himself with bandanna handkerchief. Comes to gate, opens it smiling, a picture of good humor; closes gate, shuts umbrella, and approaches Wheeler. Deacon. (at Wheeler's side, clears throat) Are you the landlord of this hotel? Wheeler. (pleasantly) Well, no, not exactly.
- 81. Deacon. (blandly) Ofcourse not. Excuse me. I knew you weren't the moment I sot eyes on you. What did I understand you to say you were? Wheeler. I'm a gentleman, sir. Deacon. Yes, of course you are. That's just what I thought you were. I'm a gentleman, too. You wouldn't believe it, would you? (laughs and clears throat) I'm a country gentleman. I live over in Rockford county. Perhaps you have heard tell of me. I'm Deacon Thornton. Wheeler. (in joyful surprise) Indeed! (rises and shakes Deacon's hand warmly) Why, Deacon, I'm delighted to make your acquaintance, sir. (Deacon smiles and appears pleased) Heard of you, sir? Why, you are known the state over as being the wealthiest and most liberal-hearted gentleman in Rockford county. Is it possible I have the honor of shaking hands with so noted a gentleman as Deacon Thornton? Deacon. (appears slightly intoxicated) None other, I assure you. Excuse me, but may I rest a few moments in that chair? (points to chair L. of table) I'll feel more sociable like. Wheeler. Why, certainly, sir. (goes to chair, takes out handkerchief and dusts it off. Helps seat the Deacon in it) You seem to be tired, sir. Deacon. Yes, I am, and warm, too. (fans himself with hat) You see, I've come over here to attend my niece's wedding. (abruptly) Say, do you know where Mrs. Thornton lives? Wheeler. Oh, yes, I'm well acquainted with the family. (takes seat R.) Deacon. That's good. I'll get you to show me her house presently. (Wheeler manifests a desire, by half rising, to show him immediately) Not now, sit still. I'm not rested yet. You see, I've never met Mrs. Thornton. She's my sister-in-law. My brother Bill and I had a fall-out when we were young, and never made up afterward. She's Bill's
- 82. Exit through door. widow.Helen's her daughter, my niece. She's going to be married day after to-morrow. (the Deacon talks rapidly) Whew, but it's hot! Wheeler. Yes, it is warm. (rising) Excuse me, but I never thought of it. Perhaps your long ride in the sun has made you thirsty, too. Let me get you some lemonade. It will refresh you. Deacon. Well, yes, you may, if you will. (Wheeler starts for door L. 2 E.) Be sure (with a wink) to put a little stick in it. (rubbing hands) It gives it tone, you know. Wheeler. Oh, yes, I understand. (Winking and nodding head. Deacon fans himself with hat, smiling and seeming well pleased. Wheeler, when he reaches steps, pauses, half turning toward audience, takes a white paper parcel from breast pocket and holding it up exclaims, aside) And I'll put something else in that will soon make your head swim. Enter Daisy hastily, L. U. E.; passes through gate and goes down C. Daisy. Oh, Mr. Wheeler, I forgot——(perceives Deacon) Oh! Deacon. (rising, appears a little unsteady. Gazes admiringly at Daisy. Speaks to audience) Blast my buttons! Ain't she a daisy? Daisy. (slightly advancing) Did you speak to me, sir? Deacon. (confused) No—yes,—that is—What's your name, my pretty miss? Daisy. Daisy Dean, sir. Deacon. Are you married? Daisy. No, sir. Deacon. Wouldn't you like to be?
- 83. Daisy. (demurely) I—don'tknow, sir. Deacon. (to self) I'll think the matter over. (aloud, coaxingly) Won't you come and give me a kiss? Daisy. (looks at the Deacon a moment in amazement, then with emphasis) No, sir, I won't. (turning quickly with toss of head, she exits at gate, closes it, looks a moment at Deacon, who follows her retreating form with open-mouthed astonishment, then quickly exits L. The Deacon gradually faces round to audience, with the look of wonderment still suffusing countenance) Deacon. Well, it's plain she was not particularly smitten with me. (resumes seat) Enter Wheeler, door 2 E. L., with pitcher, one empty glass, and another glass filled with soda-water. Goes to table and places pitcher and empty glass upon it. Wheeler. (filling glass) Here we are, with a drink like the nectar the gods used to brew. (handing Deacon glass) I can recommend it, for I helped to make it. Deacon. You will not object if I take off my coat, will you! It's so warm. (removing coat. Wheeler takes it and hangs it over back of his chair. Deacon empties glass) Wheeler. Certainly not; make yourself at home. (Refills Deacon's glass, and continues so to do as fast as the Deacon empties it. Sits and sips soda-water while talking. Invest this scene with as much naturalness and life as possible) Deacon. As I told you, my brother Bill and I never made up after our first quarrel, but I'm not going to allow that to stand against his widow and daughter. No, sir. (emphatically) I intend to do the handsome thing by Helen. She's going to marry a Mr. Wheeler.
- 84. Perhaps you knowhim? (Wheeler shakes head) No? I'm sorry, for folks say he's a mighty fine gentleman, and rich, too. (abruptly) Do you know Amelia? Wheeler. Mrs. Thornton's sister? Deacon. (eagerly) Yes, do you know her? Wheeler. Oh, yes, very well. Deacon. (rubbing hands) Fine woman, isn't she? Wheeler. Indeed, she is. I don't know a lady whose opinion I respect more. Deacon. (slightly hilarious) Oh, she's bright!—— Wheeler. And so amiable?—— Deacon. (joyously) Ain't she kind—— Wheeler. Yes, I think her the perfect pattern of a saint. Deacon. Oh, she's angelic, my boy, she's angelic. I'll tell you something, if you'll keep it a secret. I'm in love with Amelia. Wheeler. I'm not surprised at that, for I can't see how any body can help loving her. Deacon. Yes, sir, I'm clean gone; and I'll marry her, too, see if I don't. Wheeler. I hope that you may, with all my heart. Deacon. Say, I think that you are the nicest fellow I ever met—I do, indeed,—and you have got—to be my—groomsman. Don't say no— for I'll—not—listen—to—it—(head falls on folded arms resting on table. Maudlin drunk) Wheeler. The drug is taking effect. (takes Deacon's coat from chair, searches pockets, finds large pocket-book, takes check from it and
- 85. examines it) Hereit is, drawn up and signed. (starts to put it in his own pocket) No, I won't, for it will soon be mine at any rate. (Replaces it and doubles up coat and lays it on table L. of Deacon) Wheeler. (calls) Deacon, Deacon. (Deacon rouses up with a start, brushes coat off L. upon floor with arm) I must leave you now to attend to some business. I will send some one to direct you to Mrs. Thornton's. (goes R. near door, Deacon protesting) Enter Policeman L. U. E.; passes through gate. Wheeler walks down R. motioning Policeman to follow. Stands R. 1 E. Deacon. No, don't go. Don't. All right—I'll—get ready—(slowly rises, looks for coat. Does not notice Wheeler and Policeman) Never had so glorious a time—before—(places hand on head) Oh,—my—head! Where's—my—coat? (sees it on floor. Bis. of attempting to pick it up; finally falls in a heap beside it. Picks it up and examines it) Blast it, some—boy—been—fooling—with it—turned it inside out. (turns coat) I've—had—another—sun—stroke—wish—I—was—home—in—bed— I'm—sick— Wheeler. (to officer. Talks through scene) If you detain that man here for two hours, and then take him to Mrs. Thornton's residence, I will make it well worth your trouble. Will you do it? (Officer bows head) Very well; now go and assist him. (Officer goes to Deacon, who has coat turned inside out and one sleeve on. Officer tries to take it off, but the Deacon protests and finally has his own way) A pretty plight for one's father-in-law to be in! Perhaps if he knew me he would reconsider the opinion he expressed about me a moment ago. (smiles) Enter Billy L. U. E., with large carpet-bag, half crying. Talks as he comes to gate. Pete follows him and beckons L. as though urging others to follow.
- 86. Billy. Now leaveme alone. Dog-gone your ugly pictures! I didn't do nuffin to amongst you. (leans on gate. Faces R. C. Pete sneaks up and pinches him. Billy kicks and yells. Cries. Officer assisting Deacon to feet, sees Pete) Officer. Leave that boy alone, you black rascal, or I'll arrest you. Pete. Well, make him take in his sign, if he don't want de boys to hab any fun wid him. You can't scare me, ole fiddle strings, I knows yo'. (Officer feints to start for him. Pete pulls off hat and runs off L. U. E.) Deacon. (authoritatively) Come here, Billy. (Billy opens gate and goes down to Deacon, sniffling. Deacon looks steadily at him a moment) Enter three lads and lassies R. U. E., with Violinist. Wheeler whistles to them softly as they reach gate and beckons for them to enter. They come in; Violinist goes up L. , the rest R. Wheeler goes to them and makes a proposition, then exit door, R. 2 E. Deacon. Billy, you're drunk! Now don't deny it. Aren't you ashamed of yourself, for disgracing me? Now go to that seat (pointing up L.) and stay there until I'm ready to leave. (Billy goes to settee up L. and sits. Has large placard on back with the words "Pinch me" printed on it) One of the lads goes to the Violinist and speaks to him, then returns R. Violinist starts playing "I Won't Go Home Till Morning." Villagers form set and commence dancing. Officer urges Deacon to become his partner. Deacon consents. Take position. After a few steps the Deacon evinces great gusto. Commences singing, seizes one of the lassies, shoves her partner into his position. Laddie becomes angry, shows fight. Strikes the Deacon, who pulls up sleeves and starts for his assailant. General confusion. Officer arrests Laddie and starts toward
- 87. gate with him.Deacon comes C., singing and dancing. As curtain falls, he suddenly clasps hands to head, exclaiming: Deacon. Oh, my head, my head! QUICK DROP.
- 88. ACT II. Scene.—Mrs. Thornton'ssitting-room. Pete is seated on rocking-chair R., with left leg dangling over arm; has lighted cigar in R. hand and occasionally draws it. Is rocking and softly singing "Gospel Train," as curtain rises. Enter Daisy L. 2 E. Pete springs quickly to feet and hides cigar under coat. Pete. Golly, but you scared me. I thought it was missus. (resumes former position, singing and smoking) Daisy. You can thank your lucky stars that you were mistaken. (amazed at Pete's attire) For goodness sake, what are you doing rigged out in Mr. George's clothes? Pete. Why, yo' know missus 'spects her brudder-in-law, de Deacon, dis mawnin', an' some oder company fur dinner, an' as I'se de only male pusson in dis house now, I spruced up to do de honors ob de 'casion. Daisy. Honors of the occasion! Why, what do you mean? Pete. When people hab parties an' 'ceptions don't dey always hab somebody to do de 'ceivin'? Daisy. Of course they do, but you are not such a great goose as to suppose Mrs. Thornton will call upon a black booby like you to meet her guests, are you? Pete. (rising hastily and assuming a threatening attitude) Black booby? Don't yo' say that again! (contemptuously) Niggahs always
- 89. better than poorwhite trash. I 'spose yo' think if yo' was a man missus would call upon yo', but she'd nebber do dat while I was around, suah. (resumes seat) Daisy. (soothingly) There, there, Pete, I did not mean to hurt your feelings, but you get on your "high horse" so often and make yourself so ridiculous that one must say something to save you from being thrown and badly injured. Pete. Well, it's none ob yo'r bis'nis if dat hoss breaks my neck. Daisy. Very well, then, Pete, we will drop the subject. Now, I want to ask you something. Pete. It am no use, fo' I'll not answer yo'. Daisy. Yes, you will, for maybe there'll be some money in it for you. Pete. (eagerly) What am it? Daisy. Did you find a watch charm or a packet of letters anywhere in the house this morning? Pete. (sulkily) No, I didn't, and mighty little good would it do yo' if I did. (gently draws at cigar) Daisy. Mr. Wheeler lost a charm and some letters here last night, and he told me this morning that he would give me ten dollars if I found and returned them to him. Now, if you have found them I'll give you five dollars for them. Pete. (straightening up in chair) Let me see if I 'stand yo' right. Mr. Wheeler lost a charm an' some letters? Daisy. Yes. Pete. An' he offered ten dollars to hab dem returned? Daisy. Yes. Pete. If I finds dem an' gibs dem to yo' I'se to git five dollars?
- 90. Daisy. Yes. Pete. An'if I gibs dem to him I gits ten dollars! Daisy. Oh, no; he did not say that. He only offered to give me the ten dollars. I offered you five for helping me find them. Pete. (looks at her a moment) Oh, yes, I see. I'm sorry I can't help yo'. I'm not such a booby as I look. No, I did not find dem letters. (pauses a moment) But yo' needn't worry yo'self about looking for dem. (settles back in chair and gently draws cigar) Daisy. (angrily) You mean, horrid, black creature! I believe you have found them and are going to try to get the whole ten dollars. Never mind, I'll tell Mr. Wheeler not to give you a red cent. Pete. (indifferently) I don't care if yo' do; yo'll be none de better off anyhow. Miss Amelia. (off L.) Pete, Pete, where are you? (Pete springs quickly to feet, and hides cigar under coat with left hand. Daisy crosses to R. of Pete) Enter Miss Amelia L. 2 E. Miss A. (stops at L. C.; speaks authoritatively) Pete, where is Fido? Pete. I 'clar to goodness, Miss 'Melia, I don't know. Miss A. You do. You have done something to my dear little pet. I know you have. (notices smoke, elevates head, then looks at Pete) Who has been smoking in this room? (removes her gaze from Pete, and looks around room overhead. Pete catches Daisy by arm with right hand) Pete. (aside) Don't tell on me, an' I'll help yo' to find dem letters. (aloud) I don't know, Miss 'Melia, guess it's de 'roma from de gem'men's Herbana's ob last night you smell. I don't notice it, do
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