Cast
Takada Minoru (Koyama Kenji)
Kawasaki Hiroki (Sugimoto Yasue)
Matsuzono Nobuko (Sugimoto's Little Sister)
Suzuki Utako (Sugimoto Mother)
Yoshitani Hisao (Senko)
Mori Teruo (Gunpei)
Date Satoko (Chicko)
Sakamoto Takeshi (Ono)
Synopsis
Koyama Kenji, nicknamed the Knife, is a smalltime
hood assisted by his cronies Senko, Gunpei and
girlfriend Chieko. One day, he spots the demure
Yasue coming out of a jewelry shop and courts
her. Meanwhile, Chieko tries to deliver Yasue
into the clutches of their sleazebag boss Ono.
Kenji rescues Yasue and goes straight. Chieko
and Gunpei try to drag him back into the criminal
world, and when he refuses, they turn him in to
the police. When the officers come for Ken and
Senko, Yasue promises to wait for them, so they
take cheerful strides to go to prison. After serving
their sentence, they return to the home to find
Yasue, her mother and sisters waiting for them.
Thoughts from Ozu The story is about a delinquent who goes straight.
I credited Shimizu Hiroshi for the original story,
as I got the idea from him.
Background
The 14th film shot from November 1929 to February
1930. The production was interrupted in December
1929 to make An Introduction to Marriage
(Kekkongaku Nyumon, 1930). The original story
idea is credited to Shimizu Hiroshi, a friend of
Ozu. Shimizu and Ozu were both born in 1903. Their
friendship began in 1924, when Shimizu worked as
an assistant director for Ikeda Yoshinobu and Ozu
was an assistant cameraman, and lasted until Ozu's
death in 1963. The story (a young gangster falls
in love with a pure and innocent girl and becomes
honest) is extremely ordinary. It might also be
a period drama. Ozu treated it in a westernized
style. At the time the most modern "western"
director in Japan was Abe Yutaka who made films
for Nikkatsu, like The Woman Who Touched the
Legs (Ashi ni sawatta onna, 1926) and
The Five Women Around Him (Kare o meguru
go-nin no onna, 1927). Having worked in Hollywood,
he was an exception. Ozu was considered to be the
representative westerner among the younger directors.
The decor of Walk Cheerfully, the automobiles, building,
typewriters, golf players, trumpets, hotels, original
posters of foreign films and of boxing. guns, phonographs,
English scribblings on the wall, the humorous greetings
inspired by Harold Lloyd's The Freshman (1925)
etc, constituted an "American-like" world,
far from the Japanese reality and probably far from
any reality. Logically, the protagonist lives in
a westernized apartment, somewhere in Tokyo. Behind
the door there is no place for Japanese reality.
This disorientation is very important. In this context,
the various national flags in the last scene symbolize
the lack of nationality of Walk Cheerfully. The
apartments of the protagonists in Ozu's films have
an international flair. The first scene seems to
be at Yokohama Bay, the open window faces America,
and the reception desk is of strong foreign influence.
In this period, Ozu always used posters of American
films, a poster of The Seventh Heaven (1927)
appears in Days of Youth, one of Speedy
(1928) in I Graduated, But... and one of
Our Dancing Daughters (1928) in Walk Cheerfully.
Probably, he bought them in Yokohama. Ozu himself
loved to wear imported westernized clothes and bought
many Western artciles. He was the most westernized
director in the Kamata studio.
Personal
Thoughts and Comments Walk Cheerfully is uncharacteristically
Ozu in it's highly stylized, fast paced, and genre
blending approach. Ozu shares the writing credit
with Japanese filmmaker Hiroshi Shimizu, whom
Ozu greatly admired and admitted gave him the
idea for the story. Walk Cheerfully is
a mix of genres (crime, drama, comedy, romance)
while recalling obvious inspirations and references
to Hollywood silent films. Stylistically, much
is unique from Ozu's definitive work, yet there
are still visual motifs and patterns that are
evident. However, here the compositions are far
more stylish then most of Ozu's work (even in
comparison to his silent films). The film takes
on multiple plot layers, but the focus is on Kenji,
a petty thief who decides to go straight after
he falls for a sweet woman (Yasue). Kenji's girlfriend
(in full femme fatale / Louis Brooks mode) tries
to lure him back into the life of crime, only
to turn on him and hand him over to the police.
Kenji "walks cheerfully" knowing that
Yasue, her mother, and her sister will be waiting
for him to return. Walk Cheerfully is not
essential Ozu, but it is an entertaining and kindhearted
film. One that is made in unexpected style and
pace- including a skillful execution in camera
movement and nourish devices that make it unique
from almost anything else Ozu made before or after.
