Posted on 08/04/2016 1:36:35 PM PDT by EveningStar
If you ask film buffs which is Akira Kurosawa's greatest film, most would say Seven Samurai. However, if you ask them which is Kurosawa's most popular film, they would point to Yojimbo, a 1961 film that gave a new definition to the samurai film genre. This entry discusses the Kurosawa film and its two remakes, one of which became a classic in its own right.
(Excerpt) Read more at h2g2.com ...
ping
Nope, “Sanjuro” was his best, IMHO.
CC
“When the film was first broadcast on American television, a new sequence was added by network executives (unknown to either Eastwood or Leone). In this prologue, the Man with No Name (played by a look-a-like) has his prison sentence commuted by the prison warden, provided he cleans up the Mexican village of the film. The prologue was dropped from later releases and broadcasts of the film.”
Wow anyone recall this? I wonder what year it was first broadcast.
Freegards
Yojimbo was inspired by Dashiell Hammett’s ‘The Glass Key’ which was serialized in Black Mask magazine in 1930 and published as a novel the following year.
And Hammett’s Red Harvest for that matter.
It's Dersu Uzala, with Kagemusha as a close second. No complaints about Sanjuro being in the top five, however :-)
P.S. His strangest movie was Dodeskaden, with Ikiru a close second. And I love watching his early postwar crime movies, it's like watching a triple-A pitcher you know is going to smoke the majors someday.
I enjoyed all 3, but “Yojimbo” was pretty neat IMHO
I believe the terrible added footage is shown on one of the DVDs and/or Blu-rays as a supplement. Apparently, the network in the 70's was troubled that Eastwood's character was motivated strictly by reward money (this was in the "no-violence on TV" 70's). so they added the sequence in which the killings are sanctioned by the government for some reason nobler than bounty-hunting. Harry Dean Stanton played the officer who briefs "Eastwood" at the beginning. The "double" for Eastwood never shows his face, and seems to be considerably shorter than Eastwood. They cut in some shots of Eastwood's squinty eyes from elsewhere in the film in a lame attempt to sell the viewer on the idea that it's Eastwood. Really ridiculous.
Yeah, I just read both of those stories recently and the common theme is playing one side off the other. I’d give it to Red Harvest by a hair though because the continental op is a stranger to the town, while in the Glass Key it is one of the boss’s good friends.
Freegards
Thanks I’ll check that out eventually.
Freegards
Kagemusha is on Netflix.
Dersu Uzala is one of the worst looking films ever made by a great film maker. They used this horrible Soviet film stock. The minuscule title character probably inspired Yoda.
The original title of ‘Last Man Standing’ was apparently “Yo Jimbo!”
And some of us like his Shakespearean movies like Throne of Blood and his Red Beard.
***Wow anyone recall this? I wonder what year it was first broadcast.***
I remember seeing that when it was first broadcast on TV sometime in the early 1970s. They even had a dialog to mouth mismatch.
When I saw the trailer (Previews of coming attractions...remember those?)to LAST MAN STANDING, I immediately knew it was a rip off of the YOJIMBO and A FIST FULL OF DOLLARS.
You're right, but that is something that should be fixable with modern photo enhancing processes. Whether someone would be willing to undertake the task is a separate issue: the Russians aren't going to, so it would have to be the Japanese or an American film restoration company.
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