James Yagi Movies

Dr. Bragan (James Craig) is a workaholic rocket scientist with NASA who is coming unglued from the stress. A colleague arranges for him to take a much needed holiday in Japan, and Bragan accepts, hoping to use this free time to pursue his first love, botany. He brings a potted Venus Flytrap with him, with plans to study carnivorous flora and prove his theory that human beings are descended from plants. His Japanese assistant, Noroko, arranges for them to work in seclusion at her father's abandoned resort hotel, located on a mountain next to an active volcano. They get to work in the greenhouse, toiling night and day to strengthen the Venus Flytrap with the alien Nipponese soil, which causes it to grow to an unusual size. But Bragan is as obsessive and abusive as he was in America, and his constant mood swings cause Noroko to suspect that he is going mad. An experimental graft with a Japanese carnivorous plant succeeds in creating the "Sectovorus," a bizarre, vaguely human creature with vicious flytrap paws, and Bragan knows he is on the right track. Unfortunately, the beast must be fed mice, chickens, puppies and eventually human blood to keep it alive, and the stronger it grows, the more dangerous it becomes. When the Sectovorus learns to uproot itself and venture to a nearby village for victims, Dr. Bragan must decide whether to protect his work of genius, or lure it into the volcano to save mankind. Revenge of Dr. X was scripted by cult filmmaker Edward D. Wood, Jr., and is also known as The Double Garden, The Devil Garden and The Venus Flytrap. ~ Fred Beldin, Rovi

Taken from a best-selling book, this is an uneven, politically tinged drama by George Englund that does not really follow the book that closely. Marlon Brando is Harrison Carter MacWhite, an ambassador to a Southeast Asian country that goes unnamed but stands in well for Vietnam. There is a growing movement against Yankee imperialism and the current government, increasing unrest, and other signs of a complex situation getting worse. At first the ambassador relies on past training and has his own facile explanations for the unfolding events. But as time goes by, he comes to learn that a revolutionary movement is not one-dimensional. Unfortunately, the film itself never adequately clarifies the events it depicts. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, Rovi

Disillusioned with the present, Paul Driscoll (Dana Andrews) builds a time machine and heads to the past, hoping to correct mankind's mistakes. Failing spectacularly in this endeavor, he elects to take up permanent residence in the small town of Homeville, Indiana, circa 1881, where he hopes to live out his life in quiet contentment. Alas, despite his herculean efforts not to alter the course of history, that is just what he ends up doing. As originally written by Rod Serling, this hour-long Twilight Zone episode opened with a lengthy philosophical discussion between Driscoll and his mentor Dr. Harvey. This was adjudged too dull for TV consumption, thus a new opening was dreamed up wherein Driscoll was shown trying to prevent the sinking of the Lusitania and the rise of Hitler's Nazi Party. Accordingly, the role of Dr. Harvey was diminished, obliging proposed costar Joseph Schildkraut to drop out of the episode. The final version of "No Time Like the Past" premiered March 7, 1963. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

An unusually tense and intelligent political thriller, The Manchurian Candidate was a film far ahead of its time. Its themes of thought control, political assassination, and multinational conspiracy were hardly common currency in 1962, and while its outlook is sometimes informed by Cold War paranoia, the film seemed nearly as timely when it was reissued in 1987 as it did on its original release. It opens with a group of soldiers whooping it up in a bar in Korea as their commander, Sgt. Raymond Shaw (Laurence Harvey), arrives to inform them that they're back on duty. These men obviously have no fondness for Shaw, and he feels no empathy for them. While on patrol, Shaw and his platoon are ambushed by Korean troops. Months later, Shaw is receiving a hero's welcome as he returns to the United States to accept the Congressional Medal of Honor, and several of the soldiers who served under Shaw repeatedly refer to him as "the bravest, finest, most lovable man I ever met." It soon becomes evident that after their capture by the Koreans, Shaw and his men were subjected to an intense program of brainwashing prior to their release. While several are troubled by bad dreams and inexplicable behavior, it's Capt. Bennett Marco (Frank Sinatra) who seems the most haunted by the experience. In time, Marco is able to piece together what happened; it seems Raymond Shaw was programmed by a shadowy cadre of Russian and Chinese agents into a killing machine who will assassinate anyone, even a close friend, when given the proper commands. On the other side of the coin, Shaw is also used for political gain by his harridan mother (Angela Lansbury), who guides the career of her second husband, John Iselin (James Gregory), a bone-headed congressman hoping to win the vice-presidential nomination through a campaign of anti-Communist hysteria.

The Manchurian Candidate features a host of remarkable performances, several from actors cast cleverly against type. Frank Sinatra's edgy, aggressive turn as Marco may be the finest dramatic work of his career; Laurence Harvey's chilly onscreen demeanor was rarely used to s better advantage than as Raymond Shaw; James Gregory is great as the oft-befuddled Senator Iselin; and Angela Lansbury's ultimate bad mom will be a shock to those who know her as the lovable mystery writer from Murder, She Wrote. George Axelrod's screenplay (based on Richard Condon's novel) is by turns compelling, witty, and horrifying in its implications, and John Frankenheimer's direction milks it for all the tension it can muster. While Frankenheimer's career has had its ups and downs, The Manchurian Candidate and Seconds (1966) suggest that he deserves to be recognized as one of the most brilliantly paranoid American filmmakers of the '60s. Entertaining yet unsettling, both films indicate that things in the '60s were not what they seemed, with a resonance that still echoes uncomfortably in the present. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi

The "mutual admiration society" consisting of actor James Cagney and actor/director Robert Montgomery culminated in the 1960 film The Gallant Hours. Cagney stars as war hero Admiral William F. "Bull" Halsey. On the verge of retirement, Halsey recalls his most fateful wartime experience: his five-week showdown between himself and Japanese Admiral Yamamoto (James T. Goto) in 1942. In command of the American naval forces in the Pacific, Halsey scores a crucial, tide-turning victory at Guadalcanal. In concentrating on the participants rather than the battle itself, The Gallant Hours is a character study of a remarkable American. The a cappella "score" performed by Ken Darby and the King's Men Quartet is a matter of taste. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

Director Edward Bernds proved that he was capable of handling a different sort of comedy than the "Bowery Boys" and "Three Stooges" brand in Navy Wife. The film is set in postwar Japan, where Peg Blain (Joan Bennett) and her daughter Debby (Judy Nugent) join Peg's commanding-officer husband Jack (Gary Merrill). Impressed by the independence and self-reliance of Peg and Debby, the local Japanese wives begin demanding the same rights and privileges as their American counterparts. Things come to a head--and a resolution--at a military Christmas party. If the reader is wondering what Joan Bennett is doing in a low-budget Allied Artists film, it is because the producer was Bennett's then-husband Walter Wanger. Navy Wife was based on Mother Sir, a novel by Tats Blain. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi