Frank Kumagai Movies
Cary Grant made his last film appearance before retiring from the screen in this agreeable piece of fluff based on the 1943 comedy The More the Merrier, which dealt with the romantic complications inherent in the housing shortage in Washington D.C. during World War II. In Walk, Don't Run, the story is updated to a housing shortage in Tokyo during the Olympic Games of 1964. British industrialist Sir William Rutland (Cary Grant) arrives in Tokyo two days before the start of the games and cannot find any suitable accommodations. As a result, he answers an ad for an "apartment to share" and convinces the occupant, Christine Easton (Samantha Eggar), to rent a room to him. The next day he meets the handsome Steve Davis (Jim Hutton), a member of the United States Olympic walking team. Steve also needs a room and convinces Christine to take him on as a second tenant. After meeting Christine's pompous fiancé, Julius D. Haversack (John Standing), Rutland begins to ply his matchmaking skills in an effort to get Christine and Steve to fall in love with each other. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Cary Grant, Samantha Eggar, (more)
The only Rodgers and Hammerstein cinemadaptation to be produced by Universal Pictures, Flower Drum Song was, alas, also the only Rogers and Hammerstein film to lose money at the box office. It looks far better now than it did back in 1961, if only because of the paucity of musical films in the 1990s. Essentially a comedy about the culture clash between old-world Chinese and assimilated Chinese-Americans, the film begins when Mei Li (Miyoshi Umeki) and her grandfather (Kam Tong) smuggle themselves into San Francisco. It seems that Mei Li has arrived to honor an arranged marriage between herself and Runyonesque nightclub owner Sammy Fong (the incomparable Jack Soo). This might prove delicate, since Sammy is in love with flashy cabaret entertainer Linda Low (Nancy Kwan). Meanwhile, Linda is romancing Wang Ta (James Shigeta), the son of a wealthy Chinatown merchant (Benson Fong). Soon, however, Mei Li and Wang Ta have fallen in love.......It's a complex plot, to be sure, but comedy and music manage to predominate. The songs include "I Enjoy Being a Girl" (a tour de force for the special effects department, and for Nancy Kwan), "A Hundred Million Miracles," "The Other Generation," "Love Look Away," "I Am Going to Like It Here," "Don't Marry Me," "You Are Beautiful," "Grant Avenue" and "Chop Suey." Flower Drum Song is attractively produced and consummately acted; while no classic along the lines of King and I or Sound of Music, it deserves a second look. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Nancy Kwan, James Shigeta, (more)
- 1959
The drama in this fact-based tale about the killing of a young Japanese man is undermined by trite characters and a transparent storyline. There is no doubt that American GI Sgt. Douglas (Richard Long) killed the youth with his own gun. The dispute lies in whether the gun discharged accidentally, as he claims, and in whether he should be tried by Japanese civil law instead of an American military court. Sgt. Douglas is portrayed as a good guy, in love with a Japanese woman and appreciative of Japanese life and culture. His dilemma is made all the worse by some ill-advised plans he concocts to determine how he should be tried. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Michi Kobi, Richard Long, (more)
Directed with crisp efficiency by Dick Powell, The Hunters is a romantic melodrama with an aviation angle. Robert Mitchum plays veteran Air Force pilot Maj. Cleve Saville, in charge of a group of young flyboys in 1952 Korea. Among the men under Saville's command are cocksure Lt. Ed Peil (Robert Wagner) and timorous Lt. Abbott (Lee Phillips). Much against his better judgment, Saville falls in love with Abbott's gorgeous wife Kris (Mai Britt). When Abbott crashes behind enemy lines, Saville and Peil are sent out to rescue the downed pilot-and Peil has an inkling of the Major's feelings towards Mrs. Abbott. During their grueling journey back to their own lines, both Peil and Abbott benefit from the military expertise of the no-nonsense Saville, who knows where and when to separate his private life from his responsibilities. Distinguished by excellent aerial sequences, The Hunters is adapted from the novel by James Salter. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Mitchum, Robert Wagner, (more)
Jean Simmons' fascinating interpretation of an uncharacteristic role is the main drawing card of Otto Preminger's Angel Face. The daughter of Charles Treymayne (Herbert Marshall), who remarried a wealthy woman (Barbara O'Neil), Diane Treymayne's (Simmons) angelic countenance masks an unbridled psychotic who'll let nothing stand in the way of her happiness. Diane arranges for Catherine's death, making it look like an auto accident. Coveting family chauffeur Frank Jessup (Robert Mitchum), Diane steals Frank away from his sweetheart Mary (Mona Freeman) and forces him to become her spiritual accomplice in her stepmother's murder. And when Diane finally realizes that she'll never, ever, be able to hold Frank, she... well, enough said. If Angel Face doesn't look like a typical early-1950s RKO Radio film, it may be because its director was borrowed from 20th Century-Fox, and its cinematographer (Harry Stradling) was a loan-out from Sam Goldwyn. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Robert Mitchum, Jean Simmons, (more)
Samuel Fuller scarcely used Dwight Taylor's source material, a languid courtroom romance, in crafting this pugnacious potboiler. Pickup on South Street is strictly Fuller film noir -- lean and wicked straight to its core. Barely out of prison, loner and pickpocket Skip McCoy (Richard Widmark) quietly helps himself to the contents of a woman's purse. His beautiful victim, Candy (Jean Peters), turns out to be an unwitting courier for the communist underground; McCoy's booty is actually microfilmed U.S. government secrets, formerly en route to Moscow. Both the FBI and Candy's employers are desperate to retrieve the film. The apolitical and arrogant McCoy has a plan to play both ends against the middle and come up ahead. However, dealing with the authorities may mean life in the clink, and the sadistic communists would rather kill McCoy than pay him off. He quickly becomes embroiled with Candy, who will risk everything to right her wrongs, and eventually even more to save her new man. When McCoy loses a cohort and Candy is almost killed, the cocksure pickpocket finds a stronger motivation than personal gain. ~ Aubry Anne D'Arminio, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Widmark, Jean Peters, (more)
Burt Lancaster and Virginia Mayo, the stars of 1950's Flame and the Arrow, are reteamed in the lusty adventure romp South Sea Woman. It all begins at the military trial of Marine sergeant O'Hearn (Burt Lancaster), facing a court-martial for desertion. In flashback, O'Hearn recalls how he was stranded in Shanghai while trying to break up the impending marriage between his pal David White (Chuck Connors) and brassy nightclub photographer Ginger Martin (Virginia Mayo). The two marines try to make it back to Pearl Harbor, but they undergo several hair-raising adventures along the way, including a sticky involvement with a group of French resistance fighters. The upshot of all this is that O'Hearn arrives in Pearl after the Japanese attack, and as such is branded as a coward. It is up to Ginger Martin to provide the evidence that will clear our hero -- but she isn't too fond of O'Hearn at the moment. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Burt Lancaster, Virginia Mayo, (more)
- 1951
Paramount's Pine-Thomas unit served up another winner with the Technicolor actioner Crosswinds. Set in New Guinea, the film stars John Payne as schooner captain Pete Singleton, who loses his boat to a pair of scheming gold thieves (Forrest Tucker, Robert Lowery). On board the vessel as a semi-reluctant passenger is embittered war widow Katherine Shelley (Rhonda Fleming). With the help of his disreputable chums Sir Cecil (Alan Mowbray) and Sykes (John Abbott), Singleton does his best to retrieve his schooner and claim Katherine for himself. The last reels are chock full of close shaves, hairbreadth escapes, storms at sea and native uprisings. In short, there's something for everyone in Crosswinds. The screenplay was adapted by Thomson Burtis from his own novel New Guinea Gold. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- John Payne, Rhonda Fleming, (more)
In Halls of Montezuma, Richard Widmark stars as Lt. Carl Anderson, a former schoolteacher who serves as a no-nonsense Marine officer during WW II. Anderson leads his patrol to a Japanese-controlled island, where the enemy has set up an experimental rocket base. The patrol's mission is to capture prisoners for interrogation, which proves a near-insurmountable task given the fact that the Americans are heavily outnumbered. Among the grime-covered Marines are Walter (Jack) Palance, Robert Wagner, Karl Malden, Richard Boone, Skip Homeier and Neville Brand. Jack Webb is a chain-smoking war correspondent, while Reginald Gardiner shows up as an aristocratic--but very tough--British officer. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Richard Widmark, Jack Palance, (more)
One of the less famous Humphrey Bogart films is this 1949 drama about post-war guilt and remembrance. Bogart plays U.S. airman and war hero Joe Barrett. During the war, he believes, his wife Trina (Florence Marly) died in a Japanese concentration camp. But when Barrett returns to Tokyo and the bar named Tokyo Joe that he used to own, he discovers that Trina is not only alive, but she has married Mark Landis (Alexander Knox), an attorney, and they have a seven-year-old daughter Anya (Lora Lee Michel), whom he suspects is really his child. Baron Kimura (Sessue Hayakawa) forces Barrett into running an airborne smuggling operation by threatening to reveal publicly that Trina made wartime radio propaganda broadcasts. The shipment Barrett must fly includes three Japanese war criminals being brought back into the country, and Kimura insures that Barrett will comply by kidnapping Anya and holding her hostage. But the war criminals hijack the plane and are arrested. Barrett then tracks down Kimura and both die in a shoot-out which saves the life of Anya. ~ Michael Betzold, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Humphrey Bogart, Florence Marly, (more)
