Jinbocho Theater
Posted: Fri Apr 17, 2009 11:19 pm
Did a search on this board and did not see any mention of the Jinbocho Theater so I thought I would share my find. Indulge me please for first providing some background about how I came to find this treasure.
Last Saturday I went into Tokyo to the Kanda-Jinbocho area (located just north of the Imperial Palace East Garden.) This area is known for its used book stores and shops selling wood-block prints(my reason for going there). After several hours of going through prints I went to find a place to eat lunch. As I was walking down one of the side streets, out of the corner of my eye I spotted a poster in a window that had an image from an old movie. Sure enough it was a picture of Hideko Takamine from Naruse’s film Lightning. It was advertising the Jinbocho Theatre’s new series of films, which was just starting that day. The map at the bottom of the poster showed that the theater was just one block over and down from where I was standing. Forget lunch for now. I headed straight to the theater and picked up a flyer with the schedule for the next four weeks.
They were showing four films by Shimizu that day and luckily the two that had already played were two that I have seen (Mr. Thank-you and Two Blind Masseurs and a Woman). I stayed and watched A Star Athlete and Early Morning Chorus. Here is a listing of some the films for the rest of the current series grouped by director:
Shimizu: Ornamental Hairpin (1941), Children of the Beehive (1948), Mr. Shosuke Ohara (1949)
Naruse: The Whole Family Works (1939), Hideko, the Bus Conductress (1941), Ligthning (1952), Mother (1952)
Gosho: Song of the Flower Basket (1937)
Shimazu: Our Neighbor, Miss Yae (1934)
Ishida: Song of the Past (1939)
Honda: Love Makeup (1955)
Kawashima: Salary Day Tomorrow (1952), Tonkatsu Taisho (1952), Three Daughters of Suitable Age (1951)
Nomura, Takeshi: A Passport is my Gun (1967)
And two films starring Yujiro Ishihara; I’m Waiting (1957), the first film directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara and Inue’s Hawks and Eagles (1957).
Typically they show five films per day rotating a total of seven films in any given week. Each four-week series has some theme(Actresses of the Daie Studio, for example) or focuses on a particular director or two. Here is a link to the home page, and here is a link to the previous series.
The theater seems to have started showing films on a regular basis just over a year ago. This site is in Japanese only, so for the aid of most of those who cannot read Japanese (and I am certainly nowhere near fluent) here is a small overview of some of the movies that have played in the past:
Yamamoto: Horse (1941)
Oshima: Boy
Shimizu: Nabuko, Image of a Mother (his final film)
Naruse: Tsuruhachi Tsurujiro (1938), The Song Lantern (1943), The Way of Drama (1944), Flowing (1956), Untamed (1957), Whistling in Kotan (1959), Evening Stream (1960) and As a Wife, As a Woman (1961)
Ozu: Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family, Floating Weeds, Equinox Flower, Early Spring, Tokyo Twilight, An Autumn Afternoon
Yoshimura: Butterflies of the Night, River at Night, Niigata Bamboo Doll
Imamura: Pigs and Battleships, Stolen Desire, Insect Woman
Along with retrospectives of Kon Ichikawa (25 films), Gosho (28 films), Toyoda (21 films), Nomura (27 films), and Kinoshita (33 films)
This Sunday I am definitely going back to see Shimizu's Children of the Beehive and Naruse's The Whole Family Works.
Last Saturday I went into Tokyo to the Kanda-Jinbocho area (located just north of the Imperial Palace East Garden.) This area is known for its used book stores and shops selling wood-block prints(my reason for going there). After several hours of going through prints I went to find a place to eat lunch. As I was walking down one of the side streets, out of the corner of my eye I spotted a poster in a window that had an image from an old movie. Sure enough it was a picture of Hideko Takamine from Naruse’s film Lightning. It was advertising the Jinbocho Theatre’s new series of films, which was just starting that day. The map at the bottom of the poster showed that the theater was just one block over and down from where I was standing. Forget lunch for now. I headed straight to the theater and picked up a flyer with the schedule for the next four weeks.
They were showing four films by Shimizu that day and luckily the two that had already played were two that I have seen (Mr. Thank-you and Two Blind Masseurs and a Woman). I stayed and watched A Star Athlete and Early Morning Chorus. Here is a listing of some the films for the rest of the current series grouped by director:
Shimizu: Ornamental Hairpin (1941), Children of the Beehive (1948), Mr. Shosuke Ohara (1949)
Naruse: The Whole Family Works (1939), Hideko, the Bus Conductress (1941), Ligthning (1952), Mother (1952)
Gosho: Song of the Flower Basket (1937)
Shimazu: Our Neighbor, Miss Yae (1934)
Ishida: Song of the Past (1939)
Honda: Love Makeup (1955)
Kawashima: Salary Day Tomorrow (1952), Tonkatsu Taisho (1952), Three Daughters of Suitable Age (1951)
Nomura, Takeshi: A Passport is my Gun (1967)
And two films starring Yujiro Ishihara; I’m Waiting (1957), the first film directed by Koreyoshi Kurahara and Inue’s Hawks and Eagles (1957).
Typically they show five films per day rotating a total of seven films in any given week. Each four-week series has some theme(Actresses of the Daie Studio, for example) or focuses on a particular director or two. Here is a link to the home page, and here is a link to the previous series.
The theater seems to have started showing films on a regular basis just over a year ago. This site is in Japanese only, so for the aid of most of those who cannot read Japanese (and I am certainly nowhere near fluent) here is a small overview of some of the movies that have played in the past:
Yamamoto: Horse (1941)
Oshima: Boy
Shimizu: Nabuko, Image of a Mother (his final film)
Naruse: Tsuruhachi Tsurujiro (1938), The Song Lantern (1943), The Way of Drama (1944), Flowing (1956), Untamed (1957), Whistling in Kotan (1959), Evening Stream (1960) and As a Wife, As a Woman (1961)
Ozu: Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family, Floating Weeds, Equinox Flower, Early Spring, Tokyo Twilight, An Autumn Afternoon
Yoshimura: Butterflies of the Night, River at Night, Niigata Bamboo Doll
Imamura: Pigs and Battleships, Stolen Desire, Insect Woman
Along with retrospectives of Kon Ichikawa (25 films), Gosho (28 films), Toyoda (21 films), Nomura (27 films), and Kinoshita (33 films)
This Sunday I am definitely going back to see Shimizu's Children of the Beehive and Naruse's The Whole Family Works.