Tokyo Joe

"Tokyo Joe" from 1949 was the first film that was allowed to film in post-war Japan. Produced by Bogart's Santana Productions, it's just fair.

Bogart plays Joe Barrett, who returns to Japan after the war to start a business. While there, he discovers that his wife Trina (Florence Marly) is still alive. However, when he finds her, he discovers that she has divorced him and remarried a man named Mark Landis (Alexander Knox). Joe is determined to get her back and needs to extend his visa; he is approached by Baron Kimura (Sessue Hayakawa) who wants him to front an airline freight company for him. He would be importing frozen frogs. However, there is some additional freight, and for that, Kimura blackmails Joe by telling him what Trina was involved in during the war, which he will make public if Joe doesn't work with him.

This film bears a passing resemblance to Casablanca, and Bogart is clearly going through a transition which would lead to some of his greatest films and performances in the '50s. Rick of Casablanca is clearly pretty tired out. Being a small company, Santana Productions did not make big films or hire actors equal to Bogart, so the effect here is mediocre.

Florence Marly as Trina is a disaster - cold, very haughty looking, without much acting ability. It's impossible to see why Joe fell for her in the first place. She is no Ilse Lund, and she has no chemistry with Bogart. Her intentions are very unclear as well - as an actress, it doesn't look like she made any decisions about the character. Alexander Knox and Sessue Hayakawa are very good. Bogart, for my money, is always terrific.

Definitely worth seeing for the Japanese location and for Bogart. It's not horrendous, but considering that Bogart starred in so many classic films, it's not that good.

Tokyo Joe has Casablanca influences in several of the characters and scenes. Bogart must have figured that if he could achieve great success with Casablanca, why not repeat the formula for Tokyo Joe? He was partially correct, but the film is obviously not as compelling as Casablanca. Florence Marly (who is curiously a look-a-like for real life wife, Lauren Bacall) is just not up to the emotional depth of Ingrid Bergman. Bogey is fine in his role; and Alexander Knox is good as the noble husband of his old flame. Sound familiar? It should; it's pretty much the same triangle you had in Casablanca. The old flame now married to a noble guy who is at risk. And Bogey has to do the patriotic thing. Not quite scene for scene, but close enough. For the most part, the formula still works again, despite the relatively sterile Marly. Be sure to catch this Bogart film; he does a fine job.

Picture Bogart's Richard Blaine character renamed Joe Barrett for this film. Instead of Casablanca, he's got a place in Tokyo just like Rick's named Tokyo Joe's. World War II interrupts things and he gets out of Japan and goes in the Army Air Corps where he spends a good deal of time bombing a lot of Japanese real estate. Including Tokyo which because of the wooden buildings pre World War II was particularly vulnerable to Curtis LeMay's incendiaries. It's a miracle, but his place survived intact and he'd like to resettle in Tokyo and pick up where he left off.

Bogey gets an even better piece of news. His Ingrid Bergman who he married before the war and thought dead is alive. He goes to her and finds out she divorced him for reasons the plot really doesn't go into and is now married to a high civilian official with the American occupying authority, read MacArthur. That would be Alexander Knox in the Paul Henreid part and Ingrid, in this case Florence Marly has a daughter now.

Still Bogey who would now like to make money as a civilian flier as well is being used at cross purposes by the American Army Intelligence and by some Japanese led by Sessue Hayakawa who haven't adjusted to losing the war.

Tokyo Joe follows in plot lines laid out by Casablanca, but it sure treads softly in those giant footsteps. It was nice to see Sessue Hayakawa appear for the first time in an American film since silent days. He became a star in the early silent era in Cecil B. DeMille's The Cheat and left for Japan with the coming of sound where he stayed a popular film star right through World War II.

Hayakawa came here for Tokyo Joe. Other than establishing newsreel shots, this whole production was done on Columbia's back lot. Humphrey Bogart gives it the old Casablanca try, but he must have been wondering why he left Warner Brothers he was certainly doing a lot of the same stuff over at his home studio.

Several years ago I stumbled upon a 35 cent biography of Humphrey Bogart written shortly after his death. In it he comments on many of his films, including Tokyo Joe. "Utterly worthless picture" he noted. Many critics agree as they dismiss this piece of hokum about what happens when a former soldier returns to what was his "home town" before the war. Thing have changed. It is not the paradise it once was to him and it is certainly no "Rick's" Instead of "As Time Goes By" we hear "These Foolish Things," a better song but not nearly as famous.

Tokyo Joe was made not long after Bogey had left Warner Brothers and it has more than a whiff of a "message picture" that strikes to find some meaning in postwar Tokyo. But like "House Of Bamboo" this film works not only as melodrama but as historical artifact of a period that is now forgotten. We don't think of the Japanese as a defeated power. Ever since the Honda Accord and the Toyota Camry started blowing away American competition we have thought of the Japanese as a superpower economically, not as a crippled defeated country. This film captures a mood that is rarely expressed in movies and it captures it with rather high production values. The rest of the cast isn't much but they play it straight and thus Tokyo Joe stands up even better after the initial viewing. The DVD transfer is very good and it remains a worthy addition to the Bogart canon.

Satisfying Bogart vehicle has our hero as a veteran seeking to return to his prewar life in Tokyo as part-owner of a jazz bar ("Tokyo Joe's") and also as the husband of his former diva (Marley). Inconveniently, she's already divorced him and married a lawyer in the provisional government (Knox). In order to remain the country, Bogey starts an air freight service with some shady Yakuza types who eventually blackmail him into importing war criminals. The bait is his daughter, who he's just met.

Very sentimental, with Bogart's performance dead on the mark and showing some sides of his persona which had not been explored before. Produced by Bogart's company, Santana Productions.