The Neighbor's Wife and Mine

This was not, as I had expected, a silent movie, but a full talky: the first, according to the IMDb, produced in Japan. Atsushi Watanabe is a playwright who has just rented a country house and moved there, with his wife, Kinuyo Tanaka, where he is to finish his new play -- which he has barely begun -- within a month. However, as you might expect, this is rather more easily said than done. There are constant interruptions: the friends who helped them move won't leave. The children demand constant attention. Door-to-door salesmen pop by to sell him patent medicines, and there's a jazz band practicing next door, with a modernistic and sexy Satoko Date to arouse the jealousy of the wife.

Gosho was clearly held in high esteem by production company Shochiku, to helm such an important movie, and he acquits himself in his comedy direction very well. Given the timing, it's no wonder that most of the jokes are about noise, their disruption, and a definite nostalgia for the Good Old Days is evident in the movie, even as everyone shrugs their shoulders and admits this is 1931 and we must be modern. Watanabe, who later played many roles, great and small for Kurosawa, is excellent in his role, awkward and gawky and impatient and very real. It's certainly not a great movie, but it remains a very pleasant effort,