Cinema: Cinema, Dec. 12, 1955

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¶ Producer-Director John Huston announced plans to film Jean Anouilh's The Lark, using a new English translation of the original script rather than the adaptation by Christopher Fry which played in England or Lillian Hellman's adaptation now playing on Broadway. Huston picked French Star Suzanne Flon (Moulin Rouge) for the Joan of Arc role, now played on Broadway by Julie Harris.

¶ Analyzing television's threat to the movies, the Hollywood Reporter offered one more proof that no audience will pay to see on the screen what it can see free at home: despite a high-powered publicity campaign, said the Reporter, Liberace's Sincerely Yours has proved to be one of the year's biggest box-office flops.

¶ With the Hollywood première becoming gaudier every year, Los Angeles Columnist Kendis Rochlen handed out some tongue-in-cheek tips to première-goers. Two important rules: never show up on time ("Gauge your timing according to your prestige; no self-respecting big star would dream of showing up by 8:30"), and provide "double insurance" ("By accidentally dropping a glove or handkerchief and starting to lean over to pick it up, a star can often put her best features forward for the photographers").

The New Pictures

Samurai (Homel; Fine Arts Films] rivets the eye with its swift alternations of animal ferocity and morning calm. Like the prizewinning Gate of Hell (TIME, Dec. 13), this new Japanese film begins with a disordered 17th century battle piece: a flood of lance-waving horsemen surge across a meadow; agile warriors skip and pirouette in a whirling of two-handed blades; the defeated topple, with blood bursting between their clenched teeth. The struggle ends in far-off shouting as mists steal down from the mountains to draw a pale blanket over the slain.

Two wounded survivors, using each other as crutches, hobble away from the stricken field to find sanctuary in an isolated farmhouse, where a mother and daughter dress their wounds. One of the men, Rentaro Mikuni, longs to go back home to the girl he left behind, but he is weak-willed, and the women use him for their own purpose. The other, Toshiro Mifune, is a bullnecked, snarling ruffian who dreams of avenging the lost battle by becoming a great samurai. He soon has a chance when a rabble of bandits raid the farm. Toshiro kills the bandit chief and routs his men, then becomes a beast of the hills. He sweeps back into his native village, scattering the militia like a cat in a hen roost.

Samurai now propounds its moral: that a headstrong man is of no use to his nation unless he is tamed by virtue. While regiments of armed men scour the hills for Toshiro, a deceptively jolly priest (Kuroemon Onoe) and a frightened girl (Kaoru Yachigusa) ensnare him with kindness. Brought home, Toshiro is trussed up like a maniac and suspended from a tall tree. Each morning and evening the priest inquires if his spirit is broken, and Toshiro answers with howling curses. The girl frees the prisoner, but the wily priest traps Toshiro again, this time locks him in a tower to learn docility in solitary confinement and wisdom from the ancient books of Japan. Freed after many years, Toshiro must abandon the girl and dedicate himself to the long task of uniting his fragmented country.