The Conqueror (1956)

RKO’s 1956 epic The Conqueror has the reputation of being one of the worst movies ever made. That judgment is perhaps a little unfair. While it certainly has its problems and cannot in all honesty be described as a good film, it does have a certain fascination.

Part of this movie’s terrible reputation is undoubtedly due to the assumption that any film that Howard Hughes was involved in must be a bad film. There’s also the undeniably incongruous casting of John Wayne as Genghis Khan. The movie’s tendency to play fast and loose with historical accuracy (which it does to an even greater extent than most epics) hasn’t helped its reputation. And lastly there’s the legend (which may or may not be true) that the movie was shot on an old atomic testing site and that as a result almost half of those involved in the production subsequently died of cancer. 

In fact The Conqueror’s failure as an epic has little to do with any of these factors.

The movie opens with Temujin, later to be known as Genghis Khan, still a rather minor Mongol chieftain. He captures Bortai (Susan Hayward) during a raid. Given that her father murdered Temujin’s father it’s perhaps not surprising that initially they don’t hit it off too well. Temujin however is convinced that Bortai really is the woman for him.

Temujin is determined to avenge his father’s murder. He has also been convinced by his blood brother Jamuga (Pedro Armendáriz) that he is a man of destiny who will one day rule a vast empire. That day seems a long way off as most of Temujin’s schemes seem to end in disaster.

Both Temujin and Jamuga have a remarkable capacity for getting themselves captured by their enemies. Temujin’s plans to gain the ageing but powerful Wang Khan (Thomas Gomez) as an ally also face formidable obstacles and dangers, the principal danger coming from Wang Khan’s wily and unscrupulous shaman (played by John Hoyt). Meanwhile Bortai is still far from reconciled to the idea of being Temujin’s wife and is likely to cause trouble.

While the movie is called The Conqueror it has to be said that Temujin doesn’t do much conquering. The decision to focus on the early part of the career of the man who would become Genghis Khan is reasonable enough but it does involve one major problem - it reduces the opportunities for spectacular battle scenes. In fact the movie is a bit light on action in general and most of what there is is small-scale stuff. It’s more like a swashbuckling adventure movie than a genuine epic but there’s still not enough action. Concentrating on Temujin’s relationships with Bortai and Jamuga (which is what this film does) could have provided the chance to explore Genghis Khan the man rather than the legend but if you’re going to make an epic about a great conqueror you do need to provide at least some focus on the military and political prowess that allowed him to build up one of the greatest empires in history.

Dick Powell was by no means a poor director. The Enemy Below, which he made in the following year, is an absolutely riveting wartime adventure. He does not seem quite at home with the epic genre however. In actual fact there were very few directors with a real flair for the epic. It’s not enough to spend a lot of money (and the Conqueror was an expensive film) and it’s not enough to have lavish sets and costumes. A few years later Anthony Mann would demonstrate in El Cid how an epic should be made. Mann captured the true epic feel in a way that Powell fails to do. 

While the scenery in Utah is impressive enough it presents another problem - it just looks too American, too much like the setting for a western. The necessary exotic feel is just not there.

An epic also needs the right kind of star. John Wayne was a much better actor than Victor Mature but Mature would have been a better choice for the lead - he understood the style of acting that epics require. Howard Hughes however wanted John Wayne. Hughes was probably half right. Wayne had the ability to play larger-than-life characters and he certainly had the ability to portray complex heroes (and Hughes clearly wanted Genghis Khan to be a hero). The trouble is that Wayne tries too hard and his performance ends up seeming tentative and confused. Wayne appears to be thinking too much about his performance.

Susan Hayward on the other hand was the perfect female lead for an epic and if you can get past the fact that she looks even less like a Tartar princess than Wayne looks like a Mongol her performance works quite satisfactorily.

The supporting players are quite good. They bring the right kind of hamminess to their roles.

This is, even by 1950s standards, an astoundingly politically incorrect film. If you’re the kind of person who demands that the movies of the past should conform to modern sensibilities than you’ll have huge problems watching this movie. The fact that Temujin believes that the right way to handle women is to handle them roughly, and the fact that this makes him just the sort of man Bortai wants, may well induce fits of apoplexy among some modern viewers. It’s probably worth pointing out however that the real Genghis Khan was probably not a guy who worried too much about political correctness.

The Conqueror doesn’t really work as an epic and John Wayne is definitely not quite right for the title role but this movie is not as bad as its reputation suggests. In its own way it’s quite a bit of fun to watch. Despite its faults its very notoriety makes it worthy seeing and the ways in which it misses the target make it rather entertaining. Recommended.

Knives of the Avenger (1966)

Mario Bava is most famous for his superb gothic horror films but he also made some great action adventure films including a couple of excellent Viking movies. Knives of the Avenger (I coltelli del vendicatore) was the second of these Viking movies, a follow-up to his wonderful Erik the Conqueror (Gli invasori, 1961). Both movies starred American actor Cameron Mitchell (who made a total of three films with Bava).

Karin (Elissa Pichelli) and her son Moki live in a rude hut not far from the sea. One day a stranger rides into town, a man named Helmut (Cameron Mitchell). Helmut saves Karin from a couple of thugs and he stays on for a while. Helmut teaches Miki to shoot a bow and starts to teach him the art of killing with a throwing knife (something at which Helmut is an expert). Karin is not at all happy about this idea - she does not want Helmut teaching her son to be a killer. Apart from this minor problem it’s clear that there is an emotional bond developing between Helmut and Karin although Helmut seems curiously unwilling to push things to their logical conclusion and their relationship remains strictly platonic. We will later learn that both Karin and Helmut have good reasons for exercising such restraint.

Karin is in fact a queen in exile, and in hiding. Her husband King Arald is believed to have been lost at sea. His disappearance followed a series of tragic events. Their wedding was supposed to unite two petty kingdoms but these hopes were dashed by the violent and destructive behaviour of Hagen (Fausto Tozzi). Hagen killed the wife and child of a neighbouring king, Rurik. Rurik reacted (or overreacted) with a campaign of terror. 

These subplots will come together in a surprisingly effective way, as none of these characters succeed in escaping their pasts, or their destinies. 

You might think that the plot sounds vaguely like a western. When you watch the movie that impression will be reinforced considerably. This is in fact a classic revenge western. It also bears a very strong similarity to the classic western Shane. Given the fondness of the Italians for the western this is undoubtedly very deliberate indeed. The screenplay (by Mario Bava, Alberto Liberati and Giorgio Simonelli) actually adds a good deal of extra complexity. Shane is a man who has grown tired of violence but while we have no doubt that in his younger days he went looking for trouble and took some pleasure in his skill as a killer we also have no doubt that he only ever killed men in fair fights and that the men he killed almost certainly deserved killing. The protagonist of Knives of the Avenger is rather different - he is not an evil man but he has certainly done very evil things indeed. He also still derives a disturbing amount of enjoyment from killing for its own sake.

We feel that Shane’s path to redemption will not be easy but his moral standards encourage us to believe that he will achieve it. We cannot be so sanguine about the chances of the protagonist of Knives of the Avenger.

Mario Bava never made a spaghetti western but this movie suggests he might have done something quite interesting had he ever attempted that genre. Visually this movie has nothing in common with the spaghetti western but in tone it’s very close indeed. The fact that the protagonist is a knife-fighter makes the affinity even stronger. When the hero confronts the villain the scene plays out exactly like a western gunfight.

The hero in fact relies mostly on his skill with throwing knives. I very much doubt if Vikings actually bothered with throwing knives but in film terms it has two very great advantages. Firstly it makes the action scenes more interesting, but secondly and more importantly it adds greatly to the western flavour - Helmut uses his knives the way a western hero uses his six-guns.

Knives of the Avenger is not quite as visually stunning as other Bava films but it does have some classic Bava-esque moments, especially the scenes in the grotto.

Cameron Mitchell does a fine job, as he always did for Bava. I wasn’t so impressed by the rest of the cast. Fausto Tozzi as Hagen is a nasty villain but he needed to be a little bit more larger-than-life. Elissa Pichelli as Karin is just a tad on the bland side.

There’s a romantic triangle although it doesn’t exactly set the screen alight. Which is perhaps not such a problem since the revenge and redemption angles are what really matter.

Anchor Bay’s DVD, from their Mario Bava Collection Volume 1 boxed set, offers a fine anamorphic transfer (the movie was shot in the ’scope ratio). The lack of extras is a slight disappointment.

Knives of the Avenger isn’t quite top-rank Bava but it’s an excellent and rather thoughtful action adventure flick. Bava didn’t have the budget for large-scale land and sea battle scenes but he has no difficulty in keeping things interesting. Not as good as Erik the Conqueror but still highly recommended. 

The Ghost Ship (1943)

The Ghost Ship, directed by Mark Robson in 1943, is considered to be one of the lesser pictures produced by Val Lewton at RKO in the mid-1940s. It’s certainly not in the same class as Cat People or The Seventh Victim but very few movies are. It’s still an interesting little movie.  

The story concerns a young man, Tom Merriam, on his first posting at sea as third officer of a freighter called the Altair. The captain seems to want to take Merriam under his wing, but Merriam soon notices some rather worrying things about his captain. Like the captain’s obsession with authority. He talks about it constantly. Much of what he says on the subject, and on command and responsibility, is more or less true. It’s just that he seems to take it a little too far. A captain must appear to his crew to be infallible but when he starts to believe that he really is infallible, that even an unreasonable order becomes reasonable because as captain he has the right to give such an order, the situation can become dangerous.

Things start to go wrong on this voyage right from the start. A member of the crew dies soon after the ship leaves port. There is a potentially disastrous incident involving a cargo hook, an incident that casts doubt on the captain’s judgment.

There are obvious parallels to The Caine Mutiny. Both films deal with a junior officer who begins to suspect that the captain of the ship is dangerously incompetent. In both cases the captain’s behaviour is ambiguous - there are incidents that could be interpreted as errors of judgment but could just as easily be ascribed to chance or misfortune. Once a subordinate begins to suspect a superior of incompetence there is the danger that he will misinterpret the superior’s actions.

Of course there are differences. In The Ghost Ship the captain really does turn out to be dangerous - incompetent perhaps, but mad certainly.

There are further incidents as the voyage progresses and these incidents could be ascribed not merely to incompetence but possibly even malice. 

Tom Merriam persuades himself that he must do something about the situation but his difficulty is that he has no real evidence - certainly nothing that would be likely to convince a court of enquiry. 

Richard Dix as the captain gives us a fine portrait of a lonely, insecure, fearful personality clinging to his rigid notions of authority because those notions are all he has. The major weakness of the movie is Russell Wade as Merriam – he’s too bland and too earnest.

The film’s biggest weakness is the stilted dialogue that Donald Henderson Clarke’s screenplay offers the actors, and the problem is compounded by the fact that none of the actors can be said to have the acting chops to overcome the weakness of the script. 

The story itself is a good one - it just needed someone to do a bit more work on the dialogue.

Like most of the Lewton pictures this is a psychological study rather than a monster movie – a psychological study not just of an authoritarian personality, but of the way other people allow such personalities to exercise their despotic powers. It’s a story of paranoia made more intriguing by the fact that there’s paranoia on the part of both the hero and his adversary.

The story could perhaps be interpreted as a commentary on the nature of totalitarianism - and a captain’s power over his crew is as absolute as that of a  totalitarian political leader. The theme of unwillingness to confront authority and unwillingness to defy the pressure to conform is however more of a universal theme of individualism versus the herd instinct.

The ending is just a little rushed, but the movie includes some wonderful scenes – the scene with the swinging hook, and the one with the anchor chain, are highly original, visually arresting and very scary. Since it’s done once again by Nick Musuraca (who was director of photography on several of the most notable Val Lewton pictures) it is hardly necessary to add that the cinematography is superb and that it has a definite film noir atmosphere. The feel of the movie in fact combines film noir and gothic imagery.

The Warner Home Video DVD release (which pairs The Ghost Ship with The Leopard Man on a single disc) offers a very satisfactory transfer.

This might not be in the top rank of Lewton’s RKO productions  but Lewton’s lesser films are still better than most people’s best films. The Ghost Ship is a moody low-key psychological suspense thriller with just a hint of horror. It’s an interesting enough story and the exceptionally original visual imagery are sufficient to make it as must-see. Highly recommended.

Timeslip (1955)

Timeslip (released in the US as The Atomic Man) is an obscure but very enjoyable little British science fiction B-movie rescued from oblivion and made available to us on DVD by Network in the UK.

It’s really more of a thriller with some science fictional elements thrown in but those science fictional elements are at least original and quite clever.

A man is pulled out of the river in London. He’s close to death, and in fact he does die after being taken to hospital. Just as the doctors have give up trying to resuscitate him he comes back to life. Unfortunately he seems to be suffering from amnesia and no-one knows who he is. A keen American journalist working for an English news magazine doers however recognise him - the man saved from death is none other than eminent nuclear physicist Stephen Rayner. The only problem is that when the police contact the laboratory at which Dr Rayner works they are informed that Dr Rayner is perfectly well and currently engaged on a major research project. So who on earth is the man pulled from the river?

The American journalist, Mike Delaney (Gene Nelson), is convinced the man in hospital is Stephen Rayner and that something strange is going on, something that could lead him to a very big story. With the help of his news photographer girlfriend Jill Rabowski (Faith Domergue) he starts digging into the case. There are a number of puzzling aspects to it. The photographs of the man in the hospital are all fogged. This is very odd - Jill is a very experienced photographer who doesn’t make mistakes and she can offer no explanation for this. Even more odd is that the hospital cannot take X-rays of their patient - the x-ray films come out entirely blank.

Mike figures this might have something to do with the fact that Stephen Rayner is a nuclear physicist - maybe he’s been exposed to so much radiation that he is now immune to it! Mike is on the right track but the truth turns out to be even more bizarre - this man has come unstuck in time! Because radioactivity does that sort of thing.

This is all very well, but why do there appear to be two Stephen Rayners, what is the explanation of the hat from Buenos Aires, and why is someone trying to kill Mike Delaney? And if Dr Rayner is a nuclear physicist exactly what is the research program he was working on?

The plot is a mixture of standard thriller tropes with a few genuinely original twists that are just about enough to make it a legitimate science fiction film, and they certainly make it interesting. It builds to a fairly exciting climax with a race against time to head off disaster at the nuclear research facility.

It was common practice for British B-movies of this era to feature second-rank American stars whose careers were starting to fade. They were cheap and they were grateful for the work. More surprisingly they often turned in very decent performances in these British B-pictures. In this case the two American imports, Gene Nelson and Faith Domergue, do ma very creditable job.

Gene Nelson never did become a star (although he later had a successful career as a television director). He makes a fine pushy but likeable reporter.

Faith Domergue went very close to stardom after being discovered by Howard Hughes. You won’t be surprised to learn that Hughes was interested in more than just her acting talents. After things cooled off between the starlet and the mogul her career failed to take off. She did however make a number of very notable 1950s science fiction films, most famously This Island Earth, and as a result she has quite a following among sci-fi movie fans. She’s actually very good indeed in Timeslip and she and Nelson have excellent chemistry. The relationship between Jill and Mike adds some gentle humour as well as romance but without derailing the main plot.

Peter Arne is both creepy and sympathetic as the two Stephen Rayners. Look out for Charles Hawtrey (of Carry On fame) in an amusing bit part.

This movie was made at Merton Park Studios so you know it’s going to be a very low-budget effort. Despite this it’s a well-made little movie, very competently directed by Ken Hughes and nicely paced.

The DVD is what we’ve come to expect from Network - it offers a very decent anamorphic transfer, there are virtually no extras, and it’s ridiculously cheap. 

Timeslip is a well-crafted forgotten gem of a B-movie, very much worth seeking out. Don’t expect spectacular special effects (there aren’t any), but it has suspense and a few thrills, a bit of science fiction weirdness, some creepy atmosphere, just enough humour and romance, fine acting and in general plenty of entertainment value. Highly recommended. 

One Frightened Night (1935)

The old dark house movie is a genre that has perhaps not aged all that well. The best movies of this type can however be quite delightful and One Frightened Night is definitely one of the very best.

This 1935 release from Mascot Pictures follows the established formula rigidly but it does it very well indeed.

Needless to say we start with a Dark and Stormy Night. In a textbook example of an Old Dark House. Jasper Whyte (Charley Grapewin) is the inevitable irascible old millionaire. He has decided not to wait before dividing his fortune among his heirs - he believes that the money will bring the grasping members of his family and household nothing but trouble and he wants to be alive to watch them circling one another like sharks. He’s the sort of man who enjoys such things.

There’s a million dollars (an enormous fortune in 1935) for each of these hungry sharks - his outrageously greedy niece Laura (Hedda Hoper) and her even greedier and currently financially very embarrassed husband Arthur (Arthur Hohl), his cheerfully irresponsible playboy nephew Tom (Regis Toomey), his physician Dr Denham (Lucien Littlefield), his lawyer Felix (Clarence Wilson) and his long-suffering but scheming housekeeper Elvira (Rafaela Ottiano). Jasper would have preferred to leave his entire fortune to his grand-daughter Doris Waverly but he’d cut his daughter off without a penny when she married an actor and he’s never seen Doris and all attempts to locate her have failed.

At this point the sharks are feeling very pleased with themselves but then disaster strikes - Doris Waverly (Evalyn Knapp) turns up at the house. She will now get all of Jasper’s money and they won’t get one red cent. That’s obviously a fine setup for a typical murder mystery but there’s a twist. Shortly afterwards a second Doris Waverly (Mary Carlisle) shows up! Obviously one is an impostor, but which one?

Murder inevitably follows. And of course everyone in the house has a very strong motive for committing murder, or even multiple homicides. This includes the second Doris Waverly’s friend Joe Luvalle (Wallace Ford), a slightly shabby stage magician who goes by the name The Great Luvalle.

In a good old dark house movie you expect all the trimmings and this movie has them  - there’s poisoned coffee, a mysterious masked figure, Amazonian blow guns firing poisoned darts, a locked-room murder, secret passageways and of course the lights keep going out which offers the opportunity for lots of sinister shadows. The one thing missing is  any hint of the supernatural but this film manages very well without it.

Of course there’s plenty of comic relief but the bonus here is that the comic elements are genuinely amusing and not irritating. Wallace Ford’s bumbling magician provides much of the humour, along with the obligatory bumbling Sheriff Jenks (Fred Kelsey) and his inept deputy Abner (Adrian Morris). Whoever solves this mystery we can be pretty sure it’s not going to be these less-than-stalwart representatives of the forces of law and order.  

Director Christy Cabanne made a lot of movies, none of them particularly noteworthy, but it’s hard to fault his work here. Most importantly the pacing never slackens for an instant. Wellyn Totman's screenplay from a story by Stuart Palmer provides a decent mystery plot and plenty of deliciously vitriolic dialogue.

It’s also impossible to fault any of the performances. The players all give the impression that they’re not just going through the motions, that they’re actually enjoying themselves.

This is very much a low-budget B-movie with very few sets but the necessary atmosphere of spooky mystery is achieved very successfully.

The Alpha Video DVD is not too bad by Alpha Video standards (which admittedly isn’t saying much). The sound is a bit crackly but image quality is acceptable, and this is after all a budget-priced DVD.

One Frightened Night ticks all the right boxes for old dark house movie fans. It really is great fun. Highly recommended.

Telefon (1977)

Telefon, released in 1977, is a slightly unusual Cold War spy flick. A rogue agent is triggering a series of attacks against US military installations. There’s only one man who can stop this rogue agent and thus prevent World War III and that’s Major Grigori Borzov of the KGB. The odds are against him but the KGB are determined that somehow war must be avoided. That’s right, this is an American Cold War spy film in which the Soviets are the good guys. The CIA doesn’t really know what’s going on but they’re also determined to stop these attacks. They’re also the good guys. This is very much a Détente spy film, with both the KGB and the CIA working towards the same goal, although completely independently and with the CIA having no idea that the KGB is on their side.

To make this even more fun Major Borzov is played by legendary tough guy Charles Bronson.

The situation comes about because of a top-secret Soviet plan code-named Telefon dating back to the days when Cold War tensions were at their height. Fifty-two Soviet agents were sent to the US under deep cover, sleepers to be activated only in a dire emergency. These sleeper agents were subjected to drug-assisted hypnosis - they’re under such deep cover that they don’t even know they’re agents until they’re activated.

The plan has long since been forgotten, the paperwork buried away in the KBG archives. Tensions have now eased dramatically, Détente is working successfully, nuclear war now seems a remote possibility and the last thing the KGB wants is anything that might threaten the peace. There’s just one problem. One man has not forgotten that the Telefon plan exists. And he intends to put it into operation.

The man is Nicolai Dalchimsky (Donald Pleasence). He’s not only a hardline Stalinist opposed to Détente, he’s also quite quite mad. He has the list of those fifty-two sleepers with the means of activating them and he’s set off for the US to do just that, having left Moscow mere hours before the KGB could arrest him. KGB General Strelsky (Patrick Magee) assigns Major Grigori Borzov to follow Dalchimsky to the US and to liquidate him.

Borzov’s mission is of course ultra top secret since the whole idea is to liquidate Dalchimsky before the Americans figure out what’s happening - it would be very embarrassing for the Soviets to have to admit that Telefon ever existed. It would be even more embarrassing for the KGB since they never bothered to inform the current Soviet premier of its existence. They failed to inform him not because of any sinister motives but simply because they’d forgotten about the plan themselves.

Borzov will have only one person to help him in his mission, a top Soviet spy in the US code-named Barbara (played by Lee Remick). Borzov intends to tell her no more than the absolute minimum she needs to know to assist him. What he doesn’t know is that Barbara  knows things that he doesn’t know.

Bronson is in his usual fine form, tight-lipped but charismatic. It’s the sort of thing he did so well, playing an ice-cold character but with an unexpected warmth just occasionally breaking through when he flashes his characteristic smile with a twinkle in his eyes. Lee Remick’s performance is bright and breezy, almost as if she’s playing in a romantic comedy. That approach could have backfired but in fact it works, not only providing a nice contrast to Bronson but also adding an oddly chilling touch - Barbara is a happy-go-lucky soul always making lighthearted jokes but she’s also a cold-blooded killer when necessary.

Donald Pleasence plays an evil madman so it goes without saying that he does so superbly. Patrick Magee gets one of his best roles as the cheerful but ruthless KGB General Strelsky. Alan Badel plays Strelsky’s right-hand man, Colonel Malchenko, and plays him as a softly spoken good natured guy who really wishes this whole unpleasant business would go away. Tyne Daly is amusing as CIA intelligence analyst and computer whizz-kid Dorothy Putterman.

Don Siegel directed this movie and he gives us an effective mix of action scenes combined with slow-burning suspense. Action fans will be pleased by the generous ration of explosions.

This is a spy thriller that also falls into the category of 1970s paranoia movies, but it’s a paranoia movie with a difference. It’s not the US government who are the bad guys. It’s not the Soviets. It’s not evil right-wingers. The paranoia originates from the kind of bureaucratic screw-up that happens everywhere, but the general Cold War atmosphere of secrecy inflames the paranoia. It’s a nice twist that even the mania for secrecy engendered by the Cold War isn’t really sinister in this case - it’s just the common instinct of every government agency to be as secretive as they can get away with.

There’s also considerable reason for Major Borzov to be paranoid - he’s operating on a top secret mission in a foreign country and there’s nobody he can trust. He can’t even trust his colleague Barbara. He’s effectively alone.

Of course a spy movie must have double-crosses and this film has plenty of those although they don’t always play out as you might expect. The ending is a bit of a surprise but it worked for me.

Telefon was released by Warner Home Video on DVD in Region 1 paired with another Bronson flick, St Ives, on a single double-sided disc. The transfer is anamorphic but it’s somewhat disappointing - the picture is very very soft in some scenes. On the other hand it’s a ridiculously cheap DVD release and it does offer two Charles Bronson movies that are otherwise unavailable so it’s still worth buying at the price.

Telefon is unusual enough to be a must-see for spy fans and Charles Bronson fans will be equally enthused. Overall it’s a fairly stylish and rather entertaining spy thriller enlivened by some wonderful acting. It has enough going for it to be highly recommended.

Sword of Doom (1966)

Sword of Doom (Dai-bosatsu tôge) is a frustrating but fascinating and unusual samurai movie directed by Kihachi Okamoto for Toho studio in 1966.

The movie’s story begins in 1860. Tatsuya Nakadai plays the hero (or rather anti-hero) Ryunosuke Tsukue. Ryunosuke is a rōnin (lordless samurai) and in the movie’s opening scene we see him kill an old man for no reason whatsoever. This certainly sets the nihilistic tone of the rest of the movie.

Ryunosuke is scheduled to fight a match against Bunnojo Utsuki. It is a tournament match with wooden swords but there is a lot at stake. If Bunnojo loses the match he will also lose his position as an instructor and his family will be ruined financially and disgraced. Bunnojo’s wife Ohama (Michiyo Aratama) goes to Ryunosuke to beg him to throw the match. Ryunosuke tells her that to ask a samurai to do that would be like asking a woman to give up her chastity. Would she agree to do such a thing? He answers the question for her by taking her chastity anyway. Whether he rapes her or whether she seduces him in order to induce him to throw the match is not entirely clear and the ambiguity is important since Ryunosuke obviously believes the latter was the case, and this belief makes the bitter and cynical Ryunosuke even more bitter and cynical. Of course Ryunosuke’s view of the matter may be nothing more than self-justification.

Although the match is supposed to be a bloodless tournament match it is obvious that both men will be approaching it as a genuine duel (since Bunnojo has found out about his wife and Ryunosuke). The match proves to be anything but bloodless - in fact it becomes lethal. This is followed by a memorable and superbly shot scene in which Ryunosuke is ambushed by other members of the sword-fighting school.

We then jump forward a couple of years. Ryunosuke and Ohama are now living together and they have a child. Ryunosuke ekes out a meagre living as a professional assassin. It’s clearly not exactly a blissful marriage and Ryunosuke has started to drink heavily. Meanwhile Bunnojo’s brother Hyoma Utsuki (Yûzô Kayama) is plotting revenge against Ryunosuke. 

There is another jump forward in time and Ryunosuke has joined the Shinsengumi or Shinsen Group, who practice assassination on a grand scale. 

The past keeps catching up with Ryunosuke. His story becomes intertwined not only with that of Hyoma Utsuki but also that of Omatsu (Yôko Naitô), the grand-daughter of the old man he murdered at the beginning of the film. The story is complicated by some very intricate plots and counter-plots between rival bands of rōnin and a great deal of mayhem ensues. A very great deal of mayhem. The movie builds towards what we assume is going to be a climax but it isn’t the real climax - that will come after after even more butchery and even more intricate conspiracies are unfolded.

There are two major problems that are likely to get in the way of appreciating this film. The first problem is that the story uses actual historical events as a background and viewers with little knowledge of the history of the last years of the Tokugawa Shogunate in the 1860s may find that things get a bit bewildering, since the movie assumes that the viewer will know something of that period. This was a period of political turmoil between the forces supporting the continuation of the shogunate and those seeking to re-establish the authority of the Emperor (which finally happened with the Meiji Restoration in 1868). To comprehend the film you do at least need to know that the group Ryunosuke joins was a kind of paramilitary group with some degree of official backing rather than just a group of bandits.

The second problem is that the narrative is, to say the least, somewhat incoherent. The film was based on Boddhisatva toge, a very long novel by Kaizan Nakazato. The author worked on the novel for thirty years and it got longer and longer but was never completed. The movie had been intended to be the first part of a trilogy. The remaining films of the trilogy were never made so what we have is the first third of an unfinished trilogy based on an unfinished novel. This undoubtedly accounts for most of the narrative incoherence. Characters are introduced who are obviously intended to be important but their stories are left hanging. There are sub-plots that are puzzling because they don’t seem to go anywhere. Crucial events are foreshadowed but they don’t happen. Presumably all of these narrative problems would have been resolved had the trilogy been completed.

Fortunately the narrative isn’t really the most important thing in this movie. It has other things going for it - it is a magnificent exercise in style and it’s an intriguing character study of a memorable anti-hero.

Although even as a character study there are problems. Many of Ryunosuke’s actions are explicable. Some can even be justified, to a limited extent. That first murder though - of the old man - remains a mystery. This is a major problem. Ryunosuke is set up as a cold-blooded killer, a man who will kill for no reason, but the film offers no real explanation for this. Perhaps he is a psychopath but his later behaviour tends to undercut that theory. There is a vague suggestion that he has simply been seduced by his own skill with the sword - that he has come to enjoy killing for the sake of killing. But why? Perhaps he sees himself as an instrument of fate, bringing death randomly. Perhaps he is supposed to represent the oppressive nature of the shogunate but the movie makes no attempt to explore the political situation in any depth so that their seems untenable. Perhaps he represents the inherent violence of the samurai class, but again there’s little or nothing in the actual movie to support that idea either. Perhaps he simply reflects the times he lives in - a period of social turmoil and lawlessness.

While Ryunosuke does initially appear to be a psychopathic killer he later starts to crack up, apparently as a result of guilt (an emotion that psychopaths entirely lack). He is a man who has embraced violence and he finds that it is an uncomfortable bedfellow. In some ways the mystery of Ryunosuke’s motivations does make the movie quite interesting - even a man who thinks he can kill without being troubled by his conscience may find that it isn’t so easy after all.

The theory I’m inclined to go for is that the celebrated sequence in which Ryunosuke seems to be fighting the ghosts of his victims is not a symbol of his rebelling conscience but really is a supernatural manifestation. The ghosts of your victims really can come after you. In fact there are suggestions of this earlier in the film.

Tatsuya Nakadai’s performance as Ryunosuke is strangely mesmerising and disturbing. Michiyo Aratama as Ohama is equally impressive. Look out for the great Toshirô Mifune in a small but important role.

The black-and-white cinematography is wonderfully moody and atmospheric. The fight scenes are impressively staged and become progressively more graphic. There are no geysers of blood but the reality of violent death is conveyed quite forcefully.

The Region 4 DVD offers a good transfer but the lack of extras is disappointing - this is a movie that desperately requires a commentary track.

Sword of Doom, despite its frustrations, is a fascinating and stylish movie. Recommended.