null

When a woman ascends the stairs DVD 1960 女が階段を上る時 / Directed by Mikio Naruse / Starring: Hideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori, Daisuke Katō

(No reviews yet) Write a Review
$29.99
SKU:
8809154142299
UPC:
8809154142299
Condition:
Used
Weight:
5.00 Ounces

Product Overview

When a woman ascends the stairs DVD 1960 女が階段を上る時 / Directed by Mikio Naruse / Starring: Hideko Takamine, Masayuki Mori, Daisuke Katō

UPC 8809154142299

MADE IN JAPAN

REGION 0 NTSC DVD (ALL REGIONS)

AUDIO: Japanese 2.0

Subtitles: English, Korean

TOTAL RUNTIME: 106 MINUTES

 

CONDITION OF THIS DVD IS USED - VERY GOOD!!!

 

English Summary:

This is the story of Mama, a.k.a. Keiko, a middle-aged bar hostess who must choose to either get married or buy a bar of her own. Her family hounds her for money, her customers for her attention, and she is continually in debt. The life of a bar hostess is examined as well as the way in which the system traps and sometimes kills those in it.

When a Woman Ascends the Stairs (女が階段を上る時, Onna ga kaidan o noboru toki) is a 1960 Japanese drama film directed by Mikio Naruse.

Keiko, a young widow, becomes a hostess in Ginza nightclubs (mizu shōbai) to make ends meet. The story recounts the struggles to maintain her independence in a male-dominated society.

Keiko (called "Mama" by the other characters), a young widow approaching 30, is a hostess at a bar in Ginza. Realizing she is getting older, she decides after talking to her bar manager, Komatsu, that she wants to open her own bar rather than remarrying and dishonoring her late husband to whose memory she is still devoted. To accomplish this, she must secure loans from some of the affluent patrons who frequent her bar, but is unwilling to lead them on for the sake of money.

Meanwhile, a former employee, Yuri, has opened up a bar of her own nearby, subsequently taking away most of Keiko's former customers. She scouts locations for her own bar with a confidant of her bar, Junko, undecided as to where she will open up. While Keiko is having lunch with Yuri, whom she believes is doing well in her enterprise, Yuri reveals that she is deep in debt, and cannot afford to pay off her creditors. She tells Keiko of a plan to fake a suicide to keep her creditors at bay. Keiko is shocked to learn the next day that Yuri has actually died, and that she had either planned her death all along, or had merely misjudged the amount of sleeping pills to take. She is again shocked to see Yuri's creditors dunning her family for money while still in mourning.

 

Japanese Summary:

ストーリーは菊島隆三が手掛けたオリジナル作品で、彼にとっては初プロデュース作品ともなった。銀座のバーを舞台に洗練されたスタイリッシュな空気を横溢する佳作。黛敏郎の手によるジャジーな音楽も都会性を盛り上げている。また、主要人物の衣装考証を主演の高峰が兼任している。

キャストにおいては男優、女優共に成瀬映画に縁の深い名優が結集し、共に華やかな顔ぶれとなった。

 

Cast / キャスト

  • Hideko Takamine ... Keiko Yashiro
  • Masayuki Mori ... Nobuhiko Fujisaki
  • Reiko Dan ... Junko Inchihashi
  • Tatsuya Nakadai ... Kenichi Komatsu, Keiko's manager
  • Daisuke Katō ... Matsukichi Sekine
  • Ganjirō Nakamura ... Goda
  • Eitaro Ozawa ... Minobe
  • Keiko Awaji ... Yuri
  • Kyū Sazanka ... Bar owner
  • Noriko Sengoku ... Fortune-teller

 

Directed by Mikio Naruse
Produced by Ryūzō Kikushima
Written by Ryūzō Kikushima
Starring Hideko Takamine
Masayuki Mori
Daisuke Katō
Music by Toshiro Mayuzumi
Cinematography Masao Tamai
Edited by Eiji Ooi
Distributed by Toho
Release date
  • 5 January 1960 (Japan)
  • 25 June 1963 (U.S.)
Running time
106 min
Country Japan
Language Japanese

 

Reviews

(No reviews yet) Write a Review