gordonl56 HOUSE OF BAMBOO 1955 This 20th Century Fox film, shot in Cinemascope is a loose remake of the same studios 1948 production, THE STREET WITH NO NAME. The cast includes, Robert Ryan, Robert Stack, Cameron Mitchell, Shirley Yamaguchi, Brad Dexter, Sessue Hayakawa and Deforest Kelly. The film is set in Japan and was shot on location.This one starts with a slick bit of robbery. An American military supply train travelling between Kyoto and Tokyo is held up and a supply of heavy machine guns and ammo lifted. The train's engine crew, and the military guards are killed. The Japanese Police and American MP's are called in to solve the case. Police Inspector, Hayakawa, and MP officer, Dexter, get nowhere fast trying to close the case.Several weeks later, a man, Biff Elliot, is brought in suffering from several bullet wounds. The bullets match those from the train robbery. Elliot had been left for dead by his gang during a thwarted robbery. The Police and the MP's question the man but he refuses to spill any info on the gang. He does however let slip that he is secretly married to Japanese woman, Shirley Yamaguchi.Next we have Robert Stack show up from the States. The man hunts up Yamaguchi and shows her a photo of her now dead husband and himself. He tells the woman that he is a longtime pal of the deceased hubby. (The photo is a faked up job) The whole thing is ploy by US Army Intelligence to get to the bottom of the arms robbery. Stack is undercover as a hood out to make some easy cash doing a protection racket bit. This soon draws the attention of just the people he is after. Robert Ryan and his group are making a fortune pulling robberies etc throughout Tokyo and surrounding area.Stack is soon asked to join said enterprise by Ryan. Cameron Mitchell and Deforest Kelly are the main members of the criminal crew. Mitchell takes an immediate dislike to Stack, which soon has the two coming to blows. Ryan has Stack doing collection and other easy jobs before having him join in a real heist.They hit a payroll office at a dockside factory. Guns are pulled, and several guards go down of severe lead poisoning, as does one of the gang. The gang has a rule about killing any gang member who gets wounded on a job. There is to be no one left behind to talk to the Police. Stack picks up a bullet but Ryan decides to break his own rule and grabs Stack up.Now the film becomes a game of cat and mouse as Stack uses Yamaguchi to help hide the fact that he is really a MP. Yamaguchi is seen passing info to Army MP, Dexter by gang member, Kelly. The gang though just thinks that the woman is having a bit on the side. When a robbery goes wrong, Ryan is sure there is a rat in the house. He wrongly picks Cameron Mitchell as the duplicitous rodent, and ventilates him.Ryan is soon put right by his newspaper reporter contact as to his error. Ryan now plans on mending his mistake, so he takes Stack and Kelly out on a robbery of a pearl seller. Once there, he lets Kelly in on Stack being an undercover man. They render Stack less than vertical, then, set him up with a gun and a pocket full of pearls. Ryan calls the Police and tells them there is a man with a gun at the shop. Ryan figures that the Police will show, see Stack with a gun and take care of Stack for him.The idea goes sideways when Stack regains his senses early. Then the Police show up quicker than Ryan had expected. Shots are fired and Ryan slips out a side door. The Police though are all over the building and Ryan is pursued to the roof. The roof is covered with an amusement park. A brisk chase over various rides etc is needed before Ryan is cornered. Ryan, handy with a gun, manages to drop several of the Police before Stack puts him down for the count.This one has some nice action scenes, particularly the opening train robbery. But, there are also several dead spots throughout the film. The colour Cinemascope vistas are nice, but work against any sort of gritty, film noir look. Some of the scenes come across as a bit too much travelogue like.Director Sam Fuller did better work on his earlier films like, THE STEEL HELMET, FIXED BAYONETS and in particular, PICKUP ON SOUTH STREET. Fuller, a personal favourite was a triple threat working as a writer and producer on some of his films. This is not a bad film, but it could have been better.The film was lensed by the talented Joe MacDonald. The 3 time Oscar nominated MacDonald was the cinematographer on, THE DARK CORNER, MY DARLING CLEMENTINE, THE STREET WITH NO NAME, YELLOW SKY, NIAGARA, WARLOCK, THE YOUNG LIONS, THE CARPETBAGGERS and THE SAND PEBBLES.The acting is quite good with Ryan in particular shining as the villain. Look close and you will see John Ford regular, Harry Carey Jr in a small unbilled part.

BrewSwaine In spite of the consensus of the reviews here, this is not a dark, broody, atmospheric picture about the seedy Tokyo underworld, but plays more like the comic book style of the early serials.This film looks like it was made by someone who had never seen a film noir but instead had one described to them by a 10 year old. And this,it seems, is what the film's dialogue was based on.Childish and naive in the extreme - even the great Robert Ryan couldn't be bothered to try - and monotonously slow and boring, with each scene interminably longer than it needed to be.Very disappointed that this wasn't the great addition I thought it would be, to my huge collection of 40's and 50's classics!

seymourblack-1 Samuel Fuller's "House Of Bamboo" is a violent crime thriller which initially makes a strong impact because its visual style is so radically different to that seen in his earlier film noirs. Whilst Fuller's normal directness, lack of sentimentality and well staged action sequences are all in strong evidence, the use of cinemascope and colour photography add a new dimension and create a very fresh and stunning backdrop to the action.This movie (which is a remake of "The Street With No Name") was the first Hollywood film to be made in post-war Japan and is remarkable for how successfully it captures the splendour of the local landscape and how well it integrates its beautifully photographed location footage into a story which is quite dark.Near Mount Fuji in 1954, a military train is robbed by a bunch of criminals who steal its cargo of guns and ammunition. An American army sergeant is killed and the subsequent joint American/Japanese investigation is helped some weeks later when, after another robbery, a wounded criminal called Webber (Biff Elliot) is found with injuries caused by the same type of bullets which were used in the train robbery. Before he dies, Webber doesn't disclose the names of his accomplices who left him for dead but does mention that he has a Japanese wife called Mariko (Shirley Yamaguchi).Webber had an American friend called Eddie Spanier (Robert Stack), an ex-con who turns up a little later and makes himself known to Mariko before attracting the attention of local gangster Sandy Dawson (Robert Ryan). Dawson's gang is made up of ex-G.I.s and they regularly carry out robberies which are organised using military style planning. There is a rule that if any gang member gets injured during a robbery, one of the other gang members will kill him to avoid any risk of him talking if he gets caught by the police.Eddie and Mariko embark on a relationship and she lives with him as his "kimono girl". Dawson recruits Eddie into his gang and fellow gang member Griff (Cameron Mitchell) immediately becomes jealous of how close the two men become as he'd previously been Dawson's "ichiban" (number one boy).Eddie reveals to Mariko that he's actually Eddie Kenner, an undercover agent working for the military police and she subsequently acts as a go-between with Eddie's superiors. Things then get rather tense for Eddie when Dawson calls off a planned robbery when it becomes clear to him that the authorities know about it and he's determined to find and punish the informant."House Of Bamboo" features a great deal of violence with numerous people getting garroted, a few gang members getting killed and a spectacular shoot-out in a top class set piece which concludes the action. There's also a cultural rift as neither the Americans or the Japanese show any respect or appreciation of each other's cultures and Mariko is even snubbed by her neighbours because of her relationship with an American.This story of deception, betrayal and ruthless criminality is made even more entertaining by its characters and some of the interesting pairings that it features. Apart from the aforementioned apparent incongruity of a dark, gritty crime drama being played out in scenery which is light, colourful and extremely beautiful, there's also an American who has no interest in the Japanese language or culture pairing up with a Japanese woman. Dawson also provides some interest in this regard as he dumps his number one boy because he becomes attracted to Eddie.Robert Ryan's performance as the cunning psychopath is both powerful and subtle as he's seen on different occasions being menacing, less guarded when talking to Eddie and during one robbery, acting out of character by disobeying his own rules. The supporting performances are also generally good.

christopher-underwood Sam Fuller's remake of 1948's, 'The Street With No Name', this is wonderful. It may not be full on noir, certainly it is in colour and cinemascope, but for me with family in Japan and a fascination for Tokyo, this is breathtaking. It helps, of course, that the cinematography is so sublime and that Fuller is so taken with the place that he includes so many incidental details, like street vendors and talk of the minutiae of Japanese culture. The story itself follows closely the earlier documentary style except here, surely, the settings are more dramatic. The movie does slow a bit after halfway but picks up magnificently for the final magnificent finale. Sandy Dawson is as effective as he was in the original and indeed all the many Americans and Japanese acquit themselves well . A good film by any standards this is a must see for anyone with the slightest interest in seeing 50s Tokyo.