Almost all films noir benefit from repeat viewings, and that is especially true of Tokyo Joe. Some slang used in the film probably will be unfamiliar to modern viewers, but a little bit of history information is the biggest help. I did a bit of research before seeing the film again, and that made a difference. But historical fact is not the reason to see Tokyo Joe because it is really a poignant story of trying to mend broken relationships after a protracted world war.
Humphrey Bogart, starring as Joe Barrett, gets top billing, but that shouldn’t be a surprise because the film was produced by his own production company: Santana Pictures Corporation. And Bogart is definitely the star, the lead, the actor who carries the film. Many of the other actors were unfamiliar to me. Even Bogart’s female lead, Florence Marly, as Trina Landis, was not familiar. I did wonder if she did her own singing in Tokyo Joe because her portrayal in the nightclub sure looked like she was using her singing muscles, so to speak. I couldn’t find anything specific about that, but I did learn from Wikipedia that Marly dreamed of being an opera singer, so I believe my hunch is correct.
The film starts with aerial shots over Tokyo and eventually camera shots from a plane. Barrett is one of the passengers on the plane that lands at Haneda Airforce Base. Postwar Japan is under U.S. military rule, and Barrett is checked in at the airport by a U.S. military officer who informs him that he will have to check in at the Provost Marshall’s in Tokyo. When Barrett leaves the base, the officer calls in Barrett’s passport number to a Colonel Dahlgren. Barrett heads next to the Provost Marshall and checks in, as required, and the major in this office also calls in Barrett’s passport number. The military is keeping tabs on Barrett from the beginning and, because this is film noir, viewers can assume that his arrival in Japan may be cause for suspicion.
Barrett is back in Tokyo to salvage his old business: A cabaret (what he calls “a joint”) called Cabaret Tokyo Joe. Ito, a friend and business partner of Joe’s from before the war, is still at the nightclub, which is now being managed by Japanese. Ito is very hesitant with Joe at first because Joe is American, from the conquering country, but he finally thaws after a friendly kudo fight with Joe, and they renew their friendship.
(This article about Tokyo Joe contains spoilers.)
Ito wants Joe to live in the apartment over Tokyo Joe’s, like old times. He tells Barrett that his old girlfriend Trina is still alive and that she is in Tokyo. Barrett is thrilled; one of the reasons he returned to Japan was to find Trina, but his first meeting with her at her home doesn’t go according to his plan. He learns that she has married. In fact, she has remarried because Trina and Joe had been married before the war, before he was drafted. Trina divorced Joe after the war without ever telling him because she didn’t know where he was, and married Mark Landis. Trina tells Joe that her new husband, Mark Landis, works for the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers (SCAP).
Barrett’s visitor’s pass is good for only sixty days, and he intends to win Trina back in that time. But he realizes he faces a large obstacle in Mark Landis, and it is quite possible that he will need more than a couple of months. Barrett decides he needs a business to provide him with a good reason to remain in Japan. He goes to Baron Kimaru, underworld crime figure and former head of the Japanese secret police. Already viewers can see that trouble is in store for Barrett in Japan; he seems to be running into trouble everywhere he turns.
Joe wants to start an airline franchise: He can do so because he is a U.S. citizen and is an experienced fighter pilot, but he has no money. Baron Kimura has money, but martial law prevents Japanese citizens from engaging in businesses that are considered vital or sensitive for Allied security. Barrett strikes a deal with Kimura: He’ll fly and Kimura will handle the administrative details. Barrett also gets assurances about transporting only goods like frozen frogs between Seoul, Korea, and Tokyo.
Barrett gets nothing but bureaucratic red tape from the military about his airline permit, which he needs before he can go into business with Kimura. Barrett goes to Kimura to discuss his administrative troubles. Kimura has held on to files from the Japanese secret police, and he thinks one in particular will interest Joe. Joe reads it, but viewers don’t know yet what is in the file. Joe worries that it could be a forgery; he knows the Japanese were good at that kind of thing. But Kimura tells him to ask Mrs. Landis about the information in the file.
And Barrett does just that. Trina Landis tells Joe that she spent the war in a prison camp, and it is true that she worked for the Japanese broadcasting propaganda to U.S. GIs. Joe reminds her that she was a naturalized citizen married to a U.S. citizen in wartime, and what she did was treason. But while Trina was in prison, she gave birth to a baby girl, and the Japanese used her baby as a bargaining chip to get her to work for them. To save her daughter, she did what the Japanese asked her to do. Joe surmises that most jurors wouldn’t convict Trina when she faced this kind of coercion, but he also thinks that he can use the information to ruin Mark’s chances working for SCAP and get Trina back. But then Joe learns that Trina’s daughter Anya is his, not Mark’s.
Joe now wants to back out of his business deal with Kimura because he wants to protect Trina and their daughter. But Kimura turns the blackmail on Joe. Kimura tells Joe that the secret files on Trina Landis will be used one way or the other. Joe threatens Kimura, but Kimura tells him that if he dies, the files would stay with people who can use them. Joe is backed into a corner.
Joe Barrett goes to Mark Landis, literally with his hat in his hand, because he needs help cutting through army red tape, which Mark can do because he works for SCAP. Mark agrees to help him, and Nippon-American Air Freight is finally off the ground. Joe and Ito are back in business, a different business, but trouble continues to plague Barrett. They have no proof, but they are still worried about working with Kimura, a known gangster, and that the airline is a front for a smuggling business.
Colonel Dahlgren and now General Ireton want to work with Barrett. They already know that he is fronting for a criminal organization. They also know before he does that this organization plans to bring back three Japanese war criminals from Korea. Joe may be cutting corners where he can, but he is a patriot. He doesn’t need too much convincing to do what needs to be done to thwart Baron Kimura’s plans. Kimura knows this about Joe, too. For added insurance that his smuggling scheme will work, he has his henchmen kidnap Anya.
Trina, of course, is sick with worry about the safety of her daughter. The predicament just adds to the pressure on Joe, who comes through and saves Anya. By the end of the film, viewers see Joe as a hero: He came through when Trina and Mark Landis really needed to count on him. Mark came through—very graciously—when Joe needed help.
It seems that both Mark and Joe were heroes, in very different ways, when they needed to be. I wonder if that was the message of the film in 1949 because Mark was not cast as the bad guy, standing in Joe’s way. The Japanese characters in the film were portrayed as bad guys for the most part. But Joe still kept his friendship with Ito after the war. Ito commits hari-kari by the end of the film, however, because he feels ashamed about convincing Joe to return to Japan. Joe has the time, while Ito is in his death throes, to give a short patriotic, political speech to Ito about the glorious Allied goals of postwar reconstruction for Japan before Ito collapses. The film isn’t entirely free from a bit of propaganda. But as I already pointed out, Tokyo Joe is a poignant story about people trying to mend broken relationships after a protracted world war, and it succeeds at telling that story.
Filmgoers in 1949 would have been familiar with many of the terms and the postwar political developments overseas, but modern-day viewers could probably benefit from some research. I know I did. Here are some helpful links:
◊ Wikipedia provides a basic overview of the U.S. occupation of postwar Japan.
◊ SCAP = Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers, which was created at the start of the occupation of Japan on August 14, 1945.
◊ SCAP was headquartered in the Dai Ichi Sogo Building in Tokyo. The characters refer to it at various points throughout the film. Baron Kimura knows that Joe Barrett met with Allied officers simply because he was seen entering the Dai Ichi Building.
◊ It was very difficult to hear the dialogue sometimes in Tokyo Joe, and the DVD I watched did not come with subtitles. I think Trina said Oeyama or Okayama Prison Camp when she talked to Joe about what she did in Japan during the war. For a list of prisoner-of-war (POW) camps in Japan, see the website “Alphabetical Listing of POW Camps in Japan Proper.” The website says that the list is not updated, but it was still helpful for a rookie like me when it comes to wartime Japan.
As I said, historical accuracy is not the reason to see Tokyo Joe. It is a great story that I just happened to enjoy more when I learned about some of the facts discussed by the characters. And the three leads are not one-dimensional. Joe shows his ugly side when he is intent on winning Trina back, but he saves Anya in the end. Mark is naturally hostile to Joe when he first shows up at the Landis house, but he is gracious enough to give Joe a chance at a business in Japan. And Trina did what she could to save her daughter during the war, even if it meant a charge of treason when the war was over. To say that the war complicated these characters’ lives in every way imaginable would be an understatement. World War II touched the lives of millions of people, and a film like Tokyo Joe shows how this happens to Joe, Mark, Trina, and Ito.
November 1949 release date • Directed by Stuart Heisler • Screenplay by Walter Doniger, Cyril Hume Bertram Millhauser • Based on a story by Steve Fisher • Music by George Antheil • Edited by Viola Lawrence • Cinematography by Charles Lawton Jr.
Humphrey Bogart as Joseph (Joe) Barrett • Alexander Knox as Mark Landis • Florence Marly as Trina Pechinkov Landis • Sessue Hayakawa as Baron Kimura • Jerome Courtland as Danny, pilot • Gordon Jones as Idaho, pilot • Teru Shimada as Ito • Hideo Mori as Kanda • Charles Meredith as General Ireton • Rhys Williams as Colonel Dahlgren • Lora Lee Michel as Anya, Trina’s daughter • Kyoko Kamo as Nani-San • Gene Gondo as Kamikaze • Whit Bissell as Captain Winnow • Harold Goodwin as Major J. F. X. Loomis • James Cardwell as a military police captain • Frank Kumagai as the truck driver • Tetsu Komai as Lieutenant General Takenobu (aka “The Butcher”) • Otto Han as Hara • Yosan Tsuruta as Goro • Hugh Beaumont as the provost marshal major
Distributed by Columbia Pictures • Produced by Santana Pictures Corporation
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