YEN FOR THE GOOD LIFE

The money is there. All they have to do is steal it.

Nora-neko rokku: Wairudo janbo, aka Stray Cat Rock: Wild Jumbo, stars Meiko Kaji and Bunjaku Han in a Nikkatsu Studios/Hori Production co-effort. The movie is based on a Satoshi Funachi novel and concerns five obnoxious delinquents who, with the help of an insider, decide to rob a religious group called the Seikyo Society of 30 million yen. There’s a festival going on there, which means the organization’s coffers will be fat with cash.

As usual with these movies, it takes a while to get to the central plot, but the digressions are interesting. A good portion of the running time involves the group’s road trip to the religious compound and the various scrapes they get into along the way, including a comical interlude at the beach. When they finally reach their destination does the robbery go as planned? Of course not. They rarely do.

As a side note, viewers should be forewarned that while Akiko Wada gets top position on the poster she doesn’t get much camera time. But what more do you need when you already have Meiko and Bunjaku? Nora-neko rokku: Wairudo janbo is definitely one of the better Japanese juvie flicks and a worthy second entry in the five film Nora-neko rokku series. It premiered in Japan today in 1970. Read about the others, here, here, here, and here.

Japan, Hori Production, Nikkatsu, Nora-neko rokku: Wairudo janbo, Stray Cat Rock: Wild Jumbo, Meiko Kaji, Bunjaku Han, Akiko Wada, poster art, cinema, pinku, movie review

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HISTORY REWIND

The headlines that mattered yesteryear.

May 23

1934—Bonnie and Clyde Are Shot To Death

Outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, who traveled the central United States during the Great Depression robbing banks, stores and gas stations, are ambushed and shot to death in Louisiana by a posse of six law officers. Officially, the autopsy report lists seventeen separate entrance wounds on Barrow and twenty-six on Parker, including several head shots on each. So numerous are the bullet holes that an undertaker claims to have difficulty embalming the bodies because they won’t hold the embalming fluid.

May 22

1942—Ted Williams Enlists

Baseball player Ted Williams of the Boston Red Sox enlists in the United States Marine Corps, where he undergoes flight training and eventually serves as a flight instructor in Pensacola, Florida. The years he lost to World War II (and later another year to the Korean War) considerably diminished his career baseball statistics, but even so, he is indisputably one of greatest players in the history of the sport.

May 21

1924—Leopold and Loeb Murder Bobby Franks

Two wealthy University of Chicago students named Richard Loeb and Nathan Leopold, Jr. murder 14-year-old Bobby Franks, motivated by no other reason than to prove their intellectual superiority by committing a perfect crime. But the duo are caught and sentenced to life in prison. Their crime becomes known as a “thrill killing”, and their story later inspires various works of art, including the 1929 play Rope by Patrick Hamilton, and Alfred Hitchcock’s 1948 film of the same name.

May 20

1916—Rockwell's First Post Cover Appears

The Saturday Evening Post publishes Norman Rockwell’s painting “Boy with Baby Carriage”, marking the first time his work appears on the cover of that magazine. Rockwell would go to paint many covers for the Post, becoming indelibly linked with the publication. During his long career Rockwell would eventually paint more than four thousand pieces, the vast majority of which are not on public display due to private ownership and destruction by fire.

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