Musical comedy YOU CAN SUCCEED, TOO takes a playful look at U.S. and Japanese business practices
YOU CAN SUCCEED, TOO (KIMI MO SHUSSE GA DEKIRU) (君も出世ができる) (Eizo Sugawa, 1964)
Japan Society
333 East 47th St. at First Ave.
Friday, April 8, 7:00
Festival runs April 8-23
212-715-1258
www.japansociety.org
Japan Society’s 2016 Globus Film Series, “Japan Sings! The Japanese Musical Film,” opens April 8 with Eizo Sugawa’s riotous, robust 1964 delight, You Can Succeed, Too. With the Tokyo Summer Olympics approaching, Towa Tourism is locked in a heated battle with Kyokuto Tourism for big travel clients. While Yamakawa (Frankie Sakai) has developed a can’t-miss plan to succeed at Towa — either marry the president’s daughter, become a union leader, or find the president’s weakness and exploit it — his friend Nakai (Tadao Takashima) does not enjoy the urban rat race and would rather settle down in the countryside. When the president, Nobuo Kataoka (Yoshitomi Masuda), returns from a trip to the United States with his daughter, Yoko (Izumi Yukimura), he puts her in charge of the foreign office as she extolls the virtues of efficient American business practices over the old-fashioned Japanese ways. Yamakawa sets his sights on Yoko despite restaurant owner Ryoko’s (Mie Nakao) obvious desire to marry him and move to the country for a more simple life, but Yoko is more attracted to the oblivious Nakai, who soon finds himself in the middle of the president’s untoward relationship with the much younger, hot-to-trot cocktail hostess Beniko (Mie Hama). It all comes to a head as a pair of American tourists (Ernest and Marjorie Richter) and a prominent U.S. executive seek the right Japanese tourism company to do business with.
You Can Succeed, Too has a ball skewering the world of business, centered around the hysterical antics of comedian Sakai (Shogun, Mothra), who wears striped pajamas that resemble prison clothes (as if he is trapped by his need to succeed), putt-putts around in a tiny, checkered Mr. Bean–like car, and stretches his elastic face into hysterical expressions that recall early silent film comedy. Tatsuo Kita’s sets are spectacularly mod and endlessly imaginative — just wait till you see Beniko’s pink apartment — while Etsuko Yagyu’s costumes, particularly Yoko’s candy-colored, Audrey Hepburn–like outfits, are oh-so-fab, all wonderfully captured by Masaharu Utsumi’s splendid cinematography. The story takes some silly sitcomlike plot twists that become rather frustrating, but that can mostly be forgiven as Sugawa (The Beast Shall Die, River of Fireflies) includes numerous subtle and not-so-subtle digs at America and changing attitudes in postwar Japan; there are metaphors comparing business to battle, one of Yamakawa’s plans involves screaming out “Banzai!,” and a key scene takes place at the American-style nightclub Charade, as if this is all fake anyway. And the songs are a hoot, featuring a Hollywood-influenced score by Toshirô Mayuzumi (The Pornographers, The Insect Woman) and crazy choreography, all coming three years before How to Succeed in Business without Really Trying. You Can Succeed, Too is screening April 8 at 7:00 and will be introduced by series curator Michael Raine, followed by a karaoke party with singer and musician Yasuno Katsuki, emceed by Brian Walters. “Japan Sings! The Japanese Musical Film” continues through April 23 with such other rarities as Umetsugu Inoue’s The Stormy Man, Kengo Furusawa’s Irresponsible Era of Japan, Nagisa Oshima’s Sing a Song of Sex, and Takashi Miike’s The Happiness of the Katakuris.