Toast & Kent's XMas (2025) Advent Calendar - Day 5: The Crowded Day

(aka "Shop Spoiled", aka "Tomorrow is Sunday")
1954, d. John Guillermin - Tubi

It's getting closer to Christmas at London department store Bunting and Hobbs, and the shopgirls are slammed.

Taking place over just one day, the film tracks a few of the shopgirls' lives, starting with the congested morning routine at the women's boarding house. There's an impressive amount of exposition and set-up in these early moments, but if it's just your first viewing (and, really, who has actually heard of this film to have viewed it more than once?) it's hard to tell all these women apart. Except there's the blonde with the high, high hair (the impression is that actress Vera Day is the British sexbomb equivalent to Marilyn Monroe, but she has the same haircut my Gramma had her whole life, so it's hard to look past), and the woman with the short curly hair and the Geordie accent who's always eating (there's always got to be one in any ensemble, huh?)...they stood out. The rest, well, it was like the female version of Dunkirk, just a lot of pale, British brunettes on screen.

The film has a cast of upwards of two dozen characters to keep track of, of different levels of import to the story. There are the cleaners, the shopgirls, the management, and the men circling the shopgirls' lives.

The centerpiece story is the on-again/off-again relationship between Peggy (Joan Rice) and Leslie (John Gregson). Leslie loves his old jalopy (if you read an Archie comic, you should know exactly what I'm referring to) very much, and it drives Peggy crazy, so Peggy in turn finds any angle to drive Leslie crazy, including flirting with the much older head of personnel.  The tumultuous flirtations of Peggy and Leslie continually draw others into its orbit, coming to a head at the big evening dance with Mr. Bunting and family getting sucked into their farce. It's pretty fun although not quite as sassy or go-for-broke as it thinks it is.

The second major storyline follows the dour, pouty-lipped Yvonne (Josephine Griffin). Yvonne is, to put it bluntly, depressed. She's been searching for her man, Michael, who has up and gone missing two months earlier. She's tried Michael's mother on the phone but she really hates her and won't tell her a thing. Yvonne can't hold her wits about her. The workplace is too chaotic and she has a 1950's panic attack and abandons her post. She races out at lunch and runs across town to talk to Michael's mother. When she tells her she's pregnant with Michael's baby, she calls Yvonne a slut and a street walker. For a 1950's film, it's downright scandalous how she talks to her. Late returning from lunch, she gets called into personnel, where she's told she has to go seek social services to help her through her pregnancy and adopting out her baby, and when that's all over, she can come back to work as if nothing happened. Yvonne, then steals some pills with strychnine in them and contemplates suicide and also is pursued by a sex pest in the streets. It's a damn grim storyline, capped off by the fact that Michael actually returned to the store and left her a message but Yvonne's bitter co-worker just couldn't be bothered. It's fucking bleak man. The rest of the film is pretty much a comedy, but every time they cut to Yvonne it's tonal whiplash.

There's more to the affair, including a commission-stealer's comeuppance and the running gag of an inept male store manager trying to help with a mannequin display.

There are definite delights and even a few shocks (that confrontation between Yvonne and Michael's mother is capital "h" Harsh! The music is ever-present and somewhat abrasive in a way that detracts from most scenes, but not enough to ruin any of them. The story's setting, both the cramped women's dormitory and the frantic-paced department store are both pretty much alien objects now, so there's a whole sense of not just another time and another place, but, like, another reality.

A compelling, charmer that goes down fairly easily...but what of Christmas?
Well, this is what you would call a movie set at Christmas time, and not a Christmas movie.

Go-Go-Godzilla: #3 Godzilla Raids Again

The first sequel to Gojira promises more city-stomping action, and throws in big-G's first kaiju adversary.  The film nods to its predecessor more than a few times, even acknowledging that the original Gojira is dead. It was set up at the end of Gojira that there could be others awakened by nuclear bomb testing, so when another Godzilla emerges, it's not too big of a surprise.

Name: Godzilla Raids Again

Japanese Name: Gojira no Gyakushū 
Director: Motoyoshi Oda
Studio: Toho
Year: 1956

The Story:
10 minutes of tedious aviator adventures lead to two pilots stranded on an island witnessing Godzilla battling a spiky-backed quadraped on the cliffs overhead.  Scientists gather with Dr. Yamane to discuss this new gigantic creature, confirming it's Anguirus. The worry is that both are incredible threats worse than nuclear bombs. Dr. Yamane has a plan to lure them away from land, fighter jets and the navy set out search, Shikoku is put under evacuation alert as Godzilla heads towards land. But he pivots and heads towards Osaka instead, interrupting a lovely dance Shoichi and Hidemi are attending. Blackouts are mandated. As he breaks the surface of water, jets fire off flares to try and draw Godzilla's attention. It works, Hidemi's father has gone to the factory at the docks instead of evacuating for some reason, so Shoichi heads off to the rescue.

Meanwhile, a transport of prisoners hatch a daring escape plan. They go racing through the docklands in a frantic keystone cops-esque speed-ramped chase. The prisoners steal a tanker truck, but in the chase they crash it into an oil depot, setting the docks ablaze, attracting Godzilla's attention. The army once again throws everything they've got at the big guy and it only seems to annoy him. It's not long before his atomic breath starts trash planes and tanks. 

All the commotion attracts Anguirus and the two beasts fight amidst all shelling and missiles fired at them. The docks are ablaze. The titantic tussle (also speed-ramped) destroys everything in its path as the two continue to venture further and further in land. Three of the escaped prisoners are drowned in a collapsed subway tunnel. The military headquarters are abandoned. Godzilla ultimately gets Anguirus by the throat and tears its neck open, before incinerating it with his atomic breath, which catches what remains of the district on fire. Osaka is in ruins. Godzilla departs, a job well done.

Scene of weird ribaldry in the the ruins of Kaiyo's Osaka headquarters lead to Kobayashi's flying antics, and matchmaking prospects. There's an extended sequence of a pilots reunion, as Kobayashi and Shoichi meet with old Japan Self-Defense Force pilot friends. There's, like, nearly 10 minutes worth where nothing material, character or story-wise is conveyed.  Then a ship sinks, and they suspect it's Godzilla. All the pilots head out to spy the creature, but Hidemi is unhappy that Shiochi won't return to base. But no so unhappy that she won't help out Kobayashi with his romantic problems.  Shiochi espies Godzilla on an island and has a plan for containing him before he can retreat back into the ocean, but Kobayashi sees that time is not on their side so he stupidly keeps buzzing Godzilla, pissing the creature off and getting the business end of atomic breath. But Kobayashi's death spiral causes an avilanche that buries him in urinal ice.  The JSDF causes more avilanches to make sure he stays buried.

The Creatures:
Godzilla - Godzilla is now infamous. Dr. Yamane deems him to be indestructable. Godzilla is just a species name, not a character name. As was identified last film, Godzilla has a thing with lights. Yamane suspects it trigger's Godzilla's PTSD over the hydrogen bombs.  Godzilla looking very gnarly toothed, his chompers sticking out akimbo in every direction, and, above that, just dead, dead eyes.  This Godzilla also looks a lot leaner, not as squat in the lower half.

Anguirus - atomic testing has awoken an ankylosaur, 150-200 ft tall. Described as carnivorous and quick moving, they also have remarkable brains found in breast and abdomen, and are deemed agressive against other species.  There is something delightful about watching a guy in a rubber suit try to perform as a quadrapedal creature but still fight a bipedal one. Anguirus has kind of a stupid looking head, lean long and flat with seven or 8 spikes sticking out of it, but the rest of his spiky armour and weird posture is quite fun. 

The Battle:
Godzilla versus Anguirus is pretty fun to watch, even if the speed-ramping looks a little odd. The Anguirus suit makes for an awkward-moving creature, which makes it fighting the upright Godzilla look really odd, and interesting.

The final battle where the JSDF is strafing Godzilla and firing on the mountainside to create an avalanche reminds me strangely of the strafing run from Top Gun: Maverick despite the disparity in effects and budgets.

The Humans:
Dr. Yamane - Godzilla expert. Returns from prior film, for one extended sequence.

Shoichi - Pilot. He spies schools of fish from the plane for the fishing boats but has bravery in his heart.

Hidemi- Shoichi's love interest. Her dad owns the fishing company both her and Shoichi work for. Worries over the impact of kaiju rampages on their business.

Kobayashi - The other pilot. The "comic releif". He's looking for love but can't stop crashing planes. His sacrifice leads to Godzilla's defeat.

The humans are, once again, barely of any interest in this one. I guess the intent of having sort of blue-collar workers as the center is to show the ground-level impact of Godzilla, but unlike the first film that takes us into the heart of the devastation afterwards, here, the characters are joking around amidst the ruins. There's no sense of impact, save a ruined dance and some business reshufflings. Yes, the lovably goofy chubby guy dies in a ball of flame, but only starting to give him a character at the beginning of the third act isn't really enough to make us care. I'm wondering how long it will be before the human story of a Godzilla movie will actually feel relevant, because the extended scenes with the humans in this movie are its most tedious.

Friend or Foe: Very much a sequel to Gojira. Even though this is a different beast than the original, it's still got the same reputation and humanity doesn't like it so much. Less proactively troublesome and slightly more understood as a force of nature.  But we fear what we cannot understand or control, so Godzilla must be dealt with.

The Sounds:
Anguirus's squelch sounds like a dying 1930's car corn. 

Godzilla sounds like he did in the last film.  His atomic breath has a simple wet hissing sound, like squirting a seltzer bottle.

The score features none of the epicness of the original film and nothing remotely as memorable. It's serviceable and unremarkable.

The Message:
Umm. I guess that nuclear proliferation is only going to unleash more monsters?
Or, maybe, bury your problems?

Rating (out of 5 Z):
ZZz

Go-Go-Godzilla: #2 Godzilla: King of the Monsters!

 Yes, this is my latest stupid boy project, watching all of the Godzilla films. There's 30+ of them and I think I have about half of those at my disposal.  This may take a while, as I intend to watch them in order. For the record, only LIVE ACTION Godzilla is being watched, no Saturday morning cartoons, nor anime.

The early Godzilla films have original Japanese edits and dubbed, shorter American edits. I have to wonder if the shorter editing time was to fit in more easily on Sunday morning television with commercial interruptions.  The original film, however, isn't just a re-edit but includes about a half hour of original footage cut into it, centering the story, and the narration, around an American.

Name: Godzilla: King of the Monsters!

Japanese Name: Kaijū Ō Gojira
Director: Terry O. Morse and Ishiro Honda
Studio: Toho and Jewell Enterprises
Year: 1956

The Story: American Steve Martin is a wild and crazy guy reporter, who recounts his tale of journeying to Japan to investigate the story of a series of mysterious ship disappearances. This trip takes him to Odo Island where he learns of the folklore of Godzilla, an ancient beast from the deep ocean, who has now awakened.

The Jerk Steve Martin befriends, from a distance, Dr. Yamane and his daughter Emiko, and joins them on their investigation of Odo Island, only to witness himself first hand the awe and terror of Godzilla as it attacks the island.

Back on land, he learns of Emiko's strained relationship with her fiancee, the scientist Dr. Serizawa, and since All Of Me's Steve Martin's narration is actually a recounting in hindsight and not of-the-moment, he knows all about Dr. Serizawa's Oxygen Destroyer and what it shall do.

Steve Martin and his three amigos, Dr. Yamane, Emiko and Emiko's secret lover Hideo Ogata argue over whether Godzilla should be destroyed. Since Steve Martin is a dirty rotten scoundrel reporter, he's given press access to the new Japan Self-Defence Force, and learns of their plans to electrocute Godzilla should he come to shore again. But when Godzilla breaks through that defence, revealing even more depths of terror with a fire breath, Steve Martin dictates his last L.A. Story from Tokyo as he watches the destruction and rampage first hand.

Steve Martin should be a Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid man but he survives, finding himself in a makeshift medical refuge where Emiko helps out. She reveals to him and Ogata about Serizawa's deadly Oxygen Destroyer, and they set off to convince Serizawa to use his deadly weapon. Which he does. Sacrificing himself in the process, but effectively killing Godzilla, and Steve Martin thinks the world can breathe easy knowing that Godzilla is no longer Bringing Down The House a threat.

The Creatures:
Godzilla. No new footage of the creature for this hacked American version of the original 1954 film, so the same comments as last time.

The Humans:
Raymond Burr's Steve Martin is the Man with Two Brains dominant character of the film, basically inserting himself into scenes of the original film, but telling the entire story from entirely his point of view.  As little amount of characterization we get out of Dr. Yamane, Emiko, Ogata or Serizawa in the original, they're utterly neutered as here by Steve Martin's overbearing presence.  Serizawa's particularly potent crisis of conscience from the original, the film's best character moment, is just gone.

The Sounds:
The soundtrack and the special effects are the same as the original, but they're impacted by the inserted scenes of Burr, and the attempt to try and make them seem like they're a part of the original film. 

There is some original Japanese dialogue remaining but also some dubbing (apparently James Hong was involved), but it all feels really burdensome on the script and cheaply cobbled together.

The Message:
The message of anti-nuclear proliferation is entirely lost as any reference to the war, the bombings or nuclear testing was omitted from the film. Basically the sole purpose for the film existing is defanged to rewrite history and whitewash for American audiences, turning it from a mildly effective anti-bomb polemic into another 50's B-movie creature feature.

Rating (out of 5 Zs): 
Zz -- not the way to watch this story.

Go-Go-Godzilla: #1 - Gojira

English Name: Godzilla
Japanese Name: Gojira  
Director: Ishiro Honda
Studio: Toho
Year: 1954

The Story:
The sea turns iridescent, blinding the sailors, and suddenly the ship explodes. A rescue vessel is sent, only to suffer the same fate. Panic besets the nation as ships continue to disappear and officials investigate but have no answers. Only the oldest shoremen on Odo Island think of the legendary Gojira, a terror from the deep that used to feed on the people of the land.  A supposed hurricane next hits Odo Island, but the people claim it was something more. A research team is sent out, finding that half the island is radioactive. It's only moments before Gojira proves his existence, all 50 meters of him.  

Professor Yamane speculates it was atomic and nuclear detonations that has roused the beast to emerge from its depths. Professor Yamane wants to study Gojira, not see him destroyed, but he's outvoted. Shipping routes are comprimised, threatening to cripple the country's economy.  Counter-Gojira Headquarters are established, and depth charges are dropped in the ocean to little avail. Yamane's daughter, Emiko, learns of her fiance, Dr. Serizawa's devastating new weapon, the Oxygen Destroyer, but is sworn to secrecy. Serizawa knows the OD is potentially the most dangerous weapon known to man, but knows if only given time he could make the weapon into something more beneficial to mankind.

Gojira hits the mainland, destroying a passenger train, wrecking a transformer station, destroying bridges, before exiting back to sea.  Counter-Gojira decide an electric fence is their best defence along the coastline, hoping to shock him to death. Unfortunately the injection of electricity only seems to give him a flaming breath power that sets buildings aflame and vaporized people instantly.  The fires themselves seem unstoppable, spreading quickly throughout Tokyo. The city is decimated by the time Gojira retreats into the sea.

Dr Serizawa is convinced he must use his Oxygen Destroyer on the creature. He fears exposing his discovery to the masses so destroys all records of his weapon and intentionally sacrifices himself in the process of using it.. Gojira is turned to bones. Prof Yamana regrets the loss of what may be the last of a unique species, but warns should nuclear testings continue who knows what sort of monsters it may rouse.

It's a film that's practically a series of vignettes rather than a cohesive, singularly driven tale. It's compelling, but very disjointed.

The Creatures:
Gojira. The costume is loose and dumpy, the head of the full body suit looks like the Gojira we know just with goofy bulging eyes, but there are close-up puppet heads which are squat and looks like an awkward muppet. Gojira is killed at the film's end by the Oxygen Destroyer, but The Game Is On, as we're warned there may be others like him out there.

The Humans:
Besides a very brief early scene of Ogata and Emiko, it's over 15 minutes before we truly meet any of our main players.

Emiko's father, Professor Yamane is the chief government consultant, and lead investigator until Gojira reveals itself.  Ogata seems to be a military consultant. Emiko is in a love triangle with Ogata and Serizawa, but considers Serizawa like a brother, rather than lover.

Dr Serizawa, was scarred in the war and wears an eyepatch.  He's a moody cat burdened by his discovery of the Oxygen Destroyer. He abhors violence and weapons, but is swayed into using the OD against Gojira by a chorus of children mourning the destruction in Tokyo.  There's certainly Oppenheimer parallels here, but Serizawa's self-sacrifice is portrayed as noble and honourable, using the weapon for a singular purpose, then ensuring it can never be recreated.

The story of the humans is quite nominal in the picture. There's very little attention paid to the argument of studying the creature versus destroying it. Likewise the love triangle is hardly worth mentioning. Dr. Serizawa might as well have been Emiko's brother Yamane's son, rather than romantic competition for Ogata...and probably more impactful were he family of other main characters.

The Sounds:
Akira Ifukube's haunting, pulsating strings accompany the roars of Gojira over the opening credits. This repeated score is intense, agressive, and intimidating.  There's a counter-score, one sombre foreboding, used over the destruction of Tokyo and Serizawa's sacrifice. Also his rendition of the tribute sung by a choir of schoolgirls is effectively powerful, you can believe they would sway Serizawa.

The pounding thud of Gojira's footsteps are erratically used, and often a warning sign that he's on his way. We hear them when he's emerging out of the water, actually more often than when he's on land, which I find spurious. 

Gojira's roar is that famous squelch but with a deep throttled finish that sounds like a motorcycle engine revving.

The Message: 
It's a film that carries the weight of the post-Nagasaki and Hiroshima's bombings, the horror of the devastation and the real human toll that resulted. The literal point is that the bombings resulted in awakening a monster that's as powerful and unstoppable as an atomic bomb. The metaphor is that the bombings awakened the monster of man, the need to amass power and compete, continuing to find newer and bigger ways to destroy ourselves.

Dr. Serizawa has an ominous appearance - eyepatch, sunken cheeks - and could very well be a villain, but he is the hero of the piece. He recognizes that sometimes a bigger weapon is needed to defeat an enemy but is deeply troubled by where using such a weapon will lead. He understands once the beast of war is revealed it can't be contained. 

Rating (out of 5 Zs):
ZZZ

New Year's Countdown... of Excellence: 7 - Rashomon (1950's selection)

7
Rashomon
1950, d. Akira Kurosawa - Criterion Channel

The Story (in two paragraphs or less)
Two men sheltering from the rain in a massive, partially destroyed gate structure are joined by a third. The two men are shaken by their experience in court this day.  The first man, a woodsman, tells of his experience encountering a dead body.  The second, a priest, talks of encountering the dead man, a samurai, and his wife on the road.

The woodsman recounts the testimony of a captured bandit in court.  The bandit explains how he encountered the couple on the road, and his sudden cravings of lust for the bride overcame him.  He tricked the husband, tying him up, assaults the wife and then said she begged him to fight her husband, one of them must die to save her from the shame of two men knowing her dishonour.  The men fight, the bandit victorious but praising the samurai for his skill.  But the bride appears in court with a different story, one where the bandit rapes her and leaves her behind to the cold stares of an indifferent husband.  She frees him with her dagger and begs him to kill her, but passes out from her shame, she said when she awoke her dagger was in her husband's chest.  A medium tells the samurai's story from beyond the grave, one in which the bride agrees to be with the bandit even after his attacking her, but first she asks that he murder her husband.  But the men see the woman as villain and she flees, the bandit leaves, and the samurai says he killed himself with her dagger.  But the woodsman, knows they are lies for he saw what really happened.  It was not the bandit, the bride nor the samurai that were to blame but all three villains in their own story.  With these recountings, the woodsman and the priest have their faith in man shaken, but a baby left behind in the temple startles them into finding goodness in each other.

What did I think I was in for?
I've been hearing the term "a Rashomon-type story" bandied about quite frequently for the past year or two, and I thought it to mean a story only complete when told from different perspectives.  I didn't think it to mean a story told from multiple different perspectives with lies to shape how the audience feels about the character(s) in the story.

I watched many of Kurosawa's films in the early-2000s and couldn't remember if this was one I had seen. (It wasn't).  I was anticipating another big, long samurai epic (I was probably thinking of Ran).  I was also expecting more of a samurai story, not, essentially, a crime story.

What did I get out of it?
Kurosawa had made 10 films by the time he did Rashomon, what surprised me was how rough this felt as a whole.  The acting was very theatrical, very broad and unnecessarily melodramatic.  I thought the roving camerawork in the woods (where all the retellings take place) was often pedestrian and uninspired, though the lighting created some curious effects.  I liked much more his static shot compositions, particularly the court scenes.  The rain (tinted with ink) is beautiful on camera hitting the Rashomon gate.  The music is so overbearing which is odd given that Kurosawa wanted more stillness in the movie so there's not much gaffer work, no sounds the swords make swiping through the air and such.  He's emulating silent film, where the soundtracks are the storytellers, the difference here is we have four different storytellers within the film, a fifth being the director/editor, we don't really need the score to be yet another one.

I understand now the story structure being referred to when someone describes something as "Rashomon-like" now, which must be what is most celebrated about this movie.  I found, however, that the story itself was vilely misogynistic, and though in the eyewitness recounting it's clear the bride is exhausted being basically a pet for a man, it still vilifies her for even having such opinions rather than capturing any sympathy towards her.  The film's coda, with more than a bit of belabouring it's point about man's nature, seems egregious. A lot in this movie, both in what it is telling and how it is told, feels outdated.

Do I think it's a classic?
Personally, I think Kurosawa has many better works which I would put above this.  I like the story for how it is told, but if I don't particularly care for the story that's being told and I feel too brow-beaten by what it's trying to say to love it.  It's a classic in that it does something unique for its time that others borrow down the line, so it has lasting resonance, but just not a personal classic.

Did I like watching this?
Even at 88 minutes I found it tedious at times, especially up front.  Once you get into the storytelling it does get fairly intriguing but, by the end, once the storytelling resolves and it dips back into moralising, it's almost too much.  So, a liked it a little, but not a lot.

Would I watch it again?
I imagine I'm going to do a Kurosawa marathon at some point, and yeah, I'll watch it again for that, but it's not going to be a go-to for me.