Good news: from a technical perspective, it's aged well. It's not clearly from the 30s the way many movies of that era immediately feel. The mood is pleasant and it's nice and short. Bad news: it's too gentle and mild to be truly funny, and there's not enough conflict for it to be a true drama. It was difficult to get into on an emotional level, as a result. That may just be me though. Overall: not terrible. Some stuff to admire, but some stuff that makes it feel a little flat and so-so.
7.0Keywords: geishahenpecked husband
Plot summary
An affluent medical professor, Komiya, and his bossy wife, Tokio, are to look after Setsuko, their high-spirited niece from Osaka. Setsuko is a liberated woman who does what she wants, including smoking, even though she is a minor. On Saturday, the professor does not feel like going to his weekend golf game, but his wife packs him off anyway. So he leaves his bag at the apartment of his student Okada, and goes to a bar with a friend. Setsuko traces him there, and insists that he take her to a geisha house. When she gets rather tipsy, the professor calls Okada to take her home, while he sleeps at Okada's. The wife becomes suspicious of Setsuko when she sees Okada bringing her home, and also of her husband when she discovers that he did not go golfing.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
Director
Top cast
Tech specs
720p.BLU 1080p.BLU 611.81 MB
978*720
Japanese 2.0
NR
Movie Reviews
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It's not bad
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Screwball comedy -- from Ozu
Yasujiro Ozu's 1937 "Nani wa shokujo wa wasureta" (What Did the Lady Forget) is probably his closest approach to screwball comedy. Set in (probably) the most affluent milieu of any of Ozu's film, this involves a bossy wife (Sumiko Kurushima, Japan's first female star in one of her last roles) and her doctor-professor husband and niece, who rebel against (or at least try to wriggle around) her authority. This film was the last time Ozu's pre-war ensemble would appear together (except for the one-time post-war reunion of most of them in "Tenament Gentleman") and the acting overall is first-rate. This film probably does less to explore the fundamentals of the human condition of any Ozu film -- but it is thoroughly enjoyable nonetheless. (Note: Ozu re-used some of the elements of this plot in his post-war "Flavor of Green Tea over Rice").
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Sons of the Desert
Ozu was a great director, but there is always a tendency to look at his stuff and declare it is unique, as if he sprang out of the earth on the movie set. For decades the Japanese film industry insisted he was a uniquely Japanese talent and we were limited to seeing the works from the 1950s, like TOKYO STORY. Finally about 20 years ago, silent films he directed started showing up in the US -- I saw about a dozen in Lincoln Center at the time. Others have trickled in since, revealing him as a director interested in what was going on elsewhere, with a habit of putting Hollywood posters on his sets' walls -- in this one, there's a verbal reference to Fredric March -- and a habit of lifting stories and ideas from Leo MacCarey; some one I saw at a screening of this movie today told me that MacCarey's MAKE WAY FOR TOMORROW was the source for TOKYO STORY. My reaction: maybe.
That is why I was on the lookout and why I realized that the source for this one was probably Laurel & Hardy's SONS OF THE DESERT, with the uncle in the place of Mr. Laurel, the niece who talks him into a night on the town when his wife thinks he is playing a healthy game of golf in the rain, as Mr. Hardy. She also later urges him into standing up to Mrs. Bossypants.
Ozu does not offer us a straight comedy. This closest he comes to mimicking his sources is when the Uncle is supposed to be dressing down the niece. Ozu's work, typically, remains more sympathetic and warm than the straight comedy work on William Seiter's feature. Nonetheless, his admiration for his American contemporaries stands out.