In adding to the evidence that Yojimbo is dealing with a more mythic narrative than The Glass Key, I think viewers need to look no further than a striking difference between Sanjuro and Ed. While both of them are very clever and witty, Sanjuro (a trained warrior) is more apt to follow through with the threat of physical violence than Ed is. Ed constantly relies more on charm (a characteristic that Sanjuro lacks, or simply ignores) to win his battles. Charm and wit seem quite acceptable for Ed’s world. Likewise, strength and wit are extremely beneficial to Sanjuro. If we relate the fight in Yojimbo to Lucas’ Star Wars, who is that character replacing Sanjuro? Obi-Wan Kenobi, who is certainly one of the most spiritual/mystical character in the film. Charm? That’s for the mercenaries. Han Solo is Ed Beaumont. He lacks a real history or mythology and works with gangsters. Sorry to get on a slight sci-fi tangent…. and no, Chewbacca is not Paul Madvig. Is Sanjuro a mercenary? Or is he a force that not even money can direct and change?

The story of Yojimbo itself hearkens even further back, over centuries really. This idea of a figure being able to play two opposing sides, profiting from their mutual destruction is evident in Greek and Norse mythology, with trickster gods pitting two superiors against each other and reaping the benefits. The Anansi stories of Africa and Native American trickster tales are as equally influential. The difference is that Sanjuro is not sneaky like these earlier figures. As the hero, he manages to find usefulness for his training. He asks for little in return and does not linger once his job is complete.

Right off the bat, let me say that Toshiro Mifune is spectacular, the single best actor in the Eastern hemisphere. Whether the man is maliciously pompous, heroically headstrong, or full of arrows, Mifune has a presence that is often memorable and always magical.  

Yojimbo is certainly the lightest Kurosawa movie I’ve had the pleasure to watch. Usually he deals with epic themes with many more supporting roles than this. I certainly enjoyed the plot, knowing what to expect due to my fascination with Spaghetti Westerns (Kurosawa originally sued Sergio Leone for adapting the film into A Fistful Of Dollars, but said he quite liked the remake years later). I can see how this film is a bridge between American Westerns of the 40’s and 50’s and Leone’s terrific reimagining of the genre in the 60’s. I can also see different plot points of The Glass Key, especially Sanjuro’s time being beaten and held captured. Most articles on the film also cite another Hammett novel, Red Harvest, as the main inspiration. I hope to check this book out sometime in the near future, knowing now that I can handle Hammett’s writing style.

It’s interesting how many of Kurosawa’s films are taken from other cultures, whether it be Hammett, Shakespeare, or Russian Socialist Drama. Even better is how his films resonate back to Western culture and are then proved timeless with their own adaptations, in the way that The Magnificent Seven and A Fistful Of Dollars have This exchange of ideas allow people to see cross-cultural similarities that makes us all feel a lot more familiar with one another.

I understand how the trailer for The Glass Key tried to pass it off, especially relating it to Hammett’s popular Thin Man series. Ed and Paul certainly had lighter demeanors and more personality. There’s that phrase ringing in my mind that the trailer is the studio’s representation of how they wished the movie to be. By that indication, the studio wanted this film to be an action filled romp through the criminal underbelly. The book does have action in it, in fact, that’s all the book is, physical I mean.

 The schism between Jeff and Nick (Shad in the book) puts me in the mind of a film that came out last year that impressed me very much, and ultimately made my pick for the best film of 2006. Rian Johnson, a first time director decided to take his love for Hammett novels and make a hard boiled detective film in which teenagers were the heroes, the vamps, the villains. Brick, the film in question,  is set around a suburban high school and involves a loner protagonist (Think of Ned in blue jeans and no moustache) investigating a criminal drug ring in order to find out what happened to his recently killed ex-girlfriend. Much like in The Glass Key, a large amount of the end plot is devoted to an angry split between the kingpin of the drug ring (Lukas Haas, best known as the Amish kid in Witness) and his thuggish henchman. Johnson states quite passionately that Hammett, along with Miller’s Crossing (which we’ll be watching later) inspired him greatly in this effort.

Here you can find the trailer for Rian Johnson’s Brick

In 1941, a full year before the Glass Key was released, John Huston’s adaptation of another Dashiell Hammett novel considerably altered the cinematic tradition forever. His combination of a hard boiled detective story with visual cues taken from German expressionism (shadows, smoke filled rooms, and an overall attention towards details which greatly complement black and white cinematography) resulted in The Maltese Falcon. Each year we encounter a handful of movies that owe it all to these visual cues.

Filmmaking, and Hollywood especially is a cannibalistic system that thrives off of remaking what has worked so well in the past.  This is why I thought it strange that The Glass Key has few noirish elements, and plays out much more like the gangster movies that were popularized a decade earlier. For example, when Ed walks into the Henry mansion, you know from that point on that he is definitely attracted to Janet. A romantic score playsas they “cut eyes” at each other. The ambiguity that made Hammet’s novel so intriguing is lost in order to placate the audience. When I read in the novel that Ned had a big smile on his face, I imagined a friendly expression, but with evidence that menace was directly behind that grin. It was something that I could picture in his eyes. I do not see that in Ed.

Beaumont’s ambitious escape from Nick’s henchmen brought to mind earlier films of Cagney and Edward G. Robinson. The lone hero, running around and causing trouble for others. Ned Beaumont, to me, does not seem like a runner. And by the point he found the razorblade in the medicine cabinet, I had seen enough to know that they would omit his suicide attempt.

This adaptation is one that I can admire and have fun discussing in the class and on here, but it is not one that I can stand behind, or will come back to a decade later. I do not mean to sound like a purist by any means, for every viewing experience, no matter what the movie is, really helps enhance the critical procedure. I look forward to finishing The Glass Key tomorrow

Edit:I decided to find a drink mix for a Silver Fizz. Enjoy the weekend you heels!

When Paul walks out of Ned Beaumont’s and Janet’s life, he mumbles something about luck. Fortune, not the material kind, is a very important characteristic that Ned values, especially as a gambler. Entirely throughout Hammet’s novel, Ned is placing his bets not on dice games or horses, but on human beings.  Paul Madvig is certainly Ned’s greatest gamble. He stays with him despite the consequences. His temptation against his loyalty results in physical violence from Shad O’Rory’s thugs. His search for Taylor Henry’s murderer also forces his peers to stay away from him.

“What good am I if my luck’s gone?” Ned says to Paul early on. This narrative concerns Ned Beaumont trying to regain his humanity through luck so he may “feel that [he's] a person again.” Janet Henry is another gamble that Paul must take. He’s aware that she’s of another class and he warns Paul of this, but as the story continues and once Ned regains his fortune, he finally feels confident enough to not follow his own advice and allows Janet to come along with him.  He’s also confident enough to stop betting on Paul’s success, finally becoming his own man.

The key has shattered in Janet’s dream, and could mean a couple of things.

1. Ned’s masculinity has shattered now that he has accepted Janet as a companion, meaning that he is no longer his own man. 

2. Ned and Janet have broken free from their masculine superiors, Paul Madvig and Senator Henry, this makes them vulnerable, but as Ned says “It was only a dream.”

I like the second option better.

The title had to be short, sweet, and an allusion to a personal favorite. Wes Anderson just beat out “General Jack D. Ripper’s fight against the Communist conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids.” I’m halfway through The Glass Key as of now and I’m looking forward to talking about it in class. It’s chock full of noirish stoic virtue and masculine mores. Ned Beaumont slightly raises the corners of his mouth in a sly smile. Craig Graziano is entertained constantly.