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brewers and publishers. Simulteneously, the J.O. Studio was founded on the investment of a big foreign-trader. Casting in their lot with the Toho, a system directed by the great financier Mr. Ichizo Kobayashi with his direct backgrounci of an enormous plutocracy, the J.O. Studio and P.C.L. have taken their position in the arena of film industry and are invading Shochiku’s domain.
The film industry of present day Japan is in the lists of rivalry between the two powerful trusts, Shochiku and Toho, and their competition this year will be keener than ever. The Nikkatsu, a giant in the years past, has been reduced to inactivity, and in spite of its many attempts at reformation, such as the bringing back of the Qendai' geki section to Tokyo (Tamagawa) after many post-earthquake years in Kyoto, its busi¬ ness has not improved; able directors and actors have left the company in rapid succes¬ sion, some of whom organizing smaller productions such as the “Dai-ichi Eiga” which, after all, came to terms with the Shochiku; the Dai-ichi Eiga itself went bankrupt in 1936. In this wise, the Nikkatsu has been reduced to a far inferior position to the Shochiku, and since 1936 it has been under direct control of the latter as merely a member of its vast trust.
So far we have discussed only the technical and financial problems of the birth and growth of the Japanese sound film. But these very disintegrations and reorganiza¬ tions have supplied necessary energies for the future development of Japanese talkies. Around 1934-35, the leading screen artists of the silent film age proved equally able in the new age of the sound film; Yasujiro Shimazu, Mikio Naruse, Mansaku Itami, Sadao Yamanaka, Heinosuke Gosho, and others produced superior works. Shimazu’s “Tonari no Yayechan” (Our Neighbour Yayechan, Shochiku, 1934), “Sono-yo no Onna” (The Woman of that Night, Shochiku, 1934), Naruse’s “Tsuma yo Bara no Yoni” (Be like a Rose, my Wife, P.C.L., 1935), Itami’s “Chuji Uridasu” (Chuji Makes a Name, Shinko, 1935), Yamanaka’s “Machi no Irezumi-mono” (The Tattooed Man of the Street, Nikkatsu, 1935) — all these may not be regarded as highest achievements either in theme or form, but were possessed of a certain freshness of impression and caused varied reac¬ tions amongst the upper classes of cinema-goers.
The artistic advancement of the film is always relative to and inseparable from the enhancement of the appreciative ability of the audience. Since the appearance of talkies, the quality of our movie-fans has been improved rapidly, and fairly artistic demands are being made of the screen. That class of people who appointed themselves as the intelli¬ gentsia of the country, took in only the first-rate works of imported films, and were in¬ clined to look askance at native products as unworthy of attention. But with the coming of talkies some really excellent works were produced, as mentioned before, and the selfowned intellectuals themselves came to take immediate interest in Japanese films and now the most elite of intellectual audiences have become fans of the Japanese screen.
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