The Crimson Kimono will never be counted among my favorite noirs but despite its flaws it is an intriguing film and an entertaining one.

The story centers on two LAPD homicide detectives, Joe Kojaku (James Shigeta, perhaps best known as Mr. Takagi from 1984’s Die Hard.) and Charlie Bancroft (Glenn Corbett) investigating the shooting murder of a celebrated stripper. The detectives, friends, partners, and roommates, following their service together in the Korean War, have little to go on to solve the murder save the stripper’s plans for a new act inspired by Japanese culture. Their investigation brings them into contact with local painter Christine Downs (Victoria Shaw) and a romantic triable between the two detectives and Christine forms threatening both the investigation and Joe’s and Charlie’s friendship.

The Crimson Kimono is bold in its depiction of interracial romance in defiance of the Production Code still a year out from its official abandonment in 1968. Joe Kojaku and the other Asian characters, both Korean and Japanese, are treated with respect and written as fully developed characters with their ethnicity as an aspect of their characters and not the sole defining elements. the friendship between Joe and Charlie feels real and has the depth that writer/Director Sam Fuller often explored in men who have seen brutal combat. Christine is a little less fully developed but does have at least a few layers to her personality.

Fuller’s script is clumsy in handling the twin plots of this brief 82-minute movie, never quite grasping a pleasing balance between investigation and romantic drama with large sections that make it seem like the other thread has been forgotten. While the film deals with racism and is plainly anti-racist in its views it also is hampered by a naivete as to racism’s prevalence in American society. I found it impossible to accept Joe’s assertion that he had never encountered anti-Japanese racism once in the Army or on the LAPD force. The declaration dramatically undercut the tension when Joe has mistakenly believed that Charlie’s animosity is in part racially inspired.

The film is further harmed by a score that attempts to incorporate traditional Western and Asian musical themes but does so in a manner that feels cheap and inauthentic with the Asian motifs sounding more like parody or satire.

However even with those fairly blatant flaws The Crimson Kimono remains a brave piece of fiction depicting love, romantic and otherwise, between characters of different races and manages to thematically tie the murder at the center of the mystery to this premise.

Guillermo del Toro like Edmund Goulding in 1947 has adapted William Lindsay Gresham’s cynical crime novel Nightmare Alley to the silver screen. Del Toro and Kim Morgan’s screenplay follow the same core beats and arc as the 1947 film and the novel.

Stanton Carlisle (Bradley Cooper) drifts into work for Clem’s (Willem Dafoe) low-end carnival. There he learns the basic of the carny trade, how to fake mind-reading while getting a taste for
the grift. After acquiring the skills and confidence to aim higher than carny life, together with the innocent Molly (Rooney Mara) Stan leaves for bigger, brighter gigs as a nightclub act. There a chance encounter brings him to psychologist Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett) and the possibility of even greater cons and even greater dangers as Stan reaches beyond his grasp.

While following the same core acts, events, and arc of the 47 film Del Toro’s is 39 minutes longer, lingering with the world of the traveling carnival and amid the misfits that del Toro so clearly loves. If you are a fan of the Tyrone Power adaptation nothing in this one is going to come as a major surprise with the most explicit differences arising from the original film’s Production Code limitations. Molly remains virtuous, Stan remains too ambitious for his own good, while Dr. Ritter is even more icy and more calculating than before. That said del Toro has returned to the source material for the story’s final resolution which the 47 adaptation avoided leaving the audience with a colder, darker, and more cynical thematic tone.

The cinematography is this production is dark, moody, and while there is a wide color palate the colors are far from saturated giving the film’s environments a used and shabby atmosphere. Costuming is subtle and on point capturing each character without drawing over attention. the acting is mostly restrained and naturalistic save for the moments of highest emotional strain and in a small role Mary Steenburgen frightens with a smile.

It would be wrong to compare the 47 and the 2021 productions. They were made under very different restrictions and with very different intentions. I think it is possibly to embrace and love both films as they are without preferencing one over the other. Again, the most meaningful difference lay in the film’s final resolution and the very different lives ahead for Stan in each version. I am thoroughly happy that I braved the cool wet weather and three hours in a fabric mask to witness this beautiful, haunting, and frightening film.

Despite the cresting, crashing, calamity that is the Omicron wave I still plan to go out the theater this holiday weekend and treat my vaccinated and boosted self to a couple of in the goddamned cinema films.

First up and possibly on Christmas eve will be Del Toro’s adaptation of a 1946 novel, Nightmare Alley. Previously adapted for the screen in 1947 this is a film noir about ruthless manipulation of people for money by low carny folk and upper-class cons hiding behind prestigious degrees. I have seen the 47 movie and thoroughly enjoyed it but very much want to see Del Toro’s interpretation. It came out last weekend but between Role Play Gaming nights and seeing Spider-Man: No Way Home this was pushed off for one week.

Opening Christmas Day is another long-anticipated film for me, Joel Cohen’s adaptation of The Tragedy of Macbeth. Long my favorite of the Bard’s plays Macbeth is open to and has been widely interpreted and re-interpreted. Macbeth can be analyzed through a psychological lens with spectral daggers and unwanted ghostly dinner guests seen as manifestations of greed, ambition, and guilt. It can also be seen as a supernatural story where the witches have actual power and slain friends literally haunt their murderer. It has been reported that Cohen’s vision in his first film without his brother Ethan at his side leans heavily into the supernatural. Luckily San Diego still has some art house theaters, and I will be able to see this on the big screen rather than waiting until next month’s debut on Apple TV+.