Oriental Evil 
                                 
Director: George Breakston
Year: 1952
Rating: 4.0
With a title like this, I could not resist. I am always curious to see how Asians are depicted in Hollywood films. I fully expected this would be a Yellow Peril film with some sort of Fu Manchu character, but it is far from that. In fact, the evil is not Oriental but a Gaijin. This is directed by George Breakston and co-directed and written by C. Ray Stahl. It is quite bad but interesting in that it was shot in Tokyo with a number of Japanese actors and Japanese crew members. Breakston was a Frenchman and his next film Geisha Girl was shot in Tokyo as well. Then he went off to shoot a few films in Africa. Unfortunately, he doesn't have the budget to take advantage of his location. There is some outside shooting but mainly on indistinct streets. Martha Hyer appears in both the Tokyo films and in his first film in Africa - as it turns out she was married to C. Ray Stahl at the time. Otherwise, I could not figure out why she would appear in this low budget 60-minute wreck. Love. She is a fine actress and was to receive a nomination for Best Supporting Actress in Some Came Running.

 
Cheryl (Hyer) comes to Tokyo to prove that her brother did not commit suicide or smuggle drugs. She is clueless. But she runs into Roger, a tall Englishman (Byron Michie) with a George Sanders voice. He is willing to help. She needs to find Thomas Putnam who had worked with her brother. When she first meets Roger, she tells him I don't know why but I don't like you. You should generally go with first impressions I have found in life. But he is charming and very helpful. We also know that in the first scene in the film he married a Japanese woman, half his size. Her brother is played by Tetsu Nakamura, a face that may be familiar to many having been in Red Sun, Space Amoeba and Latitude Zero.

 

For the first half of the film it seems we have misjudged Roger as he gets her out of scrapes - but then we begin to see his secret self which is rather swinish. It moves at the speed of a tired slug and the 60 minutes felt like a mini-series. The film is bookended by Unmei - a spectral representation of fate - and his earthly helper is a beggar who goes around picking up cigarette butts. But if he doesn't pick up yours, it means death is just a few steps ahead. Fortunately, I don't smoke.