Campus A Go Go
                                                   
Director: Katsumi Iwauchi
Year: 1965
Rating: 7.0
Aka - Eleki no Wakadasho

I thought I had stepped into an alternative universe with the beginning of this film. An electric guitar with reverb surf music style playing the Lone Ranger theme and American football being played on the field. In Japan. Crazy. Well, as it turns out not so crazy after all. Much to my surprise, American football was introduced to Japan in the 1930s - baseball much earlier in 1872 - how the hell did we go to war with a country that played football and baseball. Today there are actually American football leagues in Japan - it is called Amerikanfuttoboru - learn something new on some days.  But that wasn't the only world I stepped into. This was straight into the pop Westernized world of Wakadaisho.




Some folks on Letterbox are fairly familiar with the Wakadaisho series of films, but this was my introduction. This was the sixth in the series. It strikes me as an older Andy Hardy set in Japan. There were nineteen of these films from 1961 to 1981 with three main actors -  Yūzō Kayama as Young Ace - the hero - appeared in seventeen of them; Kunie Tanaka - as the quasi villain - think Reggie in the Archie comics - was also in seventeen - and then as the love interest, the adorably cute Yuriko Hoshi was in many of them - but often as a different character that Young Ace falls in love with - which seems a little odd. I am not sure if the father, Granny and the sister all show up in these other ones. Kayama was 24-years-old in his first one and 44-years-old in his final one. Here he is in college. Kunie was even older being 29 in the first films - also in college. Yuriko was actually age appropriate as she was 18 in the first film. That is why this reminded me of the Andy Hardy series - we get to see these actors and characters get older over a 20-year period. Problems no doubt in each film. In each of the films, a sport is highlighted that the Young Ace excels in - in this one football; in others swimming, martial arts, skiing, surfing, tennis etc. Quite the guy the Young Ace is!



Yūzō Kayama was the son of film star Ken Uehara and actress Yoko Kozakura. Besides this film series, he was a popular singer and appeared in a number of other Toho films of note such as Sanjuro, Red Beard and Sword of Doom. A few weeks ago, I watched him in Come Marry Me directed by Ishirō Honda. The rat faced Kunie Tanaka - thus explaining his nickname in the film as Aodaisho - Rat Snake - had a lengthy career in many classic films - The Bad Sleep Well, Sanjuro, The Sword of Doom and a number of the Battles Without Honor and Humanity. Yuriko Hoshi was in about 90-films - a few Kaiju films - Ghidorah, Mothra vs Godzilla.



This film is slight but very enjoyable. It combines Andy Hardy with the English Invasion films of the 1960s. Very innocent and sweet with a few good songs. Young Ace is the Captain of the football team at college much to the chagrin of Snake who tried to bribe players to vote for him. Nothing much bothers Young Ace - his charming smile and good looks is his acting entre. He also plays the electric guitar and when the Soba delivery guy shows up, says to him, give it a go. And lo and behold, Mr. Soba is driving out riffs in no time. That is because he is played by Takashi Terauchi, a famous guitarist in Japan during the 1960s and 70s. When the band plays in the nightclub, that is his real-life band, The Blue Jeans. They enter the Electric Showdown against other electric guitar bands - one being the girl group The Ivys - who later are the cheerleaders at the football game - and a band with Beatle haircuts. A little drama - his father's restaurant goes under, he falls for Yuriko but she thinks he will marry the rich girl to save his father and of course the big football game when they are down 23-0 before Young Ace shows up. I will leave it to your imagination as to how that ends. No idea how many in this film series are available with subs but it was fun.  I could go for a few more.