USA WESTERN AND JAPANESE SAMURAI MOVIES

In my youth, the Woody Woodpecker Club had Saturday morning shows in the Kewalo Theater of Kakaako in Honolulu.  Then again, my mind is faulty, could have been a matinee.  It started with previews, a newsreel, cartoons, a serial (around 15 chapters, one per week), then a war, Tarzen or cowboy film.  Sometimes two.  Somewhere during that period there were audience participation contests.  Cost?  I think 12 cents.  A drink and popcorn cost an extra 15 cents or so.  Today, a typical movie outing would set you back $20/person, and more.

I particularly remember cowboy chapters that captured our attention and kept us hanging to the next week.  Remember Donald Barry de Acosta.?  Of course not, because he was Red Ryder.  Or Charles Starrett Better (Durango Kid), William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy), Harold Smith (who became Jay Silverheels, who played Tonto), Renaldo Duncan (Cisco Kid, left)...Jack Moore (The Lone Ranger)?

So tried to find a list of best actors in westerns, and found one by Slash Films of the top 20 actors:

• #1    Clint Eastwood
• #2    John Wayne
• #3    Gary Cooper
• #4    James Stewart
• #5    Yul Brynner
• #10  Marlon Brando

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  #14  Paul Newman
• #16  Buster Keaton
• #18  Alan Ladd
• #20  Ed Harris
• Not one from my above list.

Okay, what about the the 50 greatest western movies ever made?  That article tells you where they can be streamed.

• #1    The Searchers (1956), Rotten Tomatoes 94/88, John Wayne, Natalie Wood.
• #2    The Unforgiven (1992), RT 60/60, Burt Lancaster, Audrey Hepburn, Audie Murphy.

• #3    Once Upon a Time in the West (1968), RT 96/95...wow, Charles Bronson, Henry Fonda, Claudia Cardinale, Jason Robards.

• #4    Stagecoach (1939), RT 100/86, John Wayne, Claire Trevor, John Carradine.

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  I can go on and on, but here are a few highlights.
• #7    The Wild Bunch (1969).
• #13  Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kit (1969).
• #17  High Noon (1952).
• #26  True Grit (2020).
• #36  The Magnificent Seven (1960)

American has a colorful history of cowboys and gunslingers.  

• One top ten outlaw list shows Jesse James at #1, Billy the Kid at #2, Butch Cassidy #3 and Harry Longbaugh (Sundance Kid) #4.  
• #6 was Belle Starr.  Jesse James used her family's home as a hideout.  That is her above when she was arrested by a team of U.S. marshals.  

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  #9 was Etta Place (below, a real photo of her with the Sundance Kid), a member of Butch Cassidy's Wild Bunch.  Did you know that one story has her with Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid when they were all killed in Bolivia?  By the way, this is Butch Cassidy to the right.

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  Coincidentally, I just finished watching the 1969 film, The Wild Bunch, with William Holden and a whole host of stars.  I'm giving the story away, but Robert Ryan is the only one who survives.  Such graphic violence you don't see in films today, even on streaming channels.  Rotten Tomatoes bestowed 91/90 scores.    By the way, another film of the same year, Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, with Paul Newman and Robert Redford, got RT ratings of 89/92.  Katherine Ross played Etta Place.

Cowboy characters and samurai warriors came around the same time in history.  In America:

• Vaqueros went to America from Spain in the 1500s.  The first known was Hernan Cortes, a Moorish slave, who arrived in 1519.
• Here is an 1857 photo of Buffalo Bill Cody (seating on the right) with Wild Bill Hickok (on the left).  Standing is a famous cowboy of his time, Texas Jack Omohundro.

For Japan, I start with women samurai.  There is a vague family rumor that one grandmother of my father's father, Kenjiro Takahashi, might have been a female samurai.  Here is a two-part search I made on Hokkaido in 2009:  Part 1 and Part 2.  That led to another roots journey the following year, for it turned out that that Kenjiro's parents had left Akita, and he was born in Otaru.  In Akita I found the gravestone of a kin.  Would like to return someday for a more serious search.

So anyway, here are the Top 10 Women Samurai and Ninjas.  Some are anime characters, so this can't be a serious list.

• Tsukikage Ran
• Miho
• Tomoe Gozen
• There are seven more

Then there is the last great female samurai, Nakano Takeko. who was described as especially beautiful and quite a warrior.  This is a recreation of her photo.

10 facts about Japan's female samurai warriors.

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  One of the first was Empress Jingu in the years 169-269.  She led the invasion of Silla, the present-day Korea.
• Their main weapon was a naginata, a pole with a curved blade.
• Almost a millennium ago, Tomoe Gozen was a noted warrior.  She might have been the first true general of Japan.
• You can read the rest here.

Now to the guys, the samurai class arose in the 12th century and lasted until the 1870's when the Meiji Revolution abolished them.  The 14 greatest Japanese samurai of all-time.  This list was updated two days ago.

• #1    Miyamoto Musashi (1584-1645)
• #2    Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543-1616), who became a shogun
• #3    Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537-1598), with Ieyasu, they unified Japan
• #4    Oda Nobunaga (1534-1582)
• #14  Tomoe Gozen (1157-1247), mentioned above
• Read the rest here.

However, All About Japan has a different view, for this is their Top 12:

• #1    Oda Nobunaga
• #2    Tokugawa Ieyasu
• #3    Toyotomi Hideyoshi
• #6    Miyamoto Musashi
• #12  Tomoe Gozen

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  An interesting honorable mention is William Adams, the first Englishman to visit Japan, around 1600.  While he never fought in a battle, he was the inspiration for James Clavell's novel Shogun.

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  Wonderlist has another top 10, and they pretty much have it similar to All About Japan, with #1 Oda Nobunaga, #2 Toyotomi Hideyoshi, #3 Miyamoto Musashi and #7 Tokugawa Ieyasu.
• Other lists tend to have Oda Nobunaga at #1, so by acclamation, the top samurai in Japan is Oda Nobunaga.

That aside, what are the Top 10 Samurai Movies?  From Movie Web:

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  #1    Seven Samurai (1954)
• #2    Harakiri (1962)
• #3    Ran (1985)
• #4    Sanjuro (1962)
• #9    Yojimbo (1961)

From Flickside, the Top 20 Samurai Movies:

• #1    Seven Samurai
• #2    Harakiri
• #4    Yojimbo
• Beginning to look familiar

Screen Rant uses Rotten Tomatoes to select the top samurai movies, and, of course:

• 100%  Seven Samurai (1954), HBO Max
• 100%  Harakiri (1962), can purchase on Prime Video

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  100%  Sanjuro (1962), can purchase on Prime Video
• 100%  Samurai Rebellion (1967), Criterion Channel
• 100%  Lady Snowblood (1973), HBO Max

•  99%  The Twilight Samurai (2002)
• The list goes on.

No question that The Seven Samurai is the best samurai movie.  

The top samurai actors are:

• #1  Toshiro Mifune.     He passed away in 1997 at the age of 77.  Watch him in an interview.
• #2  Tatsuya Nakadai...and again.  He is now 90 years old.  Watch him comment on five masters.
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  #3  Shintaro Katsu, who is Zatoichi.  The Criterion has a boxset of 25 films, and #1 is Zatoichi Goes to the Fire Festival.
• Here is a list of the rest.

Of course, Akira Kurosawa was the master director.  A long message from Kurosawa.   Here are George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola on him.

I should have shown this yesterday.  Girl's Day in Japan, called Hinamatsuri.

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