The Crimson Kimono
Tags: cult, suspenseful, neo noir, murder, violence

Plot synopsis:
A stripper runs out onto a Los Angeles street in the Little Tokyo district, in a state of undress, mortally wounded by a gunshot. Police detectives Joe Kojaku and Charlie Bancroft, partners and bachelors who share an apartment, are assigned to the case. They find portraits of the stripper, known as Sugar Torch, dressed in a kimono as a geisha, apparently preparing a Japanese-themed act.
The cops search for a man who had been helping the stripper with her act. They interview a student artist, Christine Downes, who draws a sketch of the man for them, and Charlie develops a romantic attraction to her. They meet a man named Hansel who did the portrait of the dead woman and a wigmaker, Roma, who provided the wig for the stage act.
Joe worries for Christine's safety, that her sketch could result in the killer coming after her. He, too, begins to fall for Chris, and the interest is mutual. Charlie's facial reaction makes Joe believe that he resents the multi-racial nature of the relationship. Joe aggressively attacks Charlie during a martial-arts competition, then decides to quit the force, disillusioned after having felt for so long that his partner was free of this kind of racial bias. Charlie confronts Joe, telling him that the look he saw on his face was a flash of hatred for the envy and betrayal he felt towards Joe and his relationship with Chris, and was not racism. Joe doesn't believe him.
A shot is taken at Christine, and it is assumed Hansel is the man behind the killings. It instead turns out to be Roma, who considered the stripper a threat to her relationship with Hansel because of a look that Hansel gave Sugar Torch. Joe relates this to Charlie, and realizes that just as Roma saw what she wanted in Hansel's face, Joe projected his own struggles with racism onto Charlie. Joe asks Charlie if they can still be partners, and Charlie tells him no, that he will always have bad feelings about Joe and Chris. The movie ends with Joe and Chris embracing.

Review: It's got a sharp cast of professionals, with Glenn Corbett and James Shigetta as the leads playing Detective partners who are investigating a case that somehow leads to a sort of love triangle with a witness Victoria Shaw.
And Fuller is able to make the film quite entertaining with at least a few memorable moments almost in spite of the low-budget of things.The opening sequence is, naturally for Fuller, part of the excitement and close-to-exploitation B-movie-ness of it all, as a stripper gets gunned down running away from her dressing room.
All through this Fuller pumps up the melodrama with well-shot action (the big Korean guy getting tackled down by the detectives was maybe my favorite scene on a shamelessly enjoyable level) and enough of a kind of mix of psychology and sociology in this cross section of Japan and America.
It's probably a tough find for most, and of course even rarer to get on the big-screen depending on where you're at, but it might be one of Fuller's better 'quickie' kind of movies where its 80 minute running time does just enough to make it very worthwhile in not overstaying its welcome.
The story follows two detective buddies Charlie Bancroft (Glenn Corbett) and Japanese-American Joe Kojaku (James Shigeta) as they investigate a murder case, and they came upon Christine Downs (Victoria Shaw), a beautiful painter with whom both men fall in love.
Painters and painting - imagemaking - plays a key role in the film.The Japanese - American (Nisei) detective Joe attempts to bridge the gap that exists between himself and Christine through a tongue-tied analysis of what is missing in her canvas - what is visible by its absence.
Very provocative movie, for the time that it was released in 1959, about a love triangle between two L.A detectives, one white and the other Japanese/American.
With Detctives Charles Bancroft & Joe Kojaku,Glenn Corbett & James Shigeta, put on the case they find in Sugar Torch's dressing room a painting of a her in a crimson kimono.
Detectives Charlie Bancroft and Joe Kojaku investigate the only leads they have  the new men in Sugar's life who were to be involved in her new act, embracing teasing, karate and doomed love.
As writer Fuller mixes the various aspects really well while also producing a bit of cultural significance in the way that the Asian-American thing is merely a trimming and not the whole show.Overall then a solid film that blends mystery, love, grit and conflict into one story.
What makes the movie both appealing and problematic is that Fuller demotes the thriller material to second-billing, while he develops a provocative rhapsody on a white-Asian love-vs.-friendship triangle centering on the buddies' both falling in love with the same witness (Victoria Shaw).
I first saw this film on television really, really late one night...At first glance it is a crime melodrama involving downtown Los Angeles, jealouys lovers and strippers...However what Fuller has done is show a member of the urban sprawl that is Los Angeles that is rarely seen on film...that of the role of the Japanese-American in society and that alone makes it worth seeing the film...However does anybody know if the film is available on any format?
Plot is about two L.A. cops, Joe Kojaku (Shigeta) & Charlie Bancroft (Corbett), deep friends of a different race, bonded by blood who met during the Korean War. When stripper Sugar Torch (Gloria Pall) is shot and killed, the two men's investigation sees them follow a painting to the artist who painted it, Christine Downes (Shaw).
It's the start of a love triangle that could have far reaching consequences for not only the investigation, but also Joe, Charlie & Christine.1959 saw the release of Douglas Sirk's Imitation of Life, a much talked about movie, that whilst splitting the critics down the middle, was none the less the fourth biggest earner at the box office that year.
The Crimson Kimono is far from being Fuller's best work, but it is unmistakably a Fuller movie, and one that is a must see for those of a noir/hard-boiled persuasion.Fuller has managed to put a murder mystery at the core of his film and wrap around it a tale of inter-racial tolerance, jealousy and sexual confusion: set deliciously to the backdrops of an urban part of L.A. and the more cosmopolitan Little Tokyo.
It's thoughtful film making, the camera puts us in with the story and no scene is wasted, it's all relative, particularly as tensions start to rise between the two best friends and the case starts to unfold.The principal actors are not big names, but all are very credible, and the lack of star power actually benefits the piece by keeping the narrative grounded.
Sam Fuller directed "The Crimson Kimono," starring Glenn Corbett, James Shigeta, Victoria Shaw and Anna Lee, and this 1959 film is not your usual detective noir.
Corbett and Shigeta are Charlie Bancroft and Joe Kojaku, buddies from the Korean war and now partners in the LA Police Department, who investigate the death of a stripper.
In the course of that investigation, they meet a beautiful artist (Shaw) and both men fall for her; she in turn falls for the gentle and intelligent Joe. This tests the relationship of the two men, and when Joe sees Charlie's reaction, he assumes it comes from Charlie's latent racism.This is an odd film, not as good or as well done as Fuller's Pickup on South Street, but good nonetheless.
Anna Lee is on hand giving a vigorous performance as an alcoholic artist; the late Victoria Shaw is beautiful but doesn't register much as Chris, the love interest of both men.There are a couple of problems with this ambitious script, one being Joe's claim that he had never experienced racism.
Ostensibly a murder mystery but more a romantic drama with strong social overtones, "The Crimson Kimono" comes armed with noble intentions and the stylistic panache you associate with director- writer Samuel Fuller, but not much in the way of a story.A stripper named Sugar Torch is gunned down one night on a busy Los Angeles street.
Detective Sgt. Charlie Bancroft (Glenn Corbett) and his partner Joe Kojaku (James Shigeta) develop a lead with the help of a young artist named Chris (Victoria Shaw).
Both men also develop strong feelings for Chris, which leads to sparks and considerable misunderstandings after she makes her decision.In a DVD doc that comes with this movie, director Curtis Hanson notes that this "fits in no genre except the Sam Fuller genre," which is a great description.
The killing doesn't really make sense, either as it goes down or when you think about it after the movie is over, but it makes an impression, which is why Fuller was Fuller.The problem of the murder isn't only its incoherence, but the way it is swept under the rug so soon in favor of a social-issues drama which ostensibly deals with racism but is really about a guy his partner correctly describes at one point as a "meathead." At one point, we hear Bancroft even say "Nobody cares who killed that tramp," which is a heckuva line from a homicide detective except it fits with the mood of the film.Corbett and Shigeta make for a sturdy pair in their film debuts, so much so we care more about their issues as the story develops than we do about any progress they make on the case.
But he does, because it's that kind of movie.Fuller fans will appreciate the film's dynamics at play, the way he challenges the audience by setting up a potential romance between Bancroft and Chris and then pushing the race buttons once he's got you thinking you're all assimilated.
Fuller did like to complicate racial issues in his movies, but the curves that worked so well in "Shock Corridor" kind of flop here.Sam Leavitt's cinematography captures a somewhat hallucinatory Los Angeles at night, with smoky nimbi hanging over characters as they prowl lonely alleyways and pool halls.
The film follows two detectives in L.A., Glenn Corbett and James Shigeta, who are investigating the case of a slain stripper.
Too late, he is successful, and so begins a film noir with two detectives Charlie (Glenn Corbett) and Joe (James Shigeta - Takagi in Die Hard) in hot pursuit.
Both Corbett and Shigeta made their acting debuts in this film.This is Fuller in his prime, and it makes for an exciting detective story, mixing Japanese and Korean cultures and customs in Los Angeles in the period.Anna Lee, who played Lila Quartermaine on "General Hospital" and "Port Charles," really stole the show when she appeared on screen.In the midst of the investigation, both detectives fall in love with the same woman (Victoria Shaw).
Crimson Kimono, The (1959) *** (out of 4) Extremely impressive drama about two detectives, one American (Glenn Corbett) and the other Japanese (James Shigeta), who start an investigation to a stripper's death but the only lead happens to be a woman (Victoria Shaw) who painted a portrait of the dead woman.
"The Crimson Kimono" (1959), directed by "cult" filmmaker Samuel Fuller, comes from the tail end of the film noir period; a year later it would have been classed as a neo-noir.
As it is, it's an excellent little thriller, well acted and bolstered by a particularly good script, courtesy of Fuller himself.This screenplay is also among the oddest in the dark world of noir: after an exhilarating opening scene detailing the killing of burlesque queen Sugar Torch, the story of the hunting down of the murder takes a backseat to a (for then) ground breaking inter-racial love triangle, with American LAPD cop Charlie Bancroft (Glenn Corbett) and Japanese LAPD Detective (James Shigeta) falling for Christine Downes (Victoria Shaw).
Also, I will never buy into the movie habit which sees so many people fall seriously in love in a few hours of real time.The cinematography works well in black and white and delivers a good feel.
Favorite movie quote - "Because you're a meat-head, that's how!" As is the case here with The Crimson Kimono (TCK for short), there are just some Crime/Thrillers out there (especially from the 1950s) that are so hilariously bad that, yes, they're almost good.From its cheap, lurid sleaziness, to its truly terrible violence, to its pure brain-dead dialogue, to its absolutely amateurish direction (courtesy of Samuel Fuller), this film was a literal laugh-riot of some of the most outrageous examples of second-rate movie-making that I've seen in a mighty long time.I mean, things got so downright wacky in TCK's story that during Homicide's investigation into stripper, Sugar Torch's dumbfounding murder, handsome Detective Bancroft actually flashed a photo of the suspected killer to potential witnesses while holding said picture upside-down.
Two police detectives, Glenn Corbett and James Shigeta are sent in to investigate this murder in the Japanese section of Los Angeles.
It's even MORE so when someone tries to shoot the artist ("Chris") next--though HOW the killer could have missed when he shot at her is beyond me.Now I noticed that some call this movie an example of Film Noir.
And, it turns out that the motivation for the killing early in the film is related, in a way, with Shigeta's struggle.Overall, despite a very rough beginning and it being incorrectly labeled 'Noir', the movie turned out to be pretty good and daring for its interracial love story.
Glenn Corbett and James Shigeta are a pair of LAPD homicide detectives on the trail of a murderer who shot stripper Gloria Pall right in the middle of the street after running her down.This film is set in the art world, art of many kinds and a key witness played by Victoria Shaw is an artist who gives a better than normal police sketch of a man who was associated with Pall.
The acting is a touch wooden but the dynamic between detectives played by Glenn Corbett and James Shigeta is filled with unexpected twists and questions about perception that Fuller blends firmly into the mix.Stripper Sugar Torch is gunned down in uniform on the streets of LA by an unknown assailant.
If You have been Caught Unawares of Writer/Director/Producer Sam Fuller, a B-Movie Maverick from the "Silver Age" of the Hollywood "Studio System", Get with it Soldier.Highly Influential, Unbridled (as much as anyone could be at the time), a Man's Man but Sensitive, Sympathetic, and more than Aware of the Foibles of the Human Condition, Fuller could and did, make Movies that were Socially Conscious, Entertaining, and Enlightening on Shoe-String Budgets and was Constantly At Odds with the Tinseltown Establishment.The Cigar Chomping Creator is Attempting to Heal Japanese/American Relations Single-Handedly in this Unequaled Film.In His always Less than Subtle Style, Fuller Unleashed this "In Your Face" Reverse Racism Movie about a Japanese Cop (how many of those were on screen during and the years following WWII?...answer Zero) who Falls In Love Returned with an American "Dame".James Shigeta is the Actor and Victoria Shaw is the Girl.
Both give Outstanding Performances in this Far From the Main Stream Movie.The Film Feels like a Grind-House Girlie Flick in the Beginning as "Sugar Torch" (Gloria Pall) is Chased from a Strip Club into the Night on a Busy L.A. Street Half-Naked, is Murdered, Gun Downed by Her Stalker and the Noirish Aspects Begin.The Film can Comfortably be Labeled Film-Noir because of its Characters, Subject Matter, and Overall Seediness.
Samuel fuller made a fabulous opening scene, just 3 minutes and 25 seconds to see the flaming Sugar Torch until she dying in the middle of Main Street, just it legetimize the picture, the top billing casting works with promissing actors that never reachs as star, Glenn Corbett ,James Shigeta and the dubious Victoria Shaw who implied for both friends a slight dual meaning of love interest, caught by them the love triangle they becames an angry and jealous, a minor picture from the master who already made best movie like this, even so charming and daring to touch in a multiracial thorny matter, how Fuller was a standalone filmaker, he did it without any kind of encroachment!!!Resume:First watc: 2018 / How many: 1 / Source: DVD / Rating: 7.5.
Against Hollywood's mainstream value, Samuel Fuller's vintage L.A. murder mystery gallantly sets off a love triangle where a Caucasian woman falls for an Asian man in lieu of the latter's Caucasian friend, but the nisei has his own battle to fight, concerning the congenital racial bias stigmatized Japanese-American in the wake of WWII.
Yes, first of all, there is a murder, a burlesque stripper Sugar Torch (Pall) is gunned down on the main street in the Little Tokyo district, and two detectives Joe Kojaku (Shigeta) and Charlie Bancroft (Corbett) are investigating the case, they are Korean war veterans and best friends, even sharing a snug apartment, their police procedural pans out a bit languorously, but Fuller profiles the enclave's ethnographic traits with a wandering eye, while the meat of the story is concerned with a key witness, Christine "Chris" Downes (Shaw), who paints the portrait of Sugar Torch dressed in a crimson kimono for the preparation of a Japanese-themed act (one can only imagine what technicolor would do justice to the chromatic appeal here).
When her own life is in peril after drawing an identikit of the possible killer, Joe and Charlie invite Chris to stay in their apartment, naturally both bachelors become besotted with her, but it is the interracial romance gains an upper hand (Joe is the more refined, sensitive and art-savvy one), which leaves Joe clammed up in a state of guilt of betraying his best friend, as he knows Charlie reckons Chris as the girl of his dreams, and when the truth finally comes out, Joe's inborn inferiority complex reaches a boiling point, moreover, let's not forget a heartless killer is still at large (although a whodunit's allure has seismically eclipsed by a torrid love triangle at that stage), and Fuller fabricates an analogous tie-in between the killer and Joe, which rounds off the story adequately during the annal Japanese pageant in the Little Tokyo.A fly in the ointment is that Fuller insensitively shoves the moral ambiguity to Chris, being the one who is courted by both men, she doesn't refuse Charlie's advance in the first place and acquits herself as if she has no qualm of reciprocating Joe's feelings, then, even egregiously acts oblivious of the fact that it is her deeds drive a wedge between them, and isn't it up to her to clear the air?
The murder investigation becomes secondary as the film focuses on the love triangle between the two cops and an artist, played by beautiful Australian actress Shaw.
Fuller had a tendency to tackle social issues in his films and here it is the interracial romance between Japanese Shigeta and Shaw.
A pair of detectives, Charlie Bancroft and Joe Kojaku (also very close friends) are called in to investigate and during their investigation, they come across a female painter that turns out to be a key witness in the case; and Charlie falls instantly in love.
However, we don't know what the Sam Hill is going on, and we have to sit through some mushy outdated style love triangle, wondering if the two detectives ever go to work, or if they are paid to romance a girl, like she's the only girl in L.A.It's handled pretty well, and like I said, Fuller is a crafty director with visuals.
Sam Fuller is one of the few directors who improves when one sees his movies several times.
Not that many - just look at the number of film flops each year.THE CRIMSON KIMONO starts off with stripper Sugar Torch (Gloria Pall) doing her normal act in some shabby theater on Main Street in Los Angeles.
Both set the mood of the film quite well.The death of the strip tease star brings two L.A. Detectives on the case: Sgt. Charlie Bancroft (Glenn Corbett) and Joe Kojaku (James Shigeta).
The film quickly vegetates into a dull drama though, as we follow the two detectives assigned to investigate the case.Sugar Torch was working on a new act called 'The Crimson Kimono' and the trail leads to a female artist who did a promotional painting of Sugar just before her death.