Torajirō Saitō

**Torajirō Saitō** (斎藤 寅次郎, Saitō Torajirō, January 30, 1905 – May 1, 1982) was a Japanese film director known for his comedy films. Born in Akita Prefecture, he entered Shōchiku's Kamata studio in 1922 and debuted as a director in 1926. He later worked at the Shintoho and Toho studios. He became known as the "god of comedy" for directing over 200 films, many of which were nonsense comedies featuring famous clowns such as Ken'ichi Enomoto, Roppa Furukawa, and Junzaburo Ban. His wife Tomoko Naniwa is an actress who was also a in her husband's comedy movies. In 1972, her stage name was changed to her real maiden name, Tomoko Saito.

## Biography & Career

Born on January 30, 1905 in the town of Yashima of the Yuri District, Akita Prefecture (currently Yurihonjo). His father Koichiro served as a income earner for the government office. He was the second son of eight brothers. When he was a kid, Torajirō was interested about photography that was introduced at his school. In 1919, he moved to Tokyo just before graduating from his upper grades of the Yajima Elementary School and became a shosei who lived in a clinic run by his uncle. However, he was kicked out due to his mischievous personality and then went to the Meiji Pharmaceutical School while working at the Kobayashi Clinic in Asakusa. The Asakusa Park 6 Ward was right next to him, so he began studying photography again.

In 1920, Torajirō applied as a projectionist in an advertising department of Hoshi Pharmaceutical and joined the company. He went around for two years as a camera operator at Makino Production under director Masahiro Makino. Eventually, Torajirō, who grew tired of working asa projectionist and wanted to become a filmmaker, left the company during his trip in Nagasaki. To save on travel expenses, he participated in the Nagasaki-Tokyo Marathon, that was held at that time and returned to Tokyo.

In 1923, Torajirō joined the Shōchiku's Kamata studio with the introduction of his relative and artist Kazo Saito (a lecturer at the Ueno Art School and also the director of the art department at the Matsutake Kamata Photo Studio). He served as an assistant director under the supervision of Tadamoto Ōkubo. On September 1, the studio was damaged during the Great Kanto earthquake, and it was transferred to Kyoto, but Torajirō remained in Kamata as an absence worker. At that time, Shiro Kido became the deputy director of Kamata (a former assistant director for Hotei Nomura who had just moved to Kyoto) and Torajirō served as an assistant director for his film "11:58 Minutes" (directed by Yasujiro Shimazu).

After that, the Kamata Photo Studio has been reestablished, and Kido was officially appointed as the studio director. Torajirō moves to Matsutake Kyoto Studio with Okubo and Hiroshi Shimizu. At that time, he returned to Akita for military inspection of the Imperial Japanese Army, but he has not been enlisted as a volunteer cadet. Later, Torajirō returned to Kamata due to Kyoto Studio began shutting down their film projects.

In 1926, after working for Okubo, he was finally promoted to the director. His debut film was "Kogoro Katsura and Ikumatsu". For a while after his debut, he directed historical and drama films. In 1927, Torajirō directed his first comedy work was a short film called "Conquering the Recession" in collaboration with Hiroshi Shimizu. The following year, in 1928, he independently directed his every comedy movie "The Fast Set" (a Japanese verion of William C. deMille's original film of the same name). Since then, he has worked on many nonsense comedies pioneered by Kido and became a leading figure at the studio. In particular, his two other films he directed it, "Kodakara Sodo" and "Konokô sutezarebâ" in 1935 became his materpiece in filmmaking, and the latter is ranked in the Kinema Junpo Award for Best Film of the Year, which is rare for a short comedy.

In 1937, Kido became the studio president. Torajirō was the only person who did not understand the work of comedy, so he was transferred to Toho, where he was consulted. His most well known comedy films such as "Enoken no hôkaibô" (starring Ken'ichi Enomoto), "Roppa no Ôkubo Hikozaemon" (starring Roppa Furukawa), and two "Mito Komon Manyuuki films (Mito Komon Manyuuki Tokaido no Maki & Mito Komon Manyuuki Nihonbare no Maki)" (starring the Two Gentleman of Entatsu Yokoyama and Achako Hanabishi), became of big hit with popular comedians. In 1945, Torajirō directed Five Tokyo Men, which became a perfect masterpiece that made Entatsu Achako and Roppa Furukawa. After the Second World War, he began to directed movies at Shintoho in the aftermath of the Toho dispute. He also shot many comedy films at Toei and Daiei.

In 1962, he made his final film "Ôwarai Jiro chô ikka: Sanshita nitei kenjû" because he suffered from the gallstones and cause him to retired from the film industry. In his later years, Torajirō became a hobby marathon and participated in a marathon competitions all over Japan and around the world. Torajirō died of liver cirrhosis on May 1, 1982 at the age of 77. He was awarded the Order of the Sacred Treasure.

Most of his films from either Shochiku or Toho was not founded since it was destroyed during the Allied bombing raid of Japan. The only film that still exists is "Ishikawa goemon no hoji" discovered in 1997. His three movies, "Modern kaidan: 100,000,000 yen", "Dawning Sky", and "Kodakara Sodo" were discovered in 2004 (now displayed at the National Film Archive of Japan and Matsuda Film Productions).

## Filmmaking Styles

The style of his films and shorts is usually slapstick comedy, a humor involving exaggerated physical activity that exceeds the boundaries of normal physical comedy and may involve both intentional violence and violence by mishap, often resulting from inept use of props such as saws and ladders. During the Kamata era, he was a master of nonsense comedy, and even after transferring to Toho, he continued to direct more than 200 comedy film throughout his life as a master of comedy.

The content of his work is also like a slapstick drama, and taken inspiration from a 1914 American short comedy called "A Film Johnnie", a story about Charles Chaplin watching a ninjutsu movie starring Matsunosuke Onoe and imitating it. Torajirō directed a short film called "They All Have Mental Problems" is a story about everything becoming messy, and in "If You Throw Away This Child" is a story about a man who picks up abandoned children every day.

In addition, many of them are based on news and events that became a hot topic at the time, and "Entotsu otoko" is modeled after the Entotsuotoko Incident (煙突男事件, *Chimney Incident*), which was popular at the time where a worker named Kiyoshi Tanabe accidentally fall to his death in a chimney while cleaning at the power plants. Many of them are based on Chaplin's work, and a film called "Why Charlie Cry" is also made, which causes various uproars when Charlie Chaplin comes to Japan for a visit.

Film and stage actor Shigeru Ogura, who starred his imitation as Chaplin, was called the "Japanese Charlie Chaplin." During his time at the Shochiku Kamata studio, Atsushi Watanabe, including Ogura, child actor Tomio Aoki, rush kid Bakudan Kozo, stage dancer Tomoko Naniwa, his wife Tomoko Naniwa, and character actress Yaeko Izumo were appointed to featured in films. After transferring to Toho, many performers such has Ken'ichi "Enoken" Enomoto, Roppa Furukawa, Entatsu Achako, Kingorō Yanagiya, Yoshio Kawada, Minoru Takase, Nijiko Kiyokawa, Yoshio Tabata and others have been appointed. It was also Torajiro who directed Hibari Misora's first feature film "Nodo jimankyō jidai" and Junzaburo Ban's film debut in "Domoshichi Torimonocho: Ichiban Tegara".