[Sinister Saturdays] The Seven Faces Of Bannai Tarao, Private Eye

We had planned for 2020 a series of posts dedicated to the long-running mail-order company Sinister Cinema, in tribute to its founder, the legendary Greg Luce, who was considering retirement last year. Since 1984, Sinister Cinema has specialized in weird and wonderful genre films both domestic and imported. Second features from the golden age of cinema, Mexican and Japanese monsters, and Eurospies, are just some offerings from Sinister’s eclectic catalog. Many of these titles have been unseen on this hemisphere since the days of UHF. Were it not for the diligence of Sinister Cinema (sourcing perhaps the same film prints you originally saw at the drive-in or on late-night television) they would likely remain obscure. Those posts ended up not happening, but neither did Greg's retirement! Sinister Cinema is still active, even during a pandemic! 

As far as we're concerned, they've been performing a public service in rescuing these films from blurry memories. As a “thank you” to Greg, Sinister Saturdays is an ongoing series, sampling some of the wonderful discoveries found in the Sinister Cinema catalog. 

---

The Seven Faces Of Bannai Tarao, Private Eye
(Japan, 1956) 85 min B&W
Directors: Sadatsugu Matsuda, Tsuneo Kobayashi.

For crime genre fans, the appeal is not just the formula, but the different ingredients in the structure. Case in point: Japanese inspector Bannai Tarao can be added to the roster of unconventional policemen in cinema, with the novelty of investigating crimes under several disguises! Chiezō Kataoka played the character eleven times from 1946 to 1960. The first four Bannai Tarao films were produced at Daiei Studios, the remainder were from Toei, where Chiezō was a very popular star. This, the ninth in the series, is one of the few with English subtitles, so that Western viewers can sample this unusual character. As the title says, Bannai adopts seven different identities (including a magician, island millionaire, and -my favourite- an eye-patched taxi driver) to solve a series of crimes, including a botched bank robbery, and the murder-suicide of a shooter in a gang turf war, all attributed to the distribution of Colt 45 pistols being smuggled in! The deceased shooter's grieving nightclub singer girlfriend, along with his mother and sister, sister's boyfriend, and a compact, all figure somehow into this murder puzzle.

The film begins ostensibly as a somber police procedural, but soon reveals such pulpy ingredients as trap doors, and people who wilfully get in cars with strangers (if for no other reason than to advance the plot- but this is a pulp convention as well). Moats and alligators wouldn't have seemed out of place. Still, this is pretty potent for its time, with moments of strong (if not explicit) bursts of violence, like the matter-of-fact taxi explosion, and the memorably bizarre final shootout where a suit of armour becomes a shield. At the end, Bannai drives off into the mythical fog, before people even get a chance to thank him. 

Each of this film's two directors are showcased elsewhere in the Sinister catalog: Sadatsugu Matsuda's Foul Play (1955) is another Bannai Tarao film; Tsuneo Kobayashi's Four Hours Of Terror (1959) is a nifty airplane thriller. The Seven Faces Of Bannai Tarao, Private Eye is recommended for crime fans looking for something more than the usual procedural, and another worthy investigation into the seemingly endless wealth of international genre films.

Till next time...