醜聞 (aka Scandal) (1950)

An artist (Toshiro Mifune) meets a famous singer (Shirley Yamaguchi, who would later co-star in Fuller's HOUSE OF BAMBOO) while on vacation at a mountain spa. He gives her a lift on his motorcycle and they later share some tea in her room. That ordinarily would seem to be the end of it but a tabloid photographer takes a photo of them on her balcony and his magazine prints the photo along with a story insinuating they had a lovers rendezvous. Furious, Mifune files a libel suit against the magazine but unfortunately he hires a shyster of a lawyer (Takashi Shimura) of dubious legal ethics which compromises his case. Directed by master film maker Akira Kurosawa (RASHOMON), this is one of his lesser efforts. The premise is interesting, especially timely in this era of tabloid journalism. What should have been a hard hitting film on yellow journalism is instead filled with maudlin sentiment like an interminable Christmas Eve sequence in a bar with everyone sobbing out Auld Lang Syne or a young girl (Yoko Katsuragi) dying of tuberculosis which affects the outcome of the trial.