Release date: March 3, 1959
Director: Toshio Sugie
Studio: Toho
Cast: Reiko Dan, Sonomi Nakajima, Noriko Shigeyama, Akira Takarada, Akira Kubo, Yoko Tsukasa, Yosuke Natsuki, Tatsuyoshi Ehara, Akihiko Hirata et al.
Availability: 35mm English-subtitled print held at BAMFA. VHS release and infrequent television broadcasts/theater screenings. Now available on archive.org.
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Remember when I said at the end of my "Rainbowman in Hawai'i" post that this had a VHS release and that I had saved searches for it? And, to my friends in real life, remember when I swore I would get my hands on it if it ever came up for sale again? Well... I did, and it wasn't cheap.
Some background information: The Onee-chan ("Sisters") series were films starring Reiko Dan, Sonomi Nakajima, and Noriko Shigeyama as a trio of girl friends nicknamed Punch, Pinch, and Sench (this sounds better in the Japanese pronunciation, trust me). These films were made in the late 1950s and were part of a trend of movies that depicted spunky young people doing spunky young people things. Eight films were made in total from 1959 to 1963; 3 Dolls in College was the first of them. This film is of further interest because apparently it was the first Japanese film to be fully dubbed into English. I find this hard to believe and am still searching for anything that would refute it, simply because it seems unlikely to me that such an obscure, forgotten film would lay claim to that fairly distinguished title, but it does seem to be the case. In any event, this Neocities page has more information on the film's stateside release, and in the interest of keeping this intro short since this post will be image-heavy, I'll leave you that instead of explaining it myself.
In March I started to write about this movie but ultimately abandoned and never published it because there was just not enough information out there (especially about Hirata's role in the film) to fill out an interesting post. But, as I said, I did learn that there was a home media release, and began watching carefully to see if it would come up for sale. As it turns out, I only had to wait three months, and now we can all experience this one for ourselves.
The picture quality is... not very nice. At all. Which is ironic, considering the actual tape arrived in such pristine quality it looked like it had been manufactured yesterday, and the seller even opened it up to put some bubble wrap between the tape and the case to keep it from jostling around.
Shigeko (Shigeyama), Mitsuko (Nakajima) and Toshiko (Dan) are students in French at Nichinan University. The opening scene sees them all in French class falling asleep and not concentrating; they're dressed anime protagonist-style, in bright colors that distinguish them from the drab clothes and uniforms of all the other students.
Their three nicknames don't seem to be fully developed yet; Dan's character is called "Tonch" in this first film and neither of the other two are referred to with anything but their real names. Mitsuko borrows some money from Toshiko so she can go on a date, and in return Mitsuko lends Toshiko her great big fur coat. Rumiko Sasa, who I liked in University Bandits, plays Mitsuko's younger sister Sumiko.
Toshiko in turn lends the coat to Kiriko (Toki Shiozawa), a waitress at a club. This will turn out to have been a bad idea, but 2,000 yen is 2,000 yen. (I mean, not today it ain't.) Kiriko's important because she's got a yakuza boyfriend and that yakuza boyfriend is Hirata's character Iwafune. So now we've got Mitsuko, Shigeko, Kiriko, Iwafune and Mitsuko's date Hitamaro (played by Haruya Katō, who I am also quite fond of) in the same club together. Mitsuko literally bumps into Kiriko while her and boyfie are jitterbugging.
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| Shigeyama was a professional dancer in real life and she's really talented, so it's nice to see her show off. |
I am having just the worst time taking screenshots of this thing because the motion blur on this old VHS is so bad. I'm not even getting great screenshots of Hirata since he's wearing his yakuza shades most of the time. He's also slapping somebody every few seconds. He's in full-on bad boy mode here, I don't think I've ever seen him play this archetype except perhaps in some of the Ankokugai films.
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| Aww, not his other eye. |
Mitsuko and Kiriko get into a fight that everybody else gets dragged into. Akira Kubo's character Ōkubo (yeah) happens to be passing by and intervenes. Ōkubo and Iwafune get into a brawl and the police arrive. Officer Ichirō Arashima interviews the involved parties about the loan of the coat, who punched who, who's a student where, and whatnot, but not too much seems to come of it. Next we see the three dolls they're cheating in French class.
Shigeko swallows the evidence but it's too late, they all get caught and are expelled from the class, meanwhile master cheater Maehara (Tatsuyoshi Ehara) in the seat behind them was a much cooler cat about it. Maehara is a classmate of the three friends and is involved with real estate, and as we will see later, he not only cheats on tests but is a scammer as well. Each of the girls will eventually gain a boyfriend along the way, and at around the thirty-minute mark these relationships have begun to gel: Ōkubo with Mitsuko, Yosuke Natsuki's character "Lucky" Nakagi with Shigeko, and Maehara with Toshiko/Tonch.
The girls' next scheme is to ply their French teacher with alcohol so he won't fail them all out of his class. They go to his home in Kamakura, but they are greeted by noted ikemen Akira Takarada's character Takada (...yeah), who explains that the teacher is ill with a heart issue. They offer their alcohol as planned but the teacher rejects it, since he's sick, and Takada returns it to the girls. They decide to go to a Hinamatsuri party instead.
Sonomi Nakajima sings the film's theme song and I would not have guessed she had a set of pipes on her. She has the squeakiest speaking voice you've ever heard, but in real life, she was a professional singer. Mitsuko and Ōkubo dance for a bit at the party but he ditches her to go eat tiny sandwiches.
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| There's also this weird-looking dog. |
It is at this party that Maehara gets Toshiko to agree to a shady real estate contract while she's a little drunk. The party spills over into the same club where everybody got into a wee tiff earlier and Shigeko finds her boyfriend with another girl. Ōkubo is kind of the only honest guy here, but like, he also got so hungry at the party that he ate dog food (and this after the tiny sandwiches!), so I think he's a bit on the himbo side.
All three girls have decided at this point to drop out of school. They're demotivated and, except for Mitsuko and Ōkubo, are having boyfriend trouble. But when Takada turns up as the substitute French teacher, they forget all about their plans to quit. How could anyone maintain their resolve to drop out of college while sitting in a class where Akira Takarada is singing chansons?
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| Girls go to college to get more knowledge, yes, but also to ogle Akira Takarada. |
Unfortunately, there's one of him and three of them. Each of the girls thinks they're being sneaky by going over to visit him, but they all run into each other at his house, and have all bought him the same necktie. While waiting for Takada to come home they have a boob size competition; I did not take screenshots of this. Alas, as it turns out, Takada has a fiance named Michiko (Yoko Tsukasa). Michiko also bought him the same necktie.
Then the movie wraps up pretty abruptly. Despite the relationship and money issues, the film concludes on a high note, at a party for the previous French teacher with all the girls and their boyfriends in attendance, plus Takada and his fiance. Ōkubo has won the boxing championship and is wasshoi'd in on the shoulders of every oheya actor Toho could muster. Nakajima sings us out with "Ginza Burabura", an incredibly bouncy song about being a young lady strolling around Ginza, with a melody that reminds me of "Frosty the Snowman" for some reason.
I gotta admit I found this one a bit boring around the edges, probably because I expected it to be a straight comedy and it's not, it's mostly a drama with three spunky main characters who get into typical modern young woman situations (or what was imagined to be such in the 1950s). It's another walk-on role for Hirata, but the Nakajima/Dan/Shigeyama trio is great here. I can only imagine that they get better as the series goes on, but unfortunately the other films are very obscure as well.
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