What In The World Was Italy Doing With "Saga of the Vagabonds"?

I swear to god someday I'm gonna turn up a poster for Secret of the Telegian that says "Thaddeo Nakamaru"

I'd like to thank this Letterboxd review for turning me on to this subject. Sometimes I read something online and immediately think "Oh yeah, that's gonna have a whole post written about it."

In 1959, Toho released Sengoku gunto-den, retitled for the English export market as Saga of the Vagabonds. The English title is fairly accurate to the original; a more literal translation could be "Sengoku Bandit Legend", or something like that. But I think Saga of the Vagabonds is just fine. However, when the film reached Italy in 1962, it was retitled Le scimitarre dei Mongoli, or "The Sword of the Mongols". 

So, first of all, yikes. Secondly: yikes. Third: I want to know more.

An Italian censorship visa was given to the film in March of 1962. (If you're wondering what a "censorship visa" is, it's this.) This preceded an official Italian theatrical release in August of that year. Thanks to a website archiving Italy's censorship decisions, we know that when the film was submitted to the censorship board, it was given approval. In practical terms, this means that the board viewed a dubbed version of the film and decided that it was fine for public viewing with no changes necessary. From other sources, I've been able to verify that the film was indeed shown in full, so nothing else was cut from the dub for reasons other than censorship, which is always nice.

Nino Cacace Cinematografica, the Italian distributor of the film - who I assume was responsible for the retitling - appears to only have had two other films credited to them: the Russian film Planet of Storms, which was retitled to The 7 Space Navigators, and the Yugoslavian film Signal Over the City, retitled Assault of the V Battalion. The company does not appear to have done anything other than import these three films.

Some of the lobby cards and posters are actually quite nice, but there's a few posters that I genuinely would not feel comfortable showing on here.

Although the film premiered in Palermo in 1962, it kinda hung around. My best source for the film's Italian half-life in the 1960s is a communist newspaper(!) that shows it having a robust existence as a third-run picture in May of 1963, playing at a total of five theaters: the Boito, the Corallo, the Doria, the Apollo and the Espero. I believe the Boito, Corallo, and Doria are still open, but the Apollo has long since been abandoned, and the Espero became a bingo hall. The newspaper also provides ratings for the films it advertises in its showtimes page; Scimitarre is rated "mediocre" - the meaning is the same in English as in Italian.

Credit to Elizabeth Graziani on fb

IMDb also lists a third Italian run of the film in 1965, which is more difficult to find specific information about. Turning to Google Books, however, did confirm that the film was being screened in the country in 1965. A book published in that year called Di riffe o di raffe (objectively a really good title, no matter what language you speak) by Italian screenwriter Giuseppe Marotta mentions the film briefly: "Damn it. A storm in a teacup; add to that the fact that I have to see a film for you, but the theaters are showing The Scimitars of the Mongols and The Titans Are Coming. What do I do, slit my throat or blow my brains out?"

I don't think Marotta cared for it.

It's pretty easy to conclude that this movie was marketed in Italy as a kind of Hercules-adjacent action picture of the type that were produced domestically on the cheap. Since the film evidently wasn't cut, though, all audiences would have had to do was actually go and see the movie to find out that the sword-and-sandals adventure with shirtless brawny men and damsels in distress vs. looming barbarian hordes they were promised was really just an average Japanese historical drama with an unusual amount of horses. This isn't specific to Italy; a lot of countries (including the U.S.) have historically not seemed to care much about marketing imported Japanese fantasy and historical films as anything other than exactly the same type of schlock they themselves were putting out.

You can spell out "Toshiro Mifune" but Toshio Sugie just gets called "T. Sugie"? Come on, there's only one letter of difference between "Toshiro" and "Toshio".

Actually, I'm going to stay on the topic of marketing for a bit longer, because it seems like the Mongolian connection went further than just an eye-catching title. I've turned up a synopsis for the film which I'm thinking might actually date back to its initial release - I have no way of proving that, but I think it might be a situation like how eiga.com and Kinenote will often use synopses that are from the first run of a film, even if said film is 70+ years old. Anyway, translated, it reads thusly:

"There is the hand of the great Akira Kurosawa, author of the script, in this compelling and well-shot war fresco. Protagonist Toshiro Mufune[sic], a Mongolian prince who turns into a sort of Robin Hood of the steppes, making raids to steal from the rich and redistribute the loot among the most humble populations. Released in Europe under the title 'Saga of the Vagabonds'."

So they really doubled down on that, huh? (Note, also, that this synopsis is different from what you'll find on the back of the DVD box; this is part of why I believe it may be original to the initial release.)

The film is still going by its Scimitarre title within Italy today but, as indicated by that Letterboxd review, it seems like people these days find it more baffling than anything else, given the total absence of either Mongolians or curved swords in the film. However, the Italian dub of the film is definitely still extant and available on DVD, although it seems to be out of stock in most places I’ve looked. And...

...yeah, that is absolutely, 100% a screenshot from Ghidorah, the Three-Headed Monster on the back cover.

We're talking strictly about the Italian release here, but in the interest of completeness I'll mention that Saga of the Vagabonds did get exported to quite a few different overseas markets as well. In Spanish it was retitled Los Diablos Rojos, which is actually a more accurate translation of the roving band of thieves' moniker than what the English subtitles provide. This Spanish release is relevant to the Italian release, because the Italian DVD cover is just the Spanish poster with some extra art added and the Italian title slapped on.

The film also got a Cuban release under a direct Spanish translation of the English title and, my dear friends, I am delighted to inform you that the Cuban poster slaps.

It slaps so much, I actually decided to print it out and put it in a frame on my wall.

As a last, ephemeral footnote, I've also found a listing in a TV guide for the film from 1981, so it was shown on television in Italy at some point as well. I'm not sure if it was cut for television broadcast.

So, no real point to this post, I just found something that I thought was a true oddity and decided to explore it a little further. I'm very curious about that Italian dub - I'd really like to know if there's any dialogue where the characters refer to themselves or each other as Mongolians or if that was purely a marketing decision. If you have a copy of the dub or happen to have seen it, I'd appreciate it a lot if you dropped me a line.

この恋！五千万円 / Kono koi! gosanmanen / This Love Costs ¥5,000

Release date: January 3rd, 1954

Director: Kozo Saeki

Studio: Toho

Cast: Junzaburo Ban, Tony Tani, Aiko Mimasu, Akemi Negishi, Shinobu Asaji, Kingoro Yanagiya, Toshiko Tsubouchi, Akihiko Hirata, Norihei Miki et al

Availability: One confirmed television broadcast; no known theater screenings. No home media release.

____

It's Valentine's Day where I am in the U.S.! Let's talk about ❤️ love ❤️

...or, at least, a movie with "love" in the title.

When I look really quickly at this poster I sometimes think Tony Tani looks like Kenji Sahara here.

This movie has always stood out to me from the rest of Hirata's filmography because for some reason it is almost impossible to verify that he was in it. If you look at his Japanese Wikipedia page, it's right there with everything else, simple as. But Wikipedia is the only website that lists him as part of the cast. Kinenote? Nope. Allcinema? Nope. Filmarks? Nope. The almighty Miyata Gyaos Geocities site? Nope. Eiga.com? Nope. Hell, the actual posters from the film? Nope!

Eagle-eyed viewers may be able to see, however, that the poster does list an Onoda: Isamu Onoda, an extremely prolific lyricist/screenwriter/playwright who also acted a little. Because of his prevalence in the film industry, we have talked about his work a few times on here, but despite his surname he is apparently entirely unrelated to our man. By "acted a little" I do mean "a little": as an actor, he has just three credits to his name, including this film.

I think the reason for Hirata's role getting omitted so frequently is pretty simple: it was probably vanishingly small. His Wikipedia page lists his character's name as simply "Policeman" (keiji). Yes, I know "Keiji" is also a given name, but the kanji used to spell this character's name cannot be used to spell the name "Keiji". So, basically, I would imagine that he was "Cop #2" in the background of a random scene, or something like that.

Still from No Response from Car 33 for illustrative purposes.

To run quickly through some people who were in the movie before we move on: the film was directed by Kozo Saeki, who began his career in the silent era; written by Toshio Yasumi, who got his start at PCL as a screenwriter at around the same time; and adapted from an audio drama by the extremely prolific Kazuo Kikuta. The cast includes many people who we've seen frequently here, including comedians Tony Tani, Kingoro Yanagiya, and Norihei Miki. If I may get my amateur film scholar hat on, this particular period of Japanese cinema has always fascinated me because it feels like such a turning point for the industry as a whole: directors and writers who began their careers in the silent era and watched the birth of cinema itself were now working with a new generation of actors who had never grown up without it. It felt like film and older mediums such as stage plays and rakugo could coexist equally side-by-side, at least for a little while.

He's not even in the realm of having his name on posters for this one.

While we can't find Hirata on the film's Eirin (Japan's MPAA, basically) page, we can find out who had a vested interest in its production. The film was sponsored by Mie Prefectural Tourism Federation, Ise Shima National Park Association, Watarukano Tourism Association, Mie Kotsu Co., Ltd., and Kinki Nippon Railway.

I have confirmed one television broadcast of the film, which is always, always what we want to hear, because (modern) television broadcasts mean that someone, somewhere has digitized the film, and if someone has digitized it, then we don't need to worry about any physical prints rotting away in a warehouse somewhere. As per a defunct message board related to the kabuki bookstore Kobikido Shoten, the film was broadcast sometime in October 2000; unfortunately, I'm not sure on what station. The poster does not include their opinion on this film in specific, but lists it as part of what they call a solid lineup.

Speaking of screenings and broadcasts, I had a hunch that this was probably a "B" picture on a double bill due to its obscurity, and it turns out I was right: the film screened alongside Jirocho Sangokushi pt. 7, directed by Masahiro Makino.

Some promo stills exist:

Tony Tani and Akemi Negishi (hey, that's Noguchi's girl).

So, that's basically it. We can say that a digitized version of the movie may exist somewhere (if television network reorganizations over the years haven't led to it being lost at some point), but that's essentially it. I cannot find record of a single theater screening outside of its original run. I'm really curious about just how small Hirata's role in the film was, but unfortunately it seems like my chances of finding out are slim to none.