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Minoru Murata, Shochiku, 1921, produced with Kaoru Osanai. Two plots in the snow: a failed violinist walks home with wife and child and is turned away by his father; two ex-convicts beg at a villa on Christmas Eve. The sources are Gorky's The Lower Depths and Wilhelm Schmidtbonn. Eye Filmmuseum calls it the oldest Shochiku feature known to survive. Osanai had worked in Reinhardt's theatre, and the parallel cutting is Griffith grammar in a Japanese winter.
In one programme
Two stories in the snow, cut against each other the way Griffith taught, and a father who will not open the door. Osanai had worked in Reinhardt's theatre, and it shows in the staging. The oldest Shochiku feature that survives. Watch the threshold scenes: who bows, who is let in.
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