''Stopover Tokyo'' is a 1957 American
film noir crime film directed by
Richard L. Breen
Richard L. Breen (June 26, 1918 β February 1, 1967) was a Hollywood screenwriter and director.
Biography
Breen was born in Chicago of Irish Catholic extraction. He began as a freelance radio writer. After a stint in the U.S. Navy during World ...
and starring
Robert Wagner
Robert John Wagner Jr. (born February 10, 1930) is an American actor of stage, screen, and television. He is known for starring in the television shows '' It Takes a Thief'' (1968β1970), ''Switch'' (1975β1978), and '' Hart to Hart'' (1979β ...
,
Joan Collins
Dame Joan Henrietta Collins (born 23 May 1933) is an English actress, author and columnist. Collins is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a People's Choice Award, two Soap Opera Digest Awards and a Primeti ...
,
Edmond O'Brien
Eamon Joseph O'Brien (September 10, 1915 β May 9, 1985) was an American actor and film director. His career spanned almost 40 years, and he won one Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
O'Brien w ...
and
Ken Scott
Ken Scott (born 20 April 1947) is a British record producer and engineer known for being one of the five main engineers for the Beatles, as well as engineering Elton John, Pink Floyd, Procol Harum, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Duran Duran, the Jeff B ...
. Filmed in Japan in
CinemaScope, the film is set in Tokyo and follows a US
counterintelligence
Counterintelligence is an activity aimed at protecting an agency's intelligence program from an opposition's intelligence service. It includes gathering information and conducting activities to prevent espionage, sabotage, assassinations or ...
agent working to foil a communist assassination plot.
The film is based very loosely on the final
Mr. Moto
Mr. Moto is a fictional Japanese secret agent created by the American author John P. Marquand. He appeared in six novels by Marquand published between 1935 and 1957. Marquand initially created the character for the ''Saturday Evening Post'', whi ...
novel by
John P. Marquand
John Phillips Marquand (November 10, 1893 β July 16, 1960) was an American writer. Originally best known for his Mr. Moto spy stories, he achieved popular success and critical respect for his satirical novels, winning a Pulitzer Prize for '' ...
. The biggest change is that Mr. Moto is entirely cut from the film.
It was the sole feature film directed by Breen, an
Academy Award
The Academy Awards, better known as the Oscars, are awards for artistic and technical merit for the American and international film industry. The awards are regarded by many as the most prestigious, significant awards in the entertainment ind ...
-winning screenwriter.
Plot
US Intelligence Agent Mark Fannon (
Robert Wagner
Robert John Wagner Jr. (born February 10, 1930) is an American actor of stage, screen, and television. He is known for starring in the television shows '' It Takes a Thief'' (1968β1970), ''Switch'' (1975β1978), and '' Hart to Hart'' (1979β ...
) is sent to Tokyo on a routine courier mission but soon uncovers communist George Underwood's (
Edmond O'Brien
Eamon Joseph O'Brien (September 10, 1915 β May 9, 1985) was an American actor and film director. His career spanned almost 40 years, and he won one Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
O'Brien w ...
) plot to assassinate the American High Commissioner (
Larry Keating
Lawrence Keating (June 13, 1899 β August 26, 1963) was an American actor best known for his roles as Harry Morton on ''The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show'', which he played from 1953 to 1958, and next-door neighbor Roger Addison on '' Mist ...
).
While there he meets Welsh receptionist (
Joan Collins
Dame Joan Henrietta Collins (born 23 May 1933) is an English actress, author and columnist. Collins is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a People's Choice Award, two Soap Opera Digest Awards and a Primeti ...
), in whom fellow agent Tony Barrett (
Ken Scott
Ken Scott (born 20 April 1947) is a British record producer and engineer known for being one of the five main engineers for the Beatles, as well as engineering Elton John, Pink Floyd, Procol Harum, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Duran Duran, the Jeff B ...
) has a romantic interest. This causes animosity between the two.
An attempt is made on Mark's life in a steam room and his local contact, Nobika, is assassinated. Lt. Afumi of the Tokyo police department escorts Tina and Mark to the scene of Nobika's death and shows them a note he found in Nobika's pocket.
Mark and Tina are detained by police. Mark phones Tony in Formosa to inquire about the name of the village in which Nobika lived. Mark goes there and tries to find classified information concealed in magazines. He meets Nobika's daughter, Koko.
Cast
*
Robert Wagner
Robert John Wagner Jr. (born February 10, 1930) is an American actor of stage, screen, and television. He is known for starring in the television shows '' It Takes a Thief'' (1968β1970), ''Switch'' (1975β1978), and '' Hart to Hart'' (1979β ...
as Mark Fannon
*
Joan Collins
Dame Joan Henrietta Collins (born 23 May 1933) is an English actress, author and columnist. Collins is the recipient of several accolades, including a Golden Globe Award, a People's Choice Award, two Soap Opera Digest Awards and a Primeti ...
as Tina Llewellyn
*
Edmond O'Brien
Eamon Joseph O'Brien (September 10, 1915 β May 9, 1985) was an American actor and film director. His career spanned almost 40 years, and he won one Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
O'Brien w ...
as George Underwood
*
Ken Scott
Ken Scott (born 20 April 1947) is a British record producer and engineer known for being one of the five main engineers for the Beatles, as well as engineering Elton John, Pink Floyd, Procol Harum, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Duran Duran, the Jeff B ...
as Tony Barrett
*
Larry Keating
Lawrence Keating (June 13, 1899 β August 26, 1963) was an American actor best known for his roles as Harry Morton on ''The George Burns and Gracie Allen Show'', which he played from 1953 to 1958, and next-door neighbor Roger Addison on '' Mist ...
as High Commissioner
*
Sarah Shelby as High Commissioner's wife
*
Reiko Oyama as Koko
Original novel
By 1956, it had been nearly fifteen years since Marquand had written a Moto novel. He received an offer to write one from Stuart Rose, the editor of ''
The Saturday Evening Post
''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely ...
'', who offered Marquand $5,000 to travel to Japan and an advance of $75,000.
[''The Complete Mr. Moto Film Phile: A Casebook''](_blank)
by Howard M. Berlin Wildside Press, 2005 p 27-28, accessed 9 March 2015
He decided to write a new one because "I wanted to see whether or not I was still able to write a mystery, one of the most interesting forms of literary craftsmanship, if not art, that exists."
Marquand visited Japan for a month and wrote up the story towards the end of 1956. Mr Moto was not the actual hero of the novel β that role went to secret agent John Rhyce, who is sent to Tokyo to combat a communist plot along with fellow agent Ruth Bogart.
The novel was serialised in the ''Post'' from 24 November 1956 to 12 January 1957 under the title "Rendezvous in Tokyo". The magazine's editors did not like the story's unhappy ending but Marquand insisted upon it. The novel itself was published in early 1957.
It was a best seller and was, on the whole, well received, with a critic at ''The New York Times'' calling it "superlative".
The novel would later be re-issued under the titles ''Right You Are, Mr Moto'' and ''The Last Case of Mr Moto''.
Production
20th Century Fox
20th Century Studios, Inc. (previously known as 20th Century Fox) is an American film production company headquartered at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City area of Los Angeles. As of 2019, it serves as a film production arm of Walt Dis ...
, which made the original Moto movies starring
Peter Lorre
Peter Lorre (; born LΓ‘szlΓ³ LΓΆwenstein, ; June 26, 1904 β March 23, 1964) was a Hungarian and American actor, first in Europe and later in the United States. He began his stage career in Vienna, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, before movin ...
, bought the film rights to the story in March 1956, prior to publication.
Sam Engel
Samuel G. Engel (December 29, 1904 – April 7, 1984) was a screenwriter and film producer from the 1930s until the 1960s. He wrote and produced such films as '' My Darling Clementine'' (1946), '' Sitting Pretty'' (1948), ''The Frogmen'' ( ...
was originally going to produce and
William Holden
William Holden (born William Franklin Beedle Jr.; April 17, 1918 β November 12, 1981) was an American actor, and one of the biggest box-office draws of the 1950s. Holden won the Academy Award for Best Actor for the film ''Stalag 17'' (1953) ...
and
Jennifer Jones
Jennifer Jones (born Phylis Lee Isley; March 2, 1919 β December 17, 2009), also known as Jennifer Jones Simon, was an American actress and mental health advocate. Over the course of her career that spanned over five decades, she was nominated ...
were mentioned as possible stars.
The movie ended up being the first of a proposed series of movies from writers
Richard L. Breen
Richard L. Breen (June 26, 1918 β February 1, 1967) was a Hollywood screenwriter and director.
Biography
Breen was born in Chicago of Irish Catholic extraction. He began as a freelance radio writer. After a stint in the U.S. Navy during World ...
and Walter Reisch; Breen was to make his directorial debut and Reisch would produce.
Robert Stack
Robert Stack (born Charles Langford Modini Stack; January 13, 1919 β May 14, 2003) was an American actor. Known for his deep voice and commanding presence, he appeared in over forty feature films. He starred in the highly successful ABC tele ...
was meant to play the lead but refused the role because he did not want to go to Japan. Stack was suspended by the studio and the role given to
Robert Wagner
Robert John Wagner Jr. (born February 10, 1930) is an American actor of stage, screen, and television. He is known for starring in the television shows '' It Takes a Thief'' (1968β1970), ''Switch'' (1975β1978), and '' Hart to Hart'' (1979β ...
.
Cinematographer
Charles G. Clarke
Charles G. Clarke ASC (March 10, 1899 – July 1, 1983) was an American cinematographer who worked in Hollywood for over 40 years and was treasurer and president (twice: 1948β50 and 1951β53) of the American Society of Cinematographers. ...
made expansive use of location shooting in
Kyoto
Kyoto (; Japanese language, Japanese: , ''KyΕto'' ), officially , is the capital city of Kyoto Prefecture in Japan. Located in the Kansai region on the island of Honshu, Kyoto forms a part of the Keihanshin, Keihanshin metropolitan area along wi ...
, a sacred Shinto city which was only lightly bombed in World War II and taken off the nuclear bombing target list (from its original top listing) due to the efforts of Henry Stimson, who argued for the preservation of its cultural assets.
Actor Ken Scott
Ken Scott (born 20 April 1947) is a British record producer and engineer known for being one of the five main engineers for the Beatles, as well as engineering Elton John, Pink Floyd, Procol Harum, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Duran Duran, the Jeff B ...
was injured in a scene when Edmond O'Brien
Eamon Joseph O'Brien (September 10, 1915 β May 9, 1985) was an American actor and film director. His career spanned almost 40 years, and he won one Academy Award, two Golden Globe Awards, and two stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
O'Brien w ...
shot a prop gun at him and a blank cartridge hit his face. There was no serious damage.
Fox was so impressed with ten-year-old star Reiko Oyama, the studio signed her to a long-term contract.
Reception
Collins and Wagner promoted the film with a nationwide publicity tour. However, it was not particularly successful at the box office.
The ''Chicago Tribune
The ''Chicago Tribune'' is a daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, United States, owned by Tribune Publishing. Founded in 1847, and formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" (a slogan for which WGN radio and television a ...
'' review praised the location photography but said the film "starts suspensefully, but ends limply." The ''Los Angeles Times
The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the U ...
'' liked the scenery which it thought "helps overcome somewhat routine plot development" but felt Wagner "goes about his spying work energetically although it is thought that this type of character isn't exactly his cup of tea."
Breen and Resich were later reported as working on another film for Wagner, ''The Far Alert'', about NATO naval flyers. However this film was never made.
A year after the movie came out Marquand told ''The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...
'' that:
Mr Moto was my literary disgrace. I wrote about him to get shoes for the baby. I don't say I didn't have a pleasant time writing about him and he returned in ''Stopover Tokyo'' but I don't think I'll ever meet him again. Moto was an entirely different piece of writing from a so-called serious novel. He really became famous when they took him up in the movies. In book form he has never really sold well β never more than 5,000 to 6,000 copies. I can't say why people remember him, except they must remember the serials and pictures.
In 1959, Wagner disparaged the film:
When I started at Fox in 1950 they were making sixty five pictures a year. Now they're lucky if they make thirty. There was a chance to get some training in B pictures. Then TV struck. Everything went big and they started sticking me into Cinemascope spectacles. One day, smiling Joe Juvenile with no talent was doing a role intended for John Wayne. That was in a dog called ''Stopover Tokyo''. I've really had to work to keep up.
References
* Solomon, Aubrey. ''Twentieth Century Fox: A Corporate and Financial History (The Scarecrow Filmmakers Series)''. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press, 1989. .
External links
*
*
*
Complete novel of ''Stopover Tokyo''
at Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, as well as to "encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks."
It was founded in 1971 by American writer Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital libr ...
{{DEFAULTSORT:Stopover Tokyo
1957 films
1957 crime films
20th Century Fox films
Cold War spy films
Films set in Tokyo
Japan in non-Japanese culture
Films scored by Paul Sawtell
American crime films
CinemaScope films
1950s English-language films
1950s American films