Kurosawa seems to be an interestingly amazing director and writer. I picked up on some of the similarities between “The Glass Key” and “Yojimbo,” but not all of the instances we talked about today. But I can see the parallels drawn between the two more clearly now. I am also a huge Star Wars fan and it is so cool that Lucas implanted an identical scene to where Sanjuro gets into his first fight, into “A New Hope.” Immediately after the comment was made, I could see it playing through my head. Oh, you gotta love movies.
One of the most indistinguishable ideas playing through each of the films is that Sanjuro and Ed/Ned are both wanderers. They really do not have any sort of place they can call home, so they begin to drift; which causes trouble in some instances. In the film “The Glass Key,” Ed does not really come off as much of a wanderer as he does in the book. Of course Ed is a man without a home, but in the movie he seems closer to Paul than he does in the novel. Paul Madvig himself, is essentially a home for Ed Beaumont. I can also see to a certain degree that Sanjuro has a temporary home within the town, that being with Gonji, the tavern keeper. This is the guy who took Sanjuro in after he had been brutally beaten, and also allowed his new found friend to constantly hang out in his establishment. This movie reminded me a lot of the movie “Last Man Standing,” which is more of an American version of “Yojimbo.”
One thing that I can say about my new knowledge of the world of Kurosawa, is that I can’t wait to see “Seven Samurai.”