What Did The Lady Forget?

Yasujiro Ozu's 1937 comedy What Did The Lady Forget? seems to have been inspired the Hollywood screwball comedies of the 30s. Also, much of the plot would be cannibalized for his 1952 film Green Tea Over Rice. It stars most of the members of his marvelous repertory group are here: Choko Iida and Takeshi Sakamoto are reunited after An Inn in Tokyo(1935) as husband and wife; another Innalum and Ozu's go-to child actor, Tomio Aoki, appears as the schoolmate of Masao Hayama, another Ozu favorite. Sumiko Kurishima, the first Japanese female movie star in her only film with Ozu, stars as the frigid Tokiko, who reluctantly hosts her visiting niece, Setsuko  (Michiko Kuwano). It is the story of a henpecked husband Komiya who teaches a lesson to his overbearing wife Tokiko with the aid of his progressive and fast-living niece, Setsuko (Michiko Kuwano) from Osaka. There is a rare scene of melodrama in the film in scene where Komiya shows his anger of Tokiko's insolence by slapping her and then later apologizing-even though according to Setsuko she doesn't deserve the apology-it is a strategy Komiya calls a reversal and suggests that this often how wives are kept in line. It is a short film for Ozu clocking at 71 minutes, and one of his better pre-war comedies.