Classic Movies: Stray Dog (1949)

By Paco McCullough

It's summer in post-war Japan. Young cop Murakami (Toshiro Mifune) has his pocket-picked, with the criminal stealing Murakami's gun. Murakami is determined to find the gun before it is used in a crime, and begins prowling Japan's underworld. One of the first Japanese film noir's I've ever seen, Stray Dog owes a debt to the hardboiled stories coming out of Hollywood at the same time, yet retains a strictly Japanese feel. It certainly feels like a forerunner to the Japanese gangster cinema of the 60s and 70s.

Classic Movies: The Quiet Duel (1949)

By Jason Haskins

I have seen many of Kurosawa's films from Madadayo (his swan song) to Red Beard and my personal favorite, Rashomon, but I was very unfamiliar with his earlier efforts from the beginning of his career-from the forties to the early fifties--so I took it upon myself to watch one of his films I've been dying to see: The Quiet Duel (1949).